China VR research on steady path to reality
雖然仍處於起步階段，及正值私營業界對政府支持處於不確定性中，該國一注孤擲在沉浸式技術
Still in its infancy, and amid private-sector uncertainties about government support, the country is all-in on immersive technologies
Chinese Internet giant Tencent is reportedly “seriously considering” bringing virtual reality (VR) to its “everything app” WeChat, though it has not provided any further details.
The announcement, made by Tencent founder Ma Huateng (aka Pony Ma) on the first day of the 2018 Wuzhen International Internet Conference on Wednesday, is significant because of the commanding presence of WeChat on the Chinese Internet. According to the website Statista, Tencent’s WeChat had more than a billion monthly active users in the second quarter of 2018.
Tencent first ventured into the world of VR with the release of an Android-based video-gaming console, the MiniStation, in late 2015. The device allows users to connect to computer monitors and TV screens through an HDMI cable and play games wirelessly via their Android phones.
The company was following the lead of the US tech firm Oculus VR’s Rift headset, which pioneered and popularized immersive gaming a year earlier.
But there is far more to VR than the world of Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, in which VR has supplanted the smartphone. Research in China, as is the case in Japan, the United States and elsewhere, is focused on augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR).
To clarify, AR adds digital elements, usually to a smartphone live-view camera, which is used in the global phenomenon Pokemon Go. VR shuts out the real world, taking users into a fully immersive “other world,” while MR combines the two. The Franklin Institute cites Microsoft’s HoloLens – a head-mounted lens device that Microsoft claims can do almost anything – as one of the best examples of MR.
This amounts to a high-stakes game, and 2016 was a hype-busting year that saw 90% of China’s AR/VR startups play the wrong cards, folding or going bust, according to media reports. But China appears to be doubling down.
VR theme parks
http://www.atimes.com/article/china-vr-research-on-steady-path-to-reality/
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