Intel kicked off the annual Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco with a very cool music-playing demo. Three different groups of performers jammed together on stage in front of thousands of developers at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco.
A couple of DJs played their mixes at center stage. A drummer wearing a virtual reality headset played a set of "virtual drums." He had real drumsticks in his hands, but there was no physical drumset. He could see it through the headset, though, and he played expertly by swinging his sticks at the virtual drums.
And a third artist played a similar virtual keyboard. He wasn't wearing a headset, but he waved his hands in front of an instrument, and sensors picked up his motions to trigger music. The net result was very cool. Intel calls this "merged reality," according to Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. There are 6,000 developers at IDF 2016.