PhiSix launched its 3D simulation solution today that allows people to virtually try-on clothing before hitting “buy.”

Founders Jon Su and Jatin Chhugani earned Ph.Ds in computer science from Stanford and Johns Hopkins, respectively. Both men felt the pain of shopping online and rather than just dealing with uncertainty and returns (like most of us), they decided to leverage their expertise to digitalize one of the most important steps of shopping

“Despite all of the advancements we have seen in the past 10 years, we are really at the very beginning of apparel e-commerce,” said founder Jon Su to VentureBeat. “It would be great if we could purchase our clothes online without any doubts, but we really can’t at this point because it is too hard to find the right fit. Our goal with PhiSix is to change this.”

The proprietary technology digitizes articles of clothing from a two-dimensional photograph. Users provide basic information about their bodies and measurements and the engine will drape the 3D garment on an avatar using a physics-based simulation. From there, consumers can look at a 360 degree view, watch the clothing on a simulated catwalk, and check out a virtual fitting room. E-commerce retailers can integrate the technology into their sites with one line of code in an effort to improve conversion rates, drive sales, and cut down on returns.

Su’s background is in physics-based animation and cloth simulation, and Chhugani’s expertise is in interactive computer graphics, virtual reality, computational geometry, and high-performance computation. Together, they have developed advanced technology that maintains high visual quality, as well as customization, and scaleability. Competitors include Fites.me, True Fit, Clothes Horse, Metail, and Styku, but Su said PhiSix is better than its rivals because it can digitize and simulate garments 10 times more rapidly at prices three to five times lower than its competitors.

While e-commerce is growing, it is still dwarfed by brick-and-mortar retail, and abandoned online shopping carts are common. Part of this is due to consumer uncertainty about fit and hesitancy to buy something before trying it on. PhiSix seeks to bridge this gap between the online and offline world by creating a virtual fitting room experience. However, as with many fashion/apparel startups, success doesn’t only hedge on technology. It also requires understanding the personal and often illogical process of selecting and sampling clothing.

No matter how advanced the engine or how realistic the avatars, it may take more than 3D modeling to encourage someone to buy a pair of skinny jeans online.

During initial testing, PhiSix has digitized over 10,000 garments and over 6,000 user avatars have been created. The company is working with clients like the Tie Society and Le Tote as well as “large international e-commerce retailers,” and the tech is being used at “several major Hollywood studios.” PhiSix was founded in 2012 and the six employees are based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

“The world around you is not what it seems,” says Ingress, the virtual game that uses the real world as its gamespace. And, perhaps, when Google’s semi-independent division Niantic Labs is finished with its mission, we humans won’t be, either.

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and usable. Note carefully that Google says nothing about the Internet in that statement.

In the last few eye-blinks of human history, we’ve created virtual worlds: cyberspace, virtual reality, the World Wide Web … places that exist in our devices, on our computers, in our servers, on the internet, and in our heads. But there’s also a space in which we live and walk and eat and breathe. Realspace. Meatspace. IRL. The real world, so we say, that we can touch and taste and smell.

Google’s trying to bring those world together, partly through the work of Niantic Labs.

Augmented reality is nothing new, of course, with marketing-focused companies like Layar building connections between physical and virtual reality and Ikea’s most-downloaded branded app of 2012 doing similar things. Other startups have explored AR capabilities as well, such as Caterina Fake’s Findery, which invites people to leave geo-tied notes that others can discover and read.

But when a company with the resources of a Google tackles the problem, and has a tool in Google Glass that seems destined for significant developer (and probably user) penetration that can actually create interconnections between the real and the virtual perhaps more efficiently than any other previous product, you’ve got something interesting. And potentially huge.

So a couple of weeks ago, I chatted with the man who’s leading that effort.

John Hanke: the missionary of mapping

John Hanke is vice president of product for Niantic Labs, the year-old Google-but-not-Google division of just a few dozen engineers that brought us Field Trip, the app to explore the world around us with a virtual docent. And, of course, the virtual/real game Ingress.

Source: LinkedIn

John Hanke

Before Niantic, Hanke ran Google Maps, Google Earth, and other geo areas, and before Google, he was the cofounder and CEO of Keyhole, the innovative geo-mapping and visualization company. Google bought Keyhole in 2004, which brought Hanke in the search engine’s fold to lead the its maps, earth, street view, and local divisions.

Now, he told me, rather than let him leave to scratch his entrepreneurial itch yet again and do another startup, Google gave him a semi-autonomous group to, as his LinkedIn profile suggests, experiment at the “intersection of mobility, real world, and the Internet.”

“We set up Niantic as a group that could explore new types of mobile apps with ubiquitous always-on features,” Hanke said. “And we’re set up to act like a start-up.”

Virtual + physical = field trip

Field Trip was one of Niantic’s first creations, and while on the surface it’s an app that helps you find cool stuff, ultimately it’s a tool to merge metadata and data and then present them together. While you’re in the physical world, Field Trip pulls data about that experience from digital sources, feeding you that information, and changing — deepening, enriching — your experience of place. Layering with with history, perhaps, or science, or culture.

Because, after all, one rock is very much like another rock, but if this is the precise rock where Geronimo attacked Mexican soldiers armed with only a knife and his courage, that changes our experience of this particular place. And the merging/melding/layering of virtual and physical makes it more real, in a sense — hyperreal.

Source: John Koetsier

Google’s Field Trip app helps you explore “reality.”

Enabling that, of course, requires extensive virtual enhancement of the what-you-see-is-what-you-get world.

“One of the things that we’re trying to evangelize is the concept of geo-tagging everything,” Hanke told me. “I would have expected eight years ago that it would be ubiquitous now, but it’s still not. But I think we’ll get there.”

