Added: 26.06.2015 23:51 | 10 views | 0 comments

Step 1: Purchase (Or Make) a Version of Google Cardboard

Valve, Sony and Oculus have been making big waves with their high-end VR kits, but you can take virtual reality for a test run in your home. All you need is an Android or iPhone. Simply purchase a version of Google Cardboard (or make your own from a free template). We ordered the DODOcase VR Pop-Up Viewer for $24.95. (Photo by: Dodocase)

Step 2: Assemble the Device

Putting together the makeshift VR kit was ridiculously simple, so don't be intimidated. You simply lock a few cardboard tabs in place, and you're up and running in under 10 minutes. If you've operated a children's pop-up book or closed a box of cereal before, then you can certainly handle this.

Step 3: Download Some Apps and Insert Your Phone

You'd be surprised how many free VR apps are currently available for Android and iPhone users. Just search in an app store for terms like "VR," "Google Cardboard," or "Dive VR," and a host of developers experimenting with virtual reality games will pop up. Once you've got an app loaded, insert your phone into the case, and you're ready to dive in.

Step 4: Put on Some Headphones and Enjoy

You'll want to find a large, quiet space to try this out. If you hook up a decent set of headphones, the sense of complete immersion is actually kind of impressive. Next up: Which particular apps show off your DIY VR kit the best? (Photo by: Jessica Schilling Photography)

VR iPhone App: Stereopsis

One of the coolest projects we discovered is Stereopsis, a gallery of 3D, retro-surrealist art reminiscent of a Guy Maddin film. It's a nice, clean way to test your kit and make sure everything's working correctly. If both images combine into a single three-dimensional picture, you're ready for something tense. (Photo by: Domonkose)

VR iPhone App: Kris Menace Virtual Edition

This one's a psychedelic, geometric music video that resembles Tron or Mizuguchi's Rez. Even though it's completely composed of abstract shapes, it does a great job at creating a seamless, consistent world. (Matrix Technologies)

VR iPhone App: Evolution of Verse (included in VRSE)

Evolution of Verse is a 360-degree video that tracks your head as you examine your surroundings. It's got limited interactivity, but when you find yourself standing on a lake and swarmed by a flock of birds, you'll get a small but incredible tease at what the future of VR has to offer. (Photo by: Vrse)

VR iPhone App: Clouds Over Sidra (included in VRSE)

This is probably the most remarkable activity you can enjoy with your new VR kit. Clouds Over Sidra was created by the UN, and places you alongside a young girl living in a Syrian refugee camp. Whether you're eating dinner with her family or playing soccer in mud puddles with her friends, your empathy inputs will get flooded. It's a moving experience that shows that virtual reality may actually bring mankind closer together. (Photo by: Vrse)

VR iPhone App: Casa Maracana

This isn't really a game so much as an environment explorer. You'll find yourself in a multi-story, modernist hipster pad decked out with art and expensive furnishings. It's simple to navigate, and you can experience everything in about five minutes. But the sense of being transported to a virtual location is striking. (Photo by: Coelho)

VR iPhone App: Dive City Coaster

Riding a roller coaster seems like a requisite VR experience, and Dive City Coaster is the best roller coaster sim currently available for your phone. It's got a collection of cool high-rise buildings to gawk at and a few huge loops to run as well. (Photo by: Durovis)

VR iPhone App: Moorente

There isn't anything particularly stunning about this simple duck hunting app, except for the enormous pile of dead virtual ducks that pile up at your feet. If you grew up on Nintendo's Duck Hunt, however, it offers a nice benchmark of just how far technology has come since you were a kid. (Photo by: Die Etagan GmbH)

VR iPhone App: Cardboard VR Shooter

It may have a bland name, but Cardboard VR Shooter is actually the closest you'll get to a fleshed-out VR game on your phone. It plays like Disneyland's Toy Story Midway Mania, except with a spooky-themed shooting gallery. (Fun Media Factory)

VR iPhone App: Sharks VR

If you're jealous over all the virtual shark games making the rounds in press events, here's your chance to get in on the action at home. You explore an undersea world teeming with predators. It's a little difficult to navigate, but the setting is super cool. (Photo by: Lakento)

VR iPhone App: Froggy VR

This is one of the rare apps that offers a more robust game, rather than just a bare-bones tech demo. You play a frog navigating lily pads across a cartoonish pond. Along the way you'll get to swallow bugs in first person–an activity that probably wasn't on your bucket list, but that definitely shows the imaginative possibilities for VR. (Photo by: FIBRUM)

VR iPhone App: Crazy Swing VR

Strap yourself in for a thrilling fair ride that'll spin you for loops over a busy cityscape. This may be the only time you don't mind feeling dizzy in a VR app. The sense of vertigo and the fear of heights translate well to the virtual world. If you turn your head to the left, you'll notice you have a companion who's along for the ride too. (Photo by: FIBRUM)

Final Verdict? Go For It!

