This year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was bigger and more virtual than ever. In recent years, the event was confined to the Los Angeles Convention Center and the sidewalks outside. This year it expanded to the street between Staples Center (home of the LA Lakers) and beyond into the popular eating and entertainment district, LA Live. The expansion made elements of the show available to not only attendees, but also casual passersby. And this year, there were dancing Doritos chips.
This year E3, The Electronic Entertainment Expo, overflowed the Los Angeles Convention Center, spilled onto Chick Hearn Drive and into Los Angeles’ favorite downtown meeting place, LA Live. I had accepted an invitation from Thrustmaster to see their new driving game controllers. Somehow, I found booth 2705.
The question that dominated many of the VR/AR seminars at SXSW was “How do you tell a story using this new technology?” “New” because the hardware has become affordable for consumers, and game engines used to create VR have become more powerful. The market is attracting a range of companies, from startups to ancient tech giants like IBM and Microsoft.
Can news reporters use virtual reality? This is the question that participants at “Sucked Into the Story: Virtual Reality and News” tried to answer at SXSW. I had the feeling that somewhere around 1950, a similar group of people sat around discussing what the impact of “this television thing” would be on radio news. We may be at a similar juncture.
More sophisticated augmented reality applications can scan your environment, for example, a living room, and place virtual objects on walls and flat surfaces. The user can interact with these virtual objects to play games, or solve puzzles or mysteries.
(Originally published on Blogcritics.org) Day One of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show, April 13, began with a pep rally in the Westgate Hotel next to the Las Vegas Convention Center. The conclave of television, radio, internet and supporting industries attracted 100,000 people to Vegas. But the attendees did have a few things to…