Geotagging everything digital is a key intersection point between virtual and real. If this blog post is written here, and not there, that adds flavor and nuance to the information. And if a particular historical fact is geotagged to a specific mapped location, that adds depth and dimension to our experience of that place.

“We’re applying some of the same techniques we currently use in standard web search, and the same kind of discipline, to pull really interesting, really good places up from everything else,” Hanke says. “The model is that you’re walking through an unfamiliar neighborhood, but with a friend who is telling you the best things around you. You enjoy it just like before, but you’re a little more informed.”

AR + MMO + IRL

Depth and dimension are definitely core components of Ingress, another Niantic Labs app/experiment/game. Ingress is a — take a deep breath — augmented reality massively multiplayer online video game.

The real world is real, but it’s fought over virtually by two shadowy groups: the Enlightened and the Resistance. Niantic has filled the Earth with virtual portals, usually coincident with actual physical landmarks or monuments, that players need to capture in order to gain territory. Capture territory with large numbers of people (aka “mind units”) and your faction gets more powerful.

Clearly, the massive integration of Google mapping technology with a sophisticated gaming engine is required. And the result is another intersection between the real and the virtual.

“Ingress is a massively multiplayer online game designed for mobile, with real location-based connections,” Hanke told me.

You play with everyone in your faction, and you might meet up with other players in real life, or you may just know them virtually as team members in another area. Along the way, Google learns an awful lot about how you use your mobile devices, about mapping physical locations, and about overlaying cyberspace on meatspace.

Source: Google

Ingress’ field of play is the world, layered with virtual data.

All of that knowledge is going to come in very handy with Google Glass.

Endgame: Google Glass?

Hanke is cautious when speaking about Google Glass, as is the PR handler who is copiloting our conversation. Even already public information is a question mark as we chat: Google is definitely being Apple-like in the control and distribution of Glass and its future.

But something tantalizing tidbits do come out.

“We definitely kinda had Google Glass in mind when we started work on apps at Niantic,” Hanke says. “We need mobile devices that are less intrusive than the phone is.”

Source: Google

A model demonstrates Google’s new Project Glass technology.

And we need devices with different input/output modalities, he says. After all, it’s not easy to play Ingress running around holding an expensive and fragile device in front of you like a window ripped from its frame. And yet you need that portal from the physical to the virtual. For instance, while Field Trip is great to open the doors on human context for the world around us, it threatens to detract from our experience of the world by redirecting our eyes from the ultimate big screen of reality to the small screen of our mobile device.

Google Glass, on the other hand, sits unobtrusively on our foreheads, leaving our hands free and providing data as an overlay on top of the physical world rather than an alternative to the physical world. That model of layering, mixing, and intersecting is top-of-mind for Hanke.

“It just can’t be the case that people are walking around heads down tapping on a screen,” he says. “That just can’t be the future of the human race.”

Cyborg me now

Which, of course, is exactly what’s at issue: the future of the human race. Or, at least how we ingest, consume, and reconstitute digital data. And analog data. And meld the two into one harmonious whole of knowing.

That’s perhaps a little metaphysical for a small division of Google that focuses on maps and games and apps.

But the web has rewired our brains in a decade or so of virtually ubiquitous Internet access, and the smartphone has rewired our behavior in five years, taking us from creatures who look up to to see others to beings that look down at any opportunity to see small bits of plastic and glass and metal in our hands.

So is it really too much to expect from a transformation that brings us from clear divisions between what is real and what is virtual to an elegant blend of the two?

“This is not psychosis or some cognitive break, but an actual takeover of the mind,” Google’s introductory video for the Ingress game says ominously.

Art imitates life, I suppose, and life, in turn, imitates art.

Forget your local Renaissance faire — the best way to live in a medieval world full of magic is by sitting at your computer and wearing a virtual-reality helmet.

Software developer Chris Gallizzi did the footwork to get Bethesda’s beloved first-person role-playing game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim working on the Oculus Rift headset, according to Joystiq. The Rift is a special helmet that creates a full 3D wrap-around display of in-game worlds. It provides a real sensation of walking through a digital setting — which is ideal for Skyrim.

“It’s amazing,” Gallizzi wrote on his YouTube page. “Skyrim is the perfect game for VR. No online connection required and a massive world to explore. You can stand up and do a full 360-degree turn-around or look in other directions.”

Gallizzi’s solution isn’t official, so it will require some work for others to get working. The developer used the Vireio Perception Driver, open source software that brings Rift support to multiple games, and he had to play around with Skyrim’s settings to improve the experience.

Also, Skyrim could cause a lot of disorientation, even over short play sessions, due to the in-game menus, text, and heads-up display that are not optimized for the Rift.

“It takes some adjusting depending on your sight,” Gallizzi wrote. “I’m nearsighted, so I had to adjust the field-of-view from 100 degrees to 110 degrees to make everything seem correct.”

Check out Skyrim on the Rift in the video below:

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Virtual reality is a wonder, but cracking the latest in technology removes a little of the mystery.

That’s a good thing.

The tech site IFixit posted a teardown of the developer edition of the Oculus Rift headset, which is basically an early prototype of what consumers will receive. We played with the device earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show, calling it “virtual reality that won’t make you barf.”

The headset uses a resolution of 1280-by-800 pixels, or 640-by-800 for each eye. Head-tracking works with a combination of a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and a magnetometer as part of a 1,000Hz absolute 9DOF orientation sensor. You can look around your environment without moving your entire body in the virtual world. IFixit tested the headset with one of the few compatible video games available, the multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2.