This list contains just a fraction of VR software available for iPhones, but if you've got an Android, it opens up even more possibilities. The one downside: You'll inevitably wade through a lot of nausea-inducing failed projects. That's okay though; as an early VR adopter, you can consider yourself a cartographer, mapping out uncharted territories. Don't expect fully polished games yet, but do expect to get excited by your very own glimpse into the VR revolution. (Photo by: Corbis)

Added: 26.06.2015 23:49 | 53 views | 0 comments

Killer AIs Mean Business

The Terminator franchise is overflowing with fun science fiction ideas. But that nasty, red-tinted cyborg-ocracy may be closer to reality than you think. How close? Hey, glad you asked. (Photo by: Paramount Pictures)

Bipedal Humanoid Robots Walk The Earth

Real-world engineering Company Boston Dynamics currently has the lead in scaring the world with ambulatory robots, including the bipedal machine featured here. The bot can perform natural movements including calisthenics and dynamic walking. The increased prevalence of robot workers even prompted the New York Times to publish an article entitled, "As Robotics Advances, Worries of Killer Robots Rise." (Photo by: Corbis)

Stephen Hawking Warns Humanity

Killer robots seemed like a cinematic fantasy in 1984 when The Terminator premiered, but now prominent scientists, including Stephen Hawking, warn of a grim future for humanity if safeguards against strong AI aren't taken now. He told the BBC recently, "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." Thanks for the pep talk, professor. (Photo by: Corbis)

Human Flesh and Machine Can Become One

When Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator first sliced into his arm to reveal a cybernetic skeleton, he not only proved he was a robot from the future, but also pointed a way forward for human advancement. How close are we to blending synthetic human parts with mechanical enhancements? (Photo by: TriStar Pictures)

A Physics Lab Revolutionizes Prosthetics

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has made radical advancements in prosthetics technology, including a surgery that reassigns nerves that used to control arms and hands. Literally, we now have people who can control prosthetic limbs by simply thinking about actions they want to perform. An innovation that carried a lot of doom and portent in the Terminator films actually has delivered tremendous benefit for real-life people. (Photo by: Corbis)

Scientists Create Lab-Grown Flesh

Dutch scientist Mark Post displays samples of his lab grown flesh at the University of Maastricht. In-vitro meat has become a popular venture as scientists seek solutions to world hunger. Human organs also have been grown independently for transplant patients. A terminator's synthetic fleshy exterior is much closer to reality than ever before. (Photo by: Corbis)

There's No Stopping Shape-Shifting Metal

Watching T-1000 effortlessly glide through a row of steel bars evoked a feeling of sublime horror. A technology that advanced seemed alien when Terminator 2 came out. It isn't quite 2029, when the fictional machines developed the tech, but how far along are we toward building our own liquid metal in the real world? (Photo by: TriStar Pictures)

Gallium Might Hold the Key to Liquid Metal

The chemical element gallium, found in trace amounts in zinc oxide, has shown promising leads. Researchers in Beijing recently created an aluminum-fueled, liquid-metal motor made largely out of gallium. Its inherent properties allow the metal alloy to shift to fit whatever space it occupies, particularly when electricity is applied. (Photo by: Corbis)

Time Travel Requires A Lot of Energy

When a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger traveled back in time, arriving in a blinding flash of light at a truck stop, he sliced off the edges of a few big rigs in the process. The Terminator films seem to understand that the energy created during time travel would constitute a massive force. But is time travel even theoretically possible? (Photo by: TriStar Pictures)

Atomic Clocks Helps Demonstrate Relativity

It's hard to believe, but time travel actually happens every day. Beginning in the mid-50s, scientists have used precise atomic clocks on airplanes and satellites to demonstrate an aspect of Einstein's relativity theory: Two matching clocks can report different times, depending on the impact of velocity or gravity. The "time travel," or dilation that occurs, usually accounts for fractions of seconds, but it proves that time is truly relative. Even your phone's GPS contains equations that factor in the bending of spacetime! (Photo by: Corbis)

Small Comfort: We're Nowhere Near the Genisys of Time Travel

The Terminator films don't just include a few seconds of time travel, though. Their characters travel decades into into the past, a feat that would, scientists believe, require the energy equivalent of the sun's nuclear power. As of now, NASA scientists think we're centuries away from even being able to explore the idea. (Photo by: Paramount Pictures)

Judgment Day is a Real Threat

In the Terminator franchise, the artificial intelligence system Skynet becomes self-aware and instigates nuclear strikes across the world: an event known as Judgment Day. One of the most striking images from the films includes a fiery ruin of Los Angeles. Do these nightmare scenarios hold any weight? (Photo by: TriStar Pictures)

Nuclear Threat Motivates Scientists to Update "Doomsday Clock"

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists runs a real-world doomsday clock: a symbolic countdown to the "midnight" of global catastrophe. Currently, nine countries have a total stockpile of 16,300 nuclear weapons, enough to blow up the world several times over. In early 2015, the nuclear arms race prompted scientists to move the clock to three minutes until midnight. While we don't have a menacing artificial intelligence threatening nuclear war, the danger of computer-controlled systems sparking an apocalypse is considered very real. (Photo by: Corbis)

Bullets Cannot Make Bodies Fly Through The Air

For all the cool ideas the Terminator movies bring to the table, there's one important area they get comedically wrong. When the T-800 walks into a room and sprays a round of bullets, you'll notice bodies flying backwards, as if the victims have been shot out of a cannon. Unless the robots have circumvented physical laws we've known about since Newton, this simply isn't possible. (Photo by: Orion Pictures)

The Conservation of Momentum Ruins The Terminator Movies

If you've ever seen one of these cool Newton's cradle toys, you'll understand the basic principle of momentum conservation: momentum is neither created nor destroyed. It remains constant. Momentum is literally the mass of an object multiplied by its velocity. Bullets are very, very tiny, so even when traveling at a high speed, they'll never get a ton of shoving power. A human (or robot) will get pushed back a fraction of an inch when shot, but causing them to fly through an office is highly unlikely. When it comes to the shootouts in Terminator movies, you'll just have to turn off your brain and enjoy. (Photo by: Corbis)