Virtual Reality, features and articles | Educational Science

Sep 27, 2005

New Sphere of Virtual Reality

VirtuSphere provides a mechnical basis for truly immersive virtual reality environments, permitting the user to move about in virtual space by simply walking. The device consists of a large hollow sphere which is mounted on a specially designed platform that allows the sphere to rotate freely as the user walks...

Jan 15, 2006

DVR Would Turn Off When Viewer Falls Asleep

Lucent scientists have filed a patent application for a digital video recorder (DVR) that will detect when the user has fallen asleep—and will then turn off the DVR. As it turns out, Robert Heinlein had thought about this forty-five years ago. According to Lucent, the sleep detector may comprise an...

Mar 26, 2006

Virtual Virus is First Simulation of an Entire Life Form

This is no ordinary computer virus. Using a real-life virus as a model, researchers have built a virtual version using more than a million digital atoms. Scientists have previously simulated small pieces of living cells, but researchers say this is the first digital simulation of an entire life form. The...

May 4, 2010

Gulf Oil Spill Cleanup Gets Assist from Virtual Reality

As the ruins of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig gush 210,000 gallons of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico, federal officials are turning to virtual reality to forecast the disaster. Using a variety of simulation programs, emergency response teams are evaluating everything from deep-ocean pressure to winds at...

Apr 7, 2011

Virtual Reality Games Aid in Stroke Rehabilitation

Virtual reality games may help patients recover after a stroke. The results of a new study show these games can improve the patient's arm strength. Patients were more likely to improve their arm strength if they played virtual reality games than if they received standard physical therapy, which includes exercises...

Jun 7, 2011

U.S. Army Orders Virtual Reality Training for Soldiers

To rehearse their assault on Osama bin Laden′s Pakistani compound, U.S. Navy SEALs had to construct a replica of the expansive hideout. The U.S. Army has a wealth of experience in building such structures, as they have created numerous buildings, shoot houses and even entire mock villages to help train...

Feb 2, 2012

Virtual Reality Contact Lenses Could Be Available by 2014

Contact lenses that help enhance normal vision with megapixel 3D panoramic images are being designed by scientists using military funding. For those who do not want to rely on contact lenses, future versions could involve lenses directly implanted within the eye, researchers added. Over the decades, the video displays that...

Apr 13, 2012

Virtual Reality Spiders Crawl Toward Phobia Treatment

Researchers have created an augmented reality application that fills your desk with virtual hairy, red-and-black patterned spiders. The spiders even interact with real things on the desk, crawling over books and disappearing under pieces of paper. That's probably not appealing to most people, but the research team, which includes a...

Jul 25, 2012

Police Investigators Revisit Crime Scenes Using Virtual Reality

This Research in Action article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. It may look like a video game screenshot, but this is serious business. The image displays the kind of faithfully reconstructed crime scene that detectives and other investigators would study if they used a...

Oct 4, 2012

Underwater Movie Maker: Q&A With Shaun MacGillivray

Shaun MacGillivray has brought audiences to some of the most extreme environments Earth has to offer: the dizzying heights of Mount Everest, the perils of polar bear territory, and underwater to explore the seafloor. The film company MacGillivray runs with his father, Greg — who started making surf films in...

May 30, 2013

Stroke Therapy Gets Boost from Virtual Reality

Virtual reality games may help patients recover after a stroke. The results of a new study show these games can improve the patient's arm strength. Patients were more likely to improve their arm strength if they played virtual reality games than if they received standard physical therapy, which includes exercises...

Jul 16, 2013

Photos: Virtual Reality Puts Adults in a Child's World

Seeing the World From a Child's Perspective (Image credit: Courtesy of Mel Slater)A 2013 study by University of Barcelona researchers has found that virtual reality can make people see the world from a child's perspective. Seeing the World in a Child's Body With Virtual Reality (Image credit: Courtesy of Mel...

Jul 16, 2013

Virtual Reality Puts Adults in a Child's World

Virtual reality can make adults see the world through a child's eyes, new research suggests. In the study, adults who inhabited the virtual body of a child saw objects in the world as bigger, associated more readily with childlike words and chose to inhabit a virtual childish room versus a...

Feb 25, 2014

Virtual Reality Treatment Relieves Amputee's Phantom Pain

Amputees who suffer from phantom-limb pain could get some relief, thanks to a potential new experimental treatment involving virtual reality. One man who suffered severe phantom pain for 48 years after his arm was amputated reported a dramatic reduction in his pain after the experimental treatment, in which signals from...

Mar 10, 2014

Virtual Reality System Lets You Explore Your Brain in Real-Time

AUSTIN, Texas — What if it were possible to explore your brain in virtual reality, watching your thoughts flashing before your eyes? A team of neuroscientists and software developers have created a way to do precisely that. A new system combines brain scanning, brain recording and virtual reality to allow...