The dev kit also included a convenient, generously sized case for storing various cables and adapters.

IFixit found that the 3D “magic” of the headset was really just the science of stereopsis. The Rift assigns a separate image to each eye, and your brain does the rest by merging them into a single image. The Rift comes three differently sized eye cups to suit each wearer’s interpupillary distance (IPD).

Taking the Rift apart was just as simple. Disassembly only took about 10 minutes with some basic tools, and it was easy enough for the website to award a 9-out-of-10 repairability score.

As it turns out, the headset uses an Innolux HJ070IA-02D 7-inch LCD panel, which comes from Chimei Innolux in Taiwan, the same manufacturer rumored to be Apple’s replacement source for the iPad Mini screen.

Three main chips control the device: a STMicroelectronics 32F103C8 ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller with 72 MHz CPU, an Invensense MPU-6000 six-axis motion-tracking controller, and an A983 2206, or a suspected three-axis magnetometer that helps account for gyroscope drift.

A basic control box, which contains a motherboard with three additional chips, connects the Rift to PCs. It features buttons for configuring settings and several I/O ports and supports HDMI to DVI output conversion.

There’s no telling how this product will compare to the finished one, but right now, it’s in good shape.

Photo credit: iFixit

Virtual reality is getting a second wind in the game business, where its failures of the past have made everyone skeptical. But Oculus VR, the maker of the Oculus Rift (pictured at last week’s Nvidia GPU Technology conference) virtual reality headset, is hoping it can convince everyone that VR is back and that the experience will be an awesome one.

Epic Games, maker of the Unreal game engine, will do its part in helping Oculus. Today, the companies are announcing that Epic’s latest Unreal Development Kit (UDK) will be available with Oculus-ready code for every developer who has purchased the Oculus Rift game development kit. On top of that, all Unreal Engine 3 source licensees will receive the Oculus-Unreal Engine 3 integration code for free. The idea is that this will jumpstart the market for virtual reality games on the Oculus Rift platform.

“Developers have used Unreal Engine technology to create some of the most memorable games in history,” said Tim Sweeney, a founder and the CEO of Epic Games, in a statement. “We view virtual reality as a massive technological step forward and are arming all developers with the tools to create game experiences that represent the future. Our partnership with Oculus will bring the highest quality experiences to virtual reality games.”

Epic Games and Oculus have been collaborating since the launch of Oculus’ Kickstarter campaign. The custom Oculus-ready version of UDK, the free edition of UE3, will include the Epic Citadel tech demo, a medieval castle and village that developers can explore in virtual reality with the Rift. The companies are showing off the technology this week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

“We’ve said from the start that independent developers were as important to us as triple-A developers,” said Brendan Iribe, CEO of Oculus, in a statement. “The Unreal Engine and UDK have proven time and again that they are première engines for all game developers. Our relationship with Epic shows our commitment to give every developer the chance to create the next amazing game experience.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Motion sickness is the curse of virtual reality. When you wear a virtual-reality headset and the screen’s doesn’t match your body’s movement, it can make you feel sick — to the point of throwing up. But Oculus VR, a virtual-reality headset maker founded by Palmer Luckey, is launching a new headset sometime soon that it promises will make VR into an immersive and entertaining experience.

We tried out the latest Oculus Rift VR headset at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Our time with the device impressed us, and we didn’t leave any green goo on the ballroom floor of the Digital Experience party at the MGM Grand Hotel. Brendan Iribe (pictured), chief executive of Oculus VR, showed me a demo of the headset, which received funding via a $2.4 million Kickstarter crowdfunding project. The headset we used is a prototype and, after a few months delay, the final headset should ship in March.

“This is day zero of VR gaming,” Iribe said. “For the first time, it’s good enough so that you won’t want to kill yourself when you’re wearing it.”

This one already works great. The bulky goggles felt light on my head, and the images covering my eyes immersed me inside a gaming world. When I moved my head, the images changed rapidly enough to match what I would see if I turned my head in normal life. I walked around inside the Citadel demo, which depicts a medieval village built with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. I experienced no lag between my movements and the changing imagery, so I didn’t get motion sickness. It was full stereo 3D, covering both of my eyes.

I could turn my head any direction I wanted, with a field of view of 110 degrees diagonal and 90 degrees horizontal. The resolution is 1280 x 800 (or 640 x 800 per eye), which is good but not spectacular. The Unreal Engine 3 graphics were good but flawed. The snowflakes had real shape to them, but they looked kind of fake as I could see through them. So it will take considerably better 3D graphics to convince you that what you’re seeing is real life.

But the interaction was great. I could shoot a little green spark at objects in the scenery, and it was instantaneous and accurate. If I turned my head too fast, I could see a blur in the environment. Future improvements will fix the effect, Iribe said. The screen itself added 15 milliseconds of delay. The motion sensor has a 2 millisecond latency, or delay between interactions.

“In a future version, for consumers, we could do a higher resolution,” Iribe said. “This is just head tracking, but in the future, people should be able to integrate hand tracking. The final version will come when there is enough content and the developers of the world say this is consumer ready. We’re not there yet.”

Still, it is a very good achievement to make something that won’t annoy the gamer. Oculus VR has a very small margin of error in delivering a good experience. Some famous game developers such as id Software’s John Carmack and Valve’s Mike Abrash have expressed interest in virtual reality as a way to advance gaming. They’re encouraged by Oculus VR’s progress. Carmack even promoted the Oculus Rift at last year’s E3 trade show.

“Latency is fundamental,” Abrash wrote. “If you don’t have low enough latency, it’s impossible to deliver good experiences, by which I mean virtual objects that your eyes and brain accept as real.”

