Artificial Intelligence
Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology and MIT Researchers Develop a Natural and Comfortable “Seamless-walk” Virtual Reality Locomotion System
Limited physical spaces in modern, urban life pose locomotion challenges. Virtual reality (VR) translates such constrained real spaces to larger, virtual spaces using efficient locomotion systems. However, current VR locomotion systems are uncomfortable and raise privacy concerns. To tackle this, researchers from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea and MIT CSAIL have now developed “Seamless-walk,” a foot-based VR locomotion system that offers a natural and comfortable experience for applications in VR gaming and healthcare.
Urban real-world environments have limited physical space for foot-based locomotion and present challenges to natural VR locomotion (since virtual environments are much larger than the corresponding real-world environment), a fact that has been noted in past studies (Mandal 2013; Pai and Kunze 2017). To compensate for this challenge, efficient virtual reality (VR)-based locomotion techniques have been proposed to enable natural and immersive locomotion experiences akin to walking in large, virtual environments. However, the VR locomotion systems often require attaching an equipment to the body or video-recording the user’s body pose. This leads to discomfort caused by equipment size and discontinuous adjustment as well as privacy concerns related to capturing the entire body without blind spots. Against this backdrop, researchers from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Korea in collaboration with researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL), USA developed a novel foot-based VR locomotion system, called “Seamless-walk,” that offers a more natural and comfortable locomotion experience without requiring the use of any walking equipment or a video of the user’s body pose during walking or interaction with objects using their hands.
In their recent article published online on 17 January 2023 in the journal Virtual Reality, the researchers, led by Dr. Kyung-Joong Kim, Associate Professor at GIST, have detailed the development of the VR locomotion system. “When we started collaborating with MIT, they introduced an interesting new sensor called the ‘intelligent carpet.’ In our view, it was a great opportunity as well as a challenge for us since it had not been developed for any specific application. Therefore, we wanted to make something practical and interesting with this sensor and our AI technology,” explains Dr. Kim. “Accordingly, we decided to develop a VR game controller with the ‘intelligent carpet’ sensor that would be useful in VR gaming.”
“Seamless-walk” has both immediate and long-term potential applications. “In the long run, we believe that our technology could be used in healthcare. ‘Seamless-walk’ is not only a VR gamepad but also a gait recognition and analysis method,” says Dr. Kim.
Seamless-walk works in the following manner: the intelligent carpet captures high-resolution foot pressure imprints in real time as the user moves around by measuring the applied pressure through resistance changes. The footprint information is then fed into a machine learning model that extracts the strong pressure points using a technique called “K-means clustering.” In this method, the pressure points are divided into two clusters, corresponding to the user’s left and right feet. From these clusters, the user’s body direction and foot intervals are then extracted to estimate the angle and movement speed.
Moreover, Seamless-walk has a modular structure that enables a scalable and inexpensive installation of a touch sensing platform. The team conducted tests on 80 individuals using Seamless-walk in a 3D virtual world exploration game, demonstrating that the novel technology of the system guarantees an immersive, natural, and comfortable experience. At the same time, it does not compromise the overall VR experience, outperforming existing VR locomotion methods.
“In the future, we plan to add more detailed gait analysis functions to the current system. This would enhance our sensor and gait analysis system to provide fall detection and health monitoring in a comfortable manner without any privacy issues,” highlights Dr. Kim. “This method could also be used at the gym for monitoring the gait of users on the treadmill or checking their balance during weight training.”
Taken together, this novel development has the potential to advance gait analysis in VR gaming and healthcare.
Ever wondered what the most popular videogame is among those who partake in what has now become the widely known genre of virtual photography? A recent study by gaming storage experts at Crucial has revealed not only the most popular and picturesque games but the most demanding games to run with hefty system requirements and the latest equipment needed to play them smoothly. Virtual Photography should be on your radar, gaining immense popularity and traction in the industry. AI-powered image generators, NFTs, digital images, and screenshot art are slowly becoming the new future of photography.
These are the top 10 most beautiful games in 2023
Red Dead Redemption tops the list, with a total of 2,283,299 Instagram posts and 501,531 featuring virtual in-game photography, accounting for 21.97% of the total posts.
