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Incredible 360 Degree Video Shows Mars Terrain

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Explore Mars in 360-degrees with this panoramic shot from Curiosity

The Curiosity Rover is celebrating its four-year anniversary on Mars and Nasa has released a 360 panorama shot of the Martian terrain to coincide with the event.

The panorama shows eroded mesas and buttes on Mars, which has led to comparison with similar terrain in the US southwest. The shot is a combination of more than 130 images taken over the course of one day.

The rover captured the image using its Mastcam on August 5, four years since it began its mission on the planet. The vista was taken in the formation known as Murray Buttes on Mount Sharp, a layered mountain with a peak that rises 18,000 feet over the floor of the valley inside the Gale Crater.

The image shows that the buttes and mesas are capped with rock that is relatively resistant to wind erosion, Nasa says. This will help to preserve the remnants of a layer that formerly more fully covered the underlying layer of the terrain that the rover is now driving on.

Over its four years on Mars, Curiosity has returned more than 128,000 images and driven 8.43 miles.

Curiosity is examining the slopes of Mount Sharp in order to learn more about whether or not Mars hosted life, and how and when environmental conditions in the area evolved from hosting freshwater into dry and unliveable conditions.

The site, Murray Buttes, was informally named three years ago in honour of the Caltech planetary scientist Bruce Murray, a former director of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California that manages Curiosity’s mission for Nasa.

In July, Curiosity discovered active sand dunes, the first time they have been found outside of Earth. In an area called the Bagnold Dunes, rippled sand dunes were observed by the rover that researchers believed were being formed by the way Martian wind drags sand particles.

Nasa has also released a game to coincide with Curiosity’s four-year anniversary. Players can drive a rover through the rough Martian terrain and challenge themselves to navigate and balance the rover in order to earn points.

The game also demonstrates how the next Nasa Mars rover, which will be launched in 2020, will use a radar to search for underground water.

– Amelia Heathman, Wired

Virtual Reality to be used in 2016 Olympics

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Rio 2016 set to be a ‘laboratory’ for new virtual reality technology that will shape the future of sports broadcasting

Key moments of sporting drama from the Rio 2016 Olympic Games will be shown in full and true 360-degree high-definition virtual reality (VR), offering an unprecedented and immersive view of the action.

Using a compatible headset and their mobile phones, viewers will be transported right to the heart of the Olympic action , with coverage slated to include the opening and closing ceremonies, and one event per day. The live broadcasts will be offered via video-on-demand services provided by the various international rights holders, including NBC in the US. So far, 12 rights holders have taken up the Virtual Reality offerings, with others still to confirm.

Karen Mullins, Production Manager for the host operator OBS (Olympic Broadcasting Services), says that after successfully testing 180-degree cameras at the Lillehammer 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games, true 360-degree Virtual Reality tech will be deployed for the first time at Rio 2016.

“VR is not about viewing in a traditional sense,” says Mullins. “It’s about an ‘experience’ and we always tend to describe it as that, rather than as coverage. In each venue, each sport, we try to take the viewer to a place that they couldn’t buy a ticket for.”

Inside the action

The OBS is planning 85 hours of VR programming, including the opening and closing ceremonies, men’s basketball – including the semi-finals and final – gymnastics, track and field, beach volleyball, diving, boxing and fencing. Short highlights of all these sports will be available the next day.

These VR offerings will complement more than 7,000 hours of content scheduled, with many events broadcast in 4K High Definition Resolution, and some in the latest 8K Ultra High Definition/Super High Vision.

Blending in

The cameras used for VR production have been developed especially for Rio 2016. They are unusual looking, about the size of a bowling ball, with many lenses, and sit on top of a stand-pole. Some have been customised, depending on the sport environment, to make sure they don’t interfere with the events.

The development of viewing devices like Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard and Oculus Rift, means it’s possible to experience VR at home and at an affordable price. These immersive experiences will only improve, says Mullins.

“VR mimics the in-venue experience of being in the stadium without the broadcast commentary or editorial cuts: the things we take for granted. We do have the ability to offer replays with VR, which is a first, and unsual, but the tech is still developing, so it’s a learning curve, seeing what kind of content viewers enjoy, and want more of.

The future is now

“Nobody doubts that VR will grow and become key. It’s virtually being there, rather than being a passive viewer. It’s going to be big.”

In addition, OBS will provide broadcasters with live coverage of select Olympic events using cutting-edge 8K UHD Super High Vision. OBS Chief Executive Yiannis Exarchos says the operator will use the Rio Games as an “accelerated laboratory for exploring some of these new technologies that will shape the future of sports broadcasting.”

– Jonathan Powell

360 Video: Shropshire Students’ Formula 3 Car in Action

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A virtual driving experience showing what it is like to be behind the wheel of a racing car has been created by to show off the work of university students in Telford.

The video has been produced using a 360-degree camera in the cockpit of the University of Wolverhampton’s Formula 3 car.

Students from the Priorslee campus of the University of Wolverhampton have built the car themselves to run in this year’s F3 championship, taking part as UWRacing.

The new video brings racing fans about as close as they can get to the feeling of hurtling around a track at speeds in excess of 120mph and provides an insight into the life of the world’s top Formula 1 drivers such as Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

The university is the only one in the country which has a team competing in the