Iribe said the CES demo has a new motion sensor that reduced latency and improved the experience. I controlled everything with an Xbox 360 controller. But you can use a keyboard and mouse, and future user interfaces could work as well, like a faux sword or wand.

“Controllers of the future won’t be simple gamepads,” he said.

If it gets support from developers, Oculus Rift might present a really compelling shift to gameplay. For instance, you might hold a controller in your hand, but if you look down inside the game, you’ll see that you’re holding a sword. That adds to the illusion. You can control your movement with the controller, which is so intuitive for players that they can do it without looking at their hands. This is one small step on the way to the virtual reality of the Star Trek Holodeck, where you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.

Pricing hasn’t been set yet. Oculus VR is currently manufacturing developer kits that will ship in March. Those developers will then modify their PC games so they are “Oculus ready.” The company will announce availability for consumers at a later date. Two games that will be Oculus ready are Doom 3: BFG Edition and Meteor Entertainment’s Hawken. The Oculus Rift works with Unreal Engine 3 and Unity. It supports DVI, HDMI, and USB inputs.

Luckey founded the company a few years ago. In August, the company launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. It raised millions and received support from 10,000 game developers and fans.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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VentureBeat has emerged triumphant from CES 2013, with only one writer stricken with a mysterious convention illness. The past week went by like a whirlwind, but now that we have some time (and distance) away from Las Vegas, we can finally sit back and take a look at what worked best at this year’s show.

Fitbit Flex

Fitness gadget pioneer Fitbit came out swinging at CES this year, after being overshadowed by Jawbone and Nike’s wristbands. The $99 Fitbit Flex brings most of the company’s health tracking capabilities (sans stair counting) to a device that you can wear with you all day. The Flex makes Fitbit the most versatile health gadget company for consumers. If you don’t like wearing a wristband, you can always opt for the Fitbit One. I’ve found Fitbit’s data management to be the best of all the fitness gadgets, so I’m eager to put the Flex through its paces soon. – Devindra Hardawar

Fujifilm’s sleek X100S camera

While many hot new cameras debuted at CES, one really caught our attention. Fujifim’s X100S digital camera claims to have one of the world’s fastest autofocus on a camera at 0.08 seconds. The X100S is the successor to the well-regarded X100, with sales of 130,000 cameras worldwide since its launch. The outside of the X100S might have a retro look, but the inside is brimming with power. It features a 16.3-megapixel APS-C X-Trans CMOS II sensor and a fast EXR Processor II, both of which should ensure better noise reduction and all-around crisper photos. The X100S runs $1,300 and should be available in late March. — Sean Ludwig

Movea’s indoor smartphone location sensing

Movea showed off a way to use a phone’s existing sensors — an acclerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, Wi-Fi, and global-positioning system (GPS) satellite data. At the Las Vegas Hotel, Movea’s Dave Rothenberg showed me how his company created software that could calculate a route through the middle of the hotel, up the elevators to the sixth floor, and to the appropriate room.

Rothenberg’s Samsung Galaxy III smartphone showed the path the whole way, though it had to halt a couple of times to fix its bearings. As we rose in the elevator, Movea’s software figured out (using the pressure sensor in the Galaxy III) which floor we were on, and it prompted us to get off when we hit the sixth floor. The company retrieved the indoor map from the hotel’s own blueprints. The system does this in places where there is no GPS signal by estimating the length of your steps, given your height. This won’t work in uncontrolled environments yet, but indoor location isn’t so crazy an idea as phones become equipped with more and more sensors. – Dean Takahashi

Muse’s brain-bending headband

Muse’s Indiegogo-funded headband claims to measure your brain waves related to focus and relaxation. We had previously heard about Muse’s progress, but it was different seeing it in person. I tested it out, and as Muse claims, a program on a screen in front of you shows your brain activity in real time. As I focused more, the app onscreen showed more snow falling down, and as I relaxed more the sky turned clear. What was particularly revealing is that as I talked to different people, my brain activity levels changed, showing that some people engaged with me better than others. – Sean Ludwig

Oculus Rift makes virtual reality … a reality

The Oculus Rift VR headset is in prototype form and the final is expected to ship this March. But it already looks great. Once you put these bulky virtual reality googles on, it immerses you inside a gaming world. When you move your head, the imagery changes rapidly enough to match what you would expect in normal life. I donned the headset and walked around a medieval village built with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. There was no lag between my movements and the changing imagery, and so I didn’t get motion sickness, as is common with many other virtual-reality headsets.

Some famous game developers such as id Software’s John Carmack and Valve’s Mike Abrash have expressed interest in this. If it gets support from game developers, it might be a really compelling shift in the you play games. For instance, you might hold a controller in your hand. But if you look down inside the game, you’ll see that you’re holding a sword. That adds to the illusion. You can control your movement with the controller, which is so intuitive for gamers so that they can use it without seeing their hands. This is one small step on the way to the virtual reality of the Star Trek Holodeck, where you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. — Dean Takahashi

Pebble’s smartwatch is finally here

Yes, we love the Pebble smartwatch. It’s gone from a Kickstarter darling to a crowdfunding warning sign to a CES showstopper, all in less then a year. That’s a lot of drama for a watch that connects to your smartphone to display messages and control media.

