YouTube now supports Samsung’s Gear VR and lets you watch videos with strangers

YouTube is expanding its virtual reality app to support Samsung’s Gear VR devices. It’s also adding a new feature that lets users watch a virtual reality video together and chat. If you own a Gear VR device, you can now download the app from the Oculus Store.

YouTube has been conspicuously absent from the Oculus Store. This has proved to be a significant selling point for Google’s Daydream VR platform, although it’s also available on PlayStation VR headsets, and Oculus Rift or HTC Vive users can access it through SteamVR. You could access YouTube through the Gear VR’s web browser, but this update still closes a notable gap in the Gear VR’s video ecosystem. YouTube doesn’t mention supporting Oculus’ new mobile device, the standalone Oculus Go.

Users can now also party up with friends or strangers to watch and chat about videos together in a VR space. In the example YouTube gave, users can ride a virtual car together or watch other VR videos. To access the feature, tap the Watch Together icon located under the play controls on your Daydream View or Gear VR headset.

Google first announced the social YouTube VR features last year during its developer conference, but it looks like they’re only fully rolling out now.

YouTube also announced new VR experiences, including backstage views of Hayley Kiyoko and Portugal. The Man as they prepare to put on a performance. You can also watch the daily routines of notable female leaders in a series titled The Female Planet.

Gooii are award-winning virtual reality, UI/UX designers, website designers and we can ensure that your experience engages and inspires users. If you wish to work with our talented teams then please get in touch here.

After being let down by another design agency, Gooii steps in to help The Golf Connect

Unfortunately this situation isn’t uncommon. Promises made by a design company that cannot be delivered when it comes to the technical requirements of a project. Gooii are different because we have both design agency experience but also technical innovation with our in-house software development team. This unique combination has won us awards, clients such as the BBC and Police along with recognition throughout the industry.

Robin came to Gooii Nottingham to ask for help to complete his website for his innovative startup business, The Golf Connect. Originally let down by another agency who delivered an incomplete website. Our Creative Director Nicky Johnson teamed up with Web Development Director Franz Evert. They, with Robin, worked hard to rectify all the issues and to some degree restore Robins faith in our industry. After two months hard work from everyone we now have a site that gives a fantastic user experience.

Client Testimonial

To Nicky, Franz, Craig and all the team at Gooii,

I would like to deliver a sincere thank you for building and producing a website that I am now very proud to call my own.

To say a previous company had put me in a catastrophic pickle with a website that looked even worse than it functioned would be an understatement.

So it’d be fair to say that you’ve taken me on a journey from not knowing where to turn and having zero confidence in any company with this task; to now having a reliable source I can trust and an abundant optimism going forward in my business with the product you have delivered on.

The communication, attention to detail and willingness to not only build but actually assist me in my training and understanding was nothing short of sensational.

A particular shout out has to go to Nicky as she was very much at the frontline of all of my silly questions, training and for all the guidance she offered- not only on the website but within my business interests also.

Thank you,

Robin Matthews-Williams

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Gooii are award-winning UI/UX designers with a software development division.  We ensure that your app, website or virtual reality experience engages and inspires users. If you wish to work with our talented teams then please get in touch here.

Artificial Intelligence firm Bloomsbury AI acquired by Facebook

According to a post from the official Facebook Academics page, the company says Bloomsbury’s “expertise will strengthen Facebook’s efforts in natural language processing research, and help us further understand natural language and its applications.” In other words, as Facebook continues to hand more platform moderation duties over to algorithms, the underlying Artificial Intelligence technology behind those algorithms still has a long way to go.

In the Artificial Intelligence community where Gooii Nottingham also operate, Facebook is one of the biggest players. Facebook AI Research, or FAIR, command projects that span the more cutting-edge sectors of deep learning and natural language processing. For Facebook, the grand goal is to have AI that is so adept at understanding images, videos, and text. Effectively moderate the entire social network’s platform, including Facebook, Instagram, and its many other properties.

Right now, scores of actual human beings, often contractors overseas, are tasked with overseeing Facebook content. Those teams inspect flagged and reported material and make hard decisions about what violates Facebook’s rules.  As Facebook beefs up its AI capabilities, however, more of that work will be performed by algorithms. But first, Facebook needs its software to better understand language, the intent beyond that language, and other very tricky problems.

Its not immediately clear where Bloomsbury will fit into the picture with Facebook. Although Bloomsbury AI co-founder Sebastian Riedel also helped create a company called Factmata that was designed to help weed out fake news. Facebook does have a FAIR unit at its London offices. The announcement post says that Bloomsbury’s work has thus far focused on “machine reading and understanding unstructured documents in natural language in order to answer any question.” So it’s easy to see how that could come in handy when it comes to parsing the massive amount of user-uploaded content every day. Facebook is also working on an AI-assisted home speaker with a display codenamed Portal. Therefore it’s possible Bloomsbury’s team may work on that product to help improve its ability to understand spoken commands and return answers with natural-sounding speech.