- Red Dead Redemption 2: 2,283,299 Instagram posts, 501,531 photography posts (21.97%)
- Ghost of Tsushima: 413,272 Instagram posts, 75,614 photography posts (18.30%)
- No Man’s Sky: 212,555 Instagram posts, 35,274 photography posts (16.60%)
- Horizon Forbidden West: 249,859 Instagram posts, 32,380 photography posts (12.96%)
- Cyberpunk 2077: 1,233,756 Instagram posts, 107,102 photography posts (8.68%)
- Forza Horizon 5: 681,294 Instagram posts, 47,092 photography posts (6.91%)
- The Last of Us: 1,626,951 Instagram posts, 74,530 photography posts (4.58%)
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: 352,827 Instagram posts, 12,290 posts photography (3.48%)
- Gran Turismo 7: 151,068 Instagram posts, 5,175 photography posts (3.43%)
- Spider-Man: 835,311 Instagram posts, 28,273 photography posts (3.38%)
The full report from Crucial highlights what makes each of these games so great, and the additional research the company has gathered determines which games require the most hefty setups by looking at the required CPU, recommended RAM and GPU, and suggested storage size needed for each title.
Artificial Intelligence
Discord announces child safety changes to curb AI-generated child sex abuse material – Legal comments from Danielle Vincent from Hugh James Solicitors
The head of trust and safety at gaming chat app Discord has announced this week that it is changing its child safety policies. This announcement has come following an NBC News investigation into child safety on the platform, following concerns around teen dating and artificially generated child sex abuse material finding its way into these platforms.
This move by Discord highlights the importance of popular chat apps taking proactive steps to address a serious and pervasive issue where sexually themed images are frequently created on these servers. This year, AI-generated child sex images have escalated across the internet and it is vital that these platforms work on banning AI depictions of child sexual abuse and even the sexualisation of children in text chats.
Danielle Vincent, lawyer in the sex abuse team at Hugh James Solicitors, says:
“It has been well established that sexual abuse predators target children or vulnerable people in the virtual world, whether that be social media sites or gaming forums.
The growth in children having access to technology from younger ages, often unsupervised, exposes a huge risk unbeknown to guardians. Children often have their own smart phones and laptops in their bedrooms, spending hours on seemingly innocent sites.
We saw a large increase in online usage during the covid lockdown, which also increased risks of grooming of minors. Grooming often takes places over extended periods of time, and such forums allow extensive access to children such under the guise of something rather innocent.
Artificial intelligence has itself become a massive worry recently with regard to sexual abuse; we have seen deep fakes become more and more realistic and more so using apps to create and spread child sexual abuse images.
The announcement by Discord’s head of trust and safety is welcome – any policies that increase safety of children or vulnerable online is a big step forward and can only be a positive. That being said, there still is a long way to go, and many other platforms need to continue to evaluate their safeguarding policies. Policies will need to be under continuous review as technology is ever evolving.
Those who use such sites to groom children could face criminal conviction, being placed on the sex offenders register and potential civil claim action against them.
Sites which fail to protect often face loss of sponsorship and funding as was seen with Pornhub following an investigation that much of the material online included children’s images and adults where consent had not been obtained.”
Artificial Intelligence
The Game Company partners with Shiller, a Live Video Platform Co-Founded by Snoop Dogg
-
Hashgraph1 week agoHashgraph Application Studio Marks New Era in dApps Development with Community Growth and AI Integration
-
'Kabuni2 weeks agoKabuni announces Web3 learning platform ‘Kabuni Wizard’ and Learn-To-Earn Cryptocurrency ‘Kabuni Coin’
-
Market3 days ago3D Animation Market to Reach $72.8 Billion by 2032 at 14.2% CAGR: Allied Market Research
-
Gaming and Entertainment Europe3 days agoHonkai Impact 3rd to Launch v7.1 [Starbound Painter] on DEC 7
-
Latest news3 days ago
Bringing Immersive Real-Life Adventure to the Virtual Realm: Hunting Clash and Beretta Forge Unprecedented Partnership
-
Global22 hours ago
Global Mobile Wallet market to reach a valuation of US$ 138.5 billion by 2034, expanding at a 27.8% CAGR | Future Market Insights, Inc.