Mostly, the Pebble’s popularity came from amped-up demand. There have been several attempts at smartwatches, but nobody’s yet managed to make a killer offering. (Apple came the closest with its watch-ready iPod Nano.) But with its simple design and monochrome display, the Pebble managed to capture geek hearts across the web. It makes sense for Pebble to choose CES as its official unveiling: Expect even more killer consumer tech startups to dominate the show in the future. (We’ve already seen quite a few this year.) – Devindra Hardawar

Project Shield: A crazy gamble on gaming hardware

Nvidia’s Project Shield could disrupt the console game business, where new titles typically cost $60. The Android-based portable gaming system lets you play high-quality, free-to-play Tegra Zone games on a 5-inch screen. You can also connect that machine via HDMI to a television and play games on a big screen. [Check out our hands-on video with Project Shield, as well as our exclusive interview with Nvidia's CEO.]

If Android games aren’t your taste, you can also play PC games that you have downloaded from Valve’s Steam digitial distribution service to your PC. And since Nvidia has invested heavily in its cloud-based GeForce Gaming Grid, you’ll be able to play cloud games on it too. The system is open, and you can expect a new model to debut every year. Nvidia is targeting hardcore gamers who want free-to-play games on their TVs.

It might be a narrow niche, given the crowded space. But Nvidia says the system is perfect for traveling people who want to access their own games from hotel rooms. You’ll be able to play any Android apps via the Shield, and you’re also have plenty of horsepower with the system’s Tegra 4 processor.  If this takes off, Nvidia will open up gaming and lower the cost of playing for consumers. – Dean Takahashi

Tegra 4 brings desktop power to mobile

Nvidia’s Tegra 4 mobile processor will be the brains of a new generation of mobile devices. It has 72 graphics cores, compared to just 12 on a Tegra 3. That isn’t nearly as many as the 3,072 on Nvidia’s top PC graphics chip, but the power consumption of Tegra 4 is far less than a desktop chip. Visually, this means you’ll be able to play high-definition games on a TV screen or a small screen with a Tegra 4-based mobile device. And if you have a 4K TV and 4K content, Tegra 4 will be able to run that too.

The chip has four microprocessor cores, plus a smaller core that operates in power-saving mode. The chip will be small since it will be built with a 28-nanometer manufacturing process. The new process also allows Nvidia to cut power consumption by as much as 45 percent.

Qualcomm chief executive Paul Jacobs says the graphics in the Snapdragon 800 series will beat Nvidia’s, to which Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang replied, “Pretty brash words. We’ll see, I guess.” – Dean Takahashi

Qualcomm’s batshit insane keynote

At first I was bewildered by Qualcomm’s zany keynote, thanks to the trio of terrible actors pretending to be “born mobile” youths. Then I felt embarrassed for Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs when he was upstaged by Steve Ballmer. But eventually, I’ve come around to see this monstrous event as something truly wonderful. It may not have done much to encapsulate what Qualcomm is actually doing to innovate the mobile industry, but it sure was memorable.

How could you forget a keynote that featured cameos from Big Bird, film director Guillermo del Toro (who showed off some fun and gory clips from Blade II in 4K), a finale concert by Maroon 5, and a video message from Desmond Tutu. Indeed, Qualcomm’s CES keynote transcends description — and at one point, seemingly space and time. — Devindra Hardawar

Xi3′s Piston ‘Steam Box’

The Xi3 Piston is a cool modular computer, even if it isn’t exactly what Valve will launch with its Linux-based Steam Box. Rumors are rife that the Piston is indeed the living room game console that Valve will eventually launch. Valve has invested in Xi3, and Valve chief executive Gabe Newell confirmed that Valve is making its own open game machine.

The Xi3 Piston has a 3.2-GHz quad-core microprocessor and 384 programmable graphics cores. It comes with 8GB of DDR main memory. It can support three monitors natively and two mini-display ports, and it comes with 64 GB to 1TB of storage, depending on price. It has plenty of other ports, but the box remains tiny, modular, and upgradeable. Piston consumes only 40 watts, compared to 1,000 watts for some of the high-end game PCs. That means it doesn’t need a noisy fan, and you should be able to play kick-ass games on it. – Dean Takahashi

Our team will be off to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas soon, and we’ll get plenty of glimpses of the future of technology there. We’ve all heard a lot of promises. But here are some things we’d love to see and use in real life in the near future — whether or not they’re at CES.

We’re not sure if we can get our wish, but this is the list of the coolest technologies that we can’t wait to use. I’ve relied on staff recommendations and other big thinkers for these tips. Thanks, all.

Tell us which one is your favorite in the poll, or suggest your own in the comments.

Google Glass

This technology is one of the truly inspired products coming down the road. It combines an eyeglass-style display with computing power and wireless technology that can deliver information to you based on what you look at in your surrounding environment. Project Glass promises to deliver information to you the instant you need it, like identifying the face of someone standing in front of you. Or so we hope.

Self-driving cars

Another innovation from Google is going through rigorous testing and the regulatory mill. These cars drive themselves based on computing, wireless, and camera technologies that can make a robot-driven car safer than a human-driven one. You can sit in the driver’s seat and do your email, but you can also override the controls if necessary. Once it’s polished, we’d love to take the car for a spin. But not before they get the bugs out.

Apple television

Okay, this mythical beast doesn’t really have to be made by Apple. But we need a TV that truly combines the best of the Internet and the best of traditional cable television. Apple has hinted something is coming that will transform the living room. We want to be able to play free or 99-cent apps on the high-definition screen and access our favorite TV shows and first-run movies. We have no clue, though, when this rumored Apple device will really arrive (if ever).

A 72-core Tegra 4-based tablet computer

Nvidia hasn’t announced anything yet, but the rumor is it will describe its next-generation Tegra chip at the Consumer Electronics Show next week. If that happens, you can expect that dozens of tablets and smartphones will follow. Tablets thrive on efficient battery use as well as performance. But Nvidia has been moving down the path of creating Tegra technology that offers both low-power consumption and outstanding 3D graphics and processing power at the same time. It’s time for another great leap that could put tablets on par with — or ahead of — the traditional PC.