Gooii Nottingham are also pushing the boundaries of this technology. Clients such as the BBC are working with Gooii and IBM Watson AI to develop amazing solutions. Gooii can embed this technology to ensure that your app, website or VR (Virtual Reality) experience is cutting edge. If you wish to work with our talented teams then please get in touch here.

Women’s Suffrage: history and citizenship resources for schools

Gooii Nottingham are delighted to be partnering with the Historical Association to deliver another innovative project. It focuses on the suffragette movement, initially looking at women at the hustings through the 17th and 18th centuries. It continues to include the growth of the suffrage movement during the 19th century and forward to contemporary democratic voices.

For teachers this project allows them to move away from the traditional approach of discussing a few high-profile leaders and militant methods. Students can learn about the everyday men and women who campaigned peacefully for the right to vote. Students can engage with their own democratic future through case studies of contemporary campaigners for gender equality.

The full website will be launched in summer 2018 and will host a range of history and citizenship resources. Central to the project will be an online database of over 4,000 individuals across England from 1866 to 1914.

Gooii are award-winning UI/UX designers and we can ensure that your app, website or virtual reality experience engages and inspires users. If you wish to work with our talented teams then please get in touch here.

Project partners and sponsors

The Historical Association, Gooii Nottingham and Association for Citizenship Teaching. Support by the Government Equalities Office, Cabinet Office and Department for Education.
Writing team: Rachel Foster, Katie Hall, Claire Hollis, Corinne Goullee, Richard Kennett, Val Pumfrey and Matthew Stanford. Academic advisor and researcher: Tara Morton

AR now helps you identify correct part for your DIY project

Amazon quietly updated the camera search on its iOS app with a new Part Finder. It lets you search for specific nuts and bolts that you might need more of, but need help identifying it. If Amazon’s Augmented Reality tech can figure out what it is, the app will help you easily buy more of the random screw you’re searching for.

To use Part Finder, iPhone users can open Amazon’s app and tap on the camera beside the search bar. Select Part Finder, which has a screw as its icon. To help with scale, align the part you’re looking at above a penny and tilt your phone until it’s centered.

Part Finder uses the AR capabilities of the iPhone camera to measure the depth and width of the part, and leaves other aspects of identification — like the head style and drive type — to you. Interestingly enough, Amazon acquired a visual recognition company in 2016 called PartPic. They specialised in identifying small parts therefore Part Finder is likely the integration of their technology into the Amazon app.

Amazon says Part Finder currently works for fasteners, meaning screws, nuts, bolts, and washers, but the feature will expand to include other replacement parts soon. The feature is currently only on iOS, and there’s no word on when it will arrive on Android.

Adding innovating and time saving features like this to an app can give you distinct competitive advantage. If you wish to work with the talented Virtual & Augmented Reality, web or app team at Gooii Nottingham then please get in touch here.

Gooii, Knowledge Integration & Sketchfab start an amazing project

Sketchfab has been gathering momentum with its amazing abilities to display interactive 3D models. Initially frustrated to see so many 3D creators spending hours on making great 3D models but sharing only flat screenshots, Sketchfab was born. Their community quickly grew containing users such as designers, architects, brands, museums and schools. Today their goal is to make this technology mainstream so everyone can publish quality 3D content across multiple devices, even in Virtual Reality.

Working in partnership with Gooii Nottingham and Knowledge Integration, Manx National Heritage are working to integrate Sketchfab into the iMuseum website. Initially starting with the Manx Crosses from the island being available, more objects will be added over the coming months.

Knowledge Integration’s CIIM middleware solution will be updated to push 3d model metadata to Sketchfab via their API. Furthermore, additional information will be displayed on the Sketchfab website alongside the models. Gooii Nottingham will enhance the iMuseum website’s viewer application to render the 3d models via the Sketchfab API. They can select an object model from a carousel, rotate it in 3D, zoom in/out and toggle various layers. On mobile devices, the usual touch, drag and pinch to zoom behaviours will also be accessible. VR (Virtual Reality) headsets will also be supported to deliver an immersive experience.

Gooii are award-winning UI/UX designers and we can ensure that your app, website or virtual reality experience engages and inspires users. If you wish to work with our talented teams then please get in touch here. If you wish to know more about this amazing platform, you can find a library of images here.

Oculus Go is about to go wireless to improve user experience

Despite many efforts, Virtual Reality has never really managed to hit the big leagues. Every year the interest grows and the number of options too. However it needs something to drag it over the line to the everyday mainstream. While it’s arguable that both the PlayStation VR and Samsung Gear VR helped it reach public consciousness in a way other headsets couldn’t manage, they still imposed restrictions on adoption. People don’t want the faff of setting up computers, trailing cables and installing trackers. If you are using a smartphone then they don’t want to be taking it in and out of the headset.