Cool wireless technologies that don’t make us glow

The bottleneck in delivering fast Internet service to homes and mobile devices has strangled a lot of innovations. Bridging the last mile and delivering blazing-fast speeds to both home and mobile users is one of the great challenges facing us. It could be done with a huge investment in infrastructure, but smart technology might make it a reality as well. Steve Perlman (of Rearden and formerly the head of OnLive) has demoed Project DIDO, a distributed wireless Internet technology that gets around bottlenecks and delivers awesomeness in the not-so-distant future. We hope it’s real. And it would be great and necessary bonus if these technologies were really safe as well.

Cheap rides into space

I’m still waiting for the Southwest Airlines of space travel to arrive. Maybe $99 to the moon and back? After all, we want to be space tourists one day. The space shuttle has died, but maybe private companies will make it happen.

Better robots

It would be nice if we could count on the help of household robots and maybe get all of these great gadgets made by robots working in factories in the U.S. I’d like to try out a few personal robots, once they slim down in size and become a little more humanoid.

Indoor location

CSR’s Sirf Technologies division has figured out how to map indoor locations when you’re walking with your mobile phone inside a building. Now we have to see it in practice. Companies like WifiSLAM are hoping to make this real. We can’t wait until we can find our way through the giant hotel-casinos of Las Vegas without getting lost.

4K televisions that cost $500

I know that 4K TV, or those with four times as many pixels as today’s high-definition TVs, are going to be plentiful at CES. In the past year, these so-called Ultra HD TVs have debuted at prices at $25,000 or so. Can we skip the whole learning curve part and jump to the $500 model soon?

A.I./brains

I need a better brain. Or a brain enhancement. I’m counting on Jeff Hawkins’ Grok technology, which promises to deliver “big data” analysis based on the processing that resembles what happens in the human brain. Or something like it. It’s like those chips in William Gibson’s novel Johnny Mnemonic.

Personal gaming

Will Wright shared a vision last year for personal gaming, or a mobile game that was smart enough to know your interests, know your location, understand your context, and then deliver a surprising, fun gaming experience to you. The game collects a lot of big data about you and processes that. Then it creates a custom experience, a game made for just one person. You.

An awesome game console

How about a great video game console? One with free-to-play games with both traditional game controls and gesture recognition. I’d love to have a wide variety of indie games as well as blockbusters, and I’d like to extend my play to mobile game platforms and the web. Add backward-compatibility and cloud computing. Let’s hope that Sony and Microsoft are listening. Nintendo’s Wii U doesn’t quite do it for me.

Quantified self gadgets that automate calorie counting

We’ve got devices like Striiv that can count our steps. Other gadgets (like the Basis Health Tracker) can monitor our sleep, record our heart rate, and sync with the cloud. But we’d really like to get a device that photographs our meals (or does something like that) and calculates how many calories we’ll consume. This kind of technology could complete the loop in terms of figuring out our physical activity and our food intake, giving us the data we could use to calculate whether we are exercising enough and eating right. (VentureBeat’s John Koetsier supplied this idea, based on the “<a href=”“quantified self” movement where people try to measure everything about themselves).

If this list of new technologies doesn’t sound ambitious enough, we’re also waiting for some pie-in-the-sky science fiction to become reality. We’d like to go for a ride in the Star Trek Holodeck, a virtual reality simulation that is indistinguishable from reality, or live in the Metaverse virtual world of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. And I’d like to use that gesture-based computer that Tom Cruise used in Minority Report. But we’re assuming it’s going to take a while before the tech and entertainment industries can deliver on those visions.

Now if Moore’s Law ever stopped in its tracks, the engine behind all of this change would grind to a halt. Then we could say that things might truly get boring. On the other hand, nanotechnology might be quite useful in replacing semiconductor manufacturing with something else. So we’re not counting on getting bored anytime soon.

Image credits: Google, cmmorrison/Flickr, guilhermescha/Flickr, Nvidia, Lionsgate Television, SpaceX, Nao, Microsoft/Bing, LG, VLADGRIN/Shutterstock, Samsung, Samir Torres/VentureBeat

If you’re Sococo — short for social communication company — you create a virtual world, with virtual offices, desks, meeting rooms, and even buildings. But don’t think Second Life: You won’t find any sexy avatars, flying, pets, or islands. You will, however, see a lot of work getting done.

“We bring distributed workers together to interact in real-time,” Sococo’s chief marketing officer Mark Fisher told me. “Coworkers talk, share, chat … and interact all day long.”

The service is built on a premise of connecting people in a more natural way. Spatial shifting is a key part of that — in a real office, you need to get out of your cube and walk to see someone else — but so is context and situational awareness.

“Today, if I phone you, I have no idea if you’re busy or not. And if I get your voicemail, I have no idea why … if you’re busy, or just don’t want to talk with me,” says Fisher. “Also, in all communication — instant messaging or similar — after it’s over, the session evaporates and there’s nothing to go back to.”

So Sococo not only provides a virtual space for interaction, it tells you if people are occupied and what they’re doing. For instance, when I jumped into the application, I could see Sococo’s CEO was in a conversation with someone in a room. The company calls it “social awareness,” and it helps you make decisions about who to talk to, who’s available, and when to connect.

In addition to the ability to share desktops, chat via voice or keyboard, add remote participants via a virtual phone, share applications for collaborative editing, and show presentations, and more, the company is adding multiple spaces today — separate office “buildings,” if you will. Companies can build multiple spaces to ensure that not only do teams have their own space, but they can connect to other teams, both inside and outside.

“There’s an important break point at 40 to 50 people,” Fisher told me. “We don’t want to just provide a long directory of everyone.”

The upshot of a virtual connected space?

“A person who works exclusively at their house feels connected to their team,” Fisher said. “That increases employee morale.”

Image credits: Sococo

No matter how good a piece of clothing looks online, the reality often falls short. The joy of ripping open a package is destroyed when you discover that a particular shade of teal makes you look seasick or that leopard print jeans are a far better idea in theory.

Sometimes, you need to try things on to know if they are right, and this is a frustration shared by web retailers and customers alike.

Zugara was granted a patent today for its augmented reality technology that creates virtual dressing rooms for online consumers. The Webcam Social Shopper seeks to alleviate the element of the unknown from online shopping by enabling consumers to virtually try on clothes.

The platform generates a simulated view of what a wearable item will actually look like on your body using information from a web cam. The result is a digital mirror that reacts to gestures, motion, and voice controls, so you can twirl in your potential new party dress, or check out your butt in those shorts (no, it doesn’t look big).

Social shopping is also an element of the technology. Users can take pictures of their virtual ensembles and share them on their social networks.  Even further, the platform recreates the experience of shopping with friends. Multiple users, from multiple smart devices, can simultaneously browse, chat, try-on, comment.

“When you are going online to shop, you either see an item by itself or see it on a model that may not have your body type,” said CEO Matt Szymczyk. “You need to know how the item will really look on you, but it is not just about size. Shoppers want to see what colors match, how their skin looks in different garments, how a blouse will look with a pair of jeans they already own, and what their friends think.”

Often, the reason an outfit falls short is a certain je ne sais quoi. One ill-advised ruffle or latent fears of looking like a little boy could surprisingly make a purchase unwearable, and by the time you have dealt with disappointment and repacked the items for return, the convenience of online shopping is gone.

The team started out in the augmented reality space and realized that this technology could be powerfully leveraged to increase conversion rates for e-commerce providers. They developed the product into a tool that businesses can use to enhance her experience and drive sales. In July, European e-commerce platform PrestaShop integrated the Webcam Social Shopper, which brought its capabilities to 127,000 retailers.

According to their data, people who use WSS buy at 2 to 3 times the rates of “regular” shoppers, and engage with the site for longer periods of time. The direct clients of Zugara’s software are retailers and online apparel portals. For example, on the Barbie Dream Closet, the little girls can don a sparkly array of ensembles to see which strikes their fancy.

There are other comparable products out there, like Swivel, and even Cisco is developing a “StyleMe” product to play dress up in cyber land. However, this patent keeps Zugara’s technology protected, meaning they can publicly go to market without [a strong fear] of poaching.

While the primary intention may be practical (a la the effect of horizontal stripes on my torso), I am more interested in the entertaining options. For example, what do I look like in a Barbie lame princess gown? Or a silk kimono? Or a floor length Oscar de la Renta?

I may never get to attend the Oscar’s in real life, but I may be able to simulate what I would wear if I did.

We all have a view for how games will look like and be like in five, 10, and 20 years from now. I expect some technologies, like 3D, to lead to holograms. Others will go in directions unknown. One upcoming technology aiming to change how we both play and see games and virtual reality as a whole is the Rift from Oculus. The Long Beach, Calif.-based company successfully completed its Kickstarter campaign with just under 10 times the amount it set out to make, a relatively meek $250,000 specifically for developer units and not consumer-grade peripherals. Yet with big names like John Carmack and Gabe Newell — founders of game-development houses id Software and Valve Corporation, respectively — openly claiming that the Rift is the best virtual-reality device in existence, it comes as no surprise that game developers and players everywhere have an interest in the peripheral’s future.

What is the Rift?

Photo by Kyle Orland, Ars Technica

The Rift is a pair of virtual reality glasses that completely covers the eyes and reproduces what people would normally see on a computer monitor or TV screen. With LCD displays, the Rift produces images at a resolution of 640×800 per eye (1280×800 altogether). The company has stated, however, that the consumer version, shipping in 2013, will have a higher-resolution display. Thanks to the two screens, the Rift fully supports and integrates 3D in what the company claims is the most realistic 3D gaming experience to date.

Many individuals agree with the assessment, but the device isn’t for everyone. Venturebeat writer Evan Killham played id Software’s Doom 3 BFG Edition, the first game to work with the Rift, and told me that while the technology worked, ”I realized that I was starting to feel disoriented and actually got a little clammy. Frankly speaking, playing the Oculus made me feel like shit.” His trouble with the device isn’t unusual for 3D technologies, though as an avid 3D gamer, he notes that the difference between the 3D of the Rift and devices like the Nintendo 3DS is extreme. He further added, “I told the developers afterwards about my queasiness, and they said that the Oculus would ‘take some getting used to.’ I’m not sure how long they expect people who have experiences similar to mine to stick it out since I’m pretty sure most people will stop as soon as they get uncomfortable. Even if they’re not worried about puking all over a prototype.”

My own experience with the Rift was very different. I had no difficulty with the use of 3D but also didn’t find the effect as incredible as the group using the Rift before me. I believe the technology certainly works, especially when compared to other 3D tech like Nvidia’s 3D Vision glasses, though with one major caveat: that developers program games for 3D properly. Even the Doom BFG demo ends with a paralyzing cinematic that I was told Carmack himself apologized for because he didn’t program past that section of the experience. I ripped the headset off quickly, fully aware of the bad 3D effects. That is to say, as good and realistic as the Rift is, it can be equally terrible in the wrong developer’s hands. What’s more impressive, however, is the head tracking.

Head Tracking plus 3D equals true game immersion

Head tracking is a technology that tracks movements and combines those physical motions with in-game action. Most previous attempts to combine gaming with motion tracking of any kind, even including popular devices like Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation Move for the Playstation 3, have a noticeable delay. What makes the Rift unique is the combination of 3D-video-and-motion tracking (specifically the head tracking component) that is one-to-one. So when wearers turn their heads, the game recognizes the movements, adjusting the display in real time with no noticeable delay. It enables players to actively look around the game environment, something previously found only in extremely expensive or military-grade devices. Even in Doom BFG, a recreated eight-year-old title, I had fun turning my head to look around. In a strange way, the Rift turned this inexpensive and old game into the most immersive gameplay experience out there.

With head tracking, players can do anything from simply looking around the game space to actually controlling character movement. It all depends on how developers use the technology. For Doom BFG, id Software has the Rift designed so individuals play with a gamepad but move their heads up and down to aim vertically. Side-to-side aiming can also be done with the head mount, but it isn’t the main function. The difference between Doom BFG with standard 3D and using the Rift aren’t comparable. I played both at the Penny Arcade Expo and, frankly, you might as well play two separate games. Turning, slightly looking around, and full motion control elevate games with the Rift into a class of their own.

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After watching their demo video (below), you’ll believe it too.

Briefly, what (T)ether does is allow individuals and groups to interact with virtual objects in real-time, simultaneously, creating a shared virtual space in which to build, create, and edit objects. Sounds simple? The implications are profound.

The (T)ether user interface enables manipulation of virtual objects spatially, with gestures, rather than through actual physical contact with a display device. It’s easier to show than to tell:

That difference is critical, because it enables both interaction with large objects or collections of objects …

… and easy collaboration with other connected devices and users:

And it’s this collaborative aspect that’s most exciting. As the group, composed of Matthew Blackshaw, Dávid Lakatos, Hiroshi Ishii, and Ken Perlin, post on their project page, “multiple people can edit the same virtual environment.”

As you can see around the four-minute mark in the video below, this enables powerful collaboration. Here’s a screen capture of the video showing two of the team members building and editing a virtual architecture together:

Currently the team is using iPads as their windows on the virtual world. However, imagine a Google Glass version, which seamlessly overlays the virtual onto the real via smart glasses, eliminating the need to physically hold up a device.

Go a step farther and envision increased fidelity, resolution, and processing power, and you have a solution that would enable an aircraft mechanic to virtually disassemble an ailing jet engine. Or enable an automotive engineer to visually create a model of how a new engine should fit together. The possibilities are endless.

Here’s the project video in its entirety:

Now the company is taking the images further with an update to its iPhone and iPad app, new APIs and SDKs, and neat interactivity features, which the company presented today at the DEMO Spring 2012 conference in Santa Clara, Calif.

TourWrist CEO and founder Charles Armstrong

TourWrist gave a sneak peek of two new features due out in May. First are PanoSpots, which link multiple panoramas together Google Street View-style, and give them more depth by linking to photos, videos, brands, audio, websites, and Facebook profiles. The real fun demonstration was of the trippy planar acceleration controls, which will allow you to physically step forward or back while holding up an iOS device to move between panoramas, go through doors, and check out other linked panoramas or information.

Smartphones and tablets have a few key features that are making these types of immersive photos relevant again: GPS, built-in cameras, touch screens, and accelerometers. Using the free iPhone and iPad app, you can view panoramas by categories or location, and navigate by touch or the neat motion-based gryo mode. You can make a panorama of your own surroundings by just moving the device around and capturing the scene with its back-facing camera. The new app update (v2.3.2) adds image preview, editing, and offline shooting options, as well as improved stitching, shooting support for the new iPad, and Retina display support.

TourWrist has a fun social and crowdsourcing side — any one can easily make and share an image, meaning you don’t have to cruise the map of panos long to find some random shirtless dude playing guitar in his apartment. But as you might expect, the nicest-looking tours aren’t shot with iPads or iPhones. They’re the stunning and seamlessly stitched images created by professional photographers, often for hotels, resorts, and other posh locations trying to woo customers. (There’s a helpful link on the site and in the app for business that want to hire a professional panorama-maker.)

The app is well-timed because location-based images are having a moment: Google has added interior shots to its Google Maps street view, and augmented reality, the overlaying of digital information on a real view, is getting a boost from the forthcoming Google Glasses. Microsoft has a similar product called Photosynth, but the UI is clunky and it has seemingly been forgotten by the software giant.

“With Apple, Google and Microsoft bringing panoramic photography to mobile devices, this is a medium primed for mainstream adoption,” said CEO and founder Charles Armstrong. “TourWrist is pioneering in important fields such as motion control algorithms and virtual tour business methods.”

So far, the app has been downloaded 700,000 times since becoming available in early 2011. There are now more than 40,000 panoramic images on the service of everything including resorts, clubs, nature, music festivals, and really messy dorm rooms.

“I find Charles’ product … to be visually stunning,” Benchmark Capital general partner Bill Gurley said in an investor panel following Wednesday’s demonstration. “He’s accomplished something truly remarkable … but there are some challenges around business model.”

The boot-strapped company was founded in 2010 by Charles Armstrong and has had $155,000 in funding. It currently has 13 employees and is based out of the Hatchery co-working space in San Francisco’s SOMA district. Naturally, there’s a 360-degree image of the office on TourWrist’s site.

Here are some of my personal favorite TourWrist images: The Russian Clown Circus, an honest to goodness man cave, and Alcatraz.

TourWrist is one of 80 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2012 event taking place this week in Silicon Valley. After we make our selections, the chosen companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.