Oculus Go aims to solve this. It cuts away the cable and removes the smartphone from the equation by bundling everything into one device. Despite only offering three-degrees of freedom (DoF), compared with Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR’s six, Oculus Go is easily the most compelling case for VR adoption yet. Go also give s a much higher resolution that many of the current devices available.

Go’s approach is nothing new, at least globally. The Chinese VR market is flooded with similar devices but Oculus Go is firmly focused on Western markets. Its marriage of Oculus’ mobile VR interface, expertise in games publishing and dedicated VR mobile hardware means it’s just as desirable to pick up as it is impossible to put down.

If you also wish to work with the talented Virtual & Augmented Reality, web or app team at Gooii Nottingham then please get in touch here.

Less Bezel Needs Better UI (User Interface) & UX (User eXperience)

Manufacturers like Apple and Samsung have been reacting to customer demand to have devices that are more screen, less bezel and slimmer. Consequently, we have some amazing current screen to size ratios, especially with phones. The iPhone X is 82.9% screen and the stunning Vivo Nex (above) is 86.2%. No doubt we will experience a 90% screen phone in the coming months.

With phones now seemingly converging into a common sleek glass shape ‘block’, some uniqueness of form will inevitably be lost. The days of individual phones that differentiate the iPhone from HTC and Sony could be coming to an end.

This is where the power of User Interface design and User eXperience becomes even more critical. This can be the defining factor when so many phones are going to be similar in design. Apple iOS has been the gold standard for a phone operating system for many years. Its beauty, functionality and ease of use beats all competitors. Admittedly, Android is not far behind but iOS keeps improving with every new release with fabulous new and unique features that keeps its nose in front.

Gooii are award-winning UI/UX designers and we can ensure that your app, website or virtual reality experience engages and inspires users. If you wish to work with our talented teams then please get in touch here.

Virtual Reality memory generation

Facebook ended its conference recently with an amazing conceptual demonstrating of Virtual Reality and Artifical Intelligence being used to relive our memories.

Using computing vision, photogrammetry and machine-learning algorithms. The experimental technique takes your old photographs from the site and converts them from 2D to 3D “spaces”.

Facebook’s head of social VR, Rachel Franklin, says the feature is like “a Facebook album that has come to life”.  A user can strap on a VR headset and delve into Facebook’s version of your childhood home.  Scattered in this environment are thumbnails of photos and videos seamlessly embedded into the environment. Transport yourself back to your fathers 80th birthday or when your little sister turned 18.

It isn’t at all clear how many images are needed for Facebook to create a virtual environment. Public spaces with plenty of images should be easy to pull together something amazing for VR. Considering the data Facebook has on its users, its not a major leap to consider that with friends who may also be tagged in photos, their images and video could also be used to enhance the experience too.

If you also wish to work with our talented web, app, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual/Augmented reality teams then please get in touch here.

Adobe is jumping into augmented reality

Adobe teased a new venture called Project Aero. An amazing tool for creating AR graphics. The software giant will also bring USDZ file support to Creative Cloud apps. These include Photoshop CC and Dimension CC. This major announcement will give creatives tools to publish AR objects compatible with Apple devices.

Project Aero is a multiplatform tool that brings graphics into an augmented reality space. In a demo video of the new software, designers started with graphics from Photoshop CC and Dimension CC. These are then exported to a Project Aero file. Project Aero uses a tablet to finalize the AR elements of the graphic. This even includes using the device’s camera to preview the changes in an AR space. The demo also shows tools for animating the graphic along with scaling, rotating, and exporting to a USDZ file.

Project Aero is designed with Apple but Adobe is also working with Pixar. They will help add support for importing USDZ files into Photoshop CC and Dimension CC. Converting into USDZ allows the files to be used with Apple’s ARKit.

Crafting a platform that simplifies AR creation isn’t an easy task. Adobe says every business group within the company is collaborating on the new project. The company says it will have more details on the upcoming software during Adobe Max, a conference later this year.

AR projects simplified

“AR content development today also requires a combination of creativity and technical skills,” wrote Abhay Parasnis, Adobe executive vice president and CTO. “Project Aero will deliver a system for both developers and creatives to build simple AR scenes and experiences leveraging Apple’s ARKit. Designers can easily create immersive content that can then be brought into Xcode for further refinement and development.”

For developers, Adobe’s announcement means upcoming software could help simplify the process of building AR objects. With easier content creation, Project Aero could mean wider accessibility to new AR content for the average smartphone user.

You can see a video from Adobe here.

If you also wish to work with our talented virtual/augmented reality, web or app development teams then please get in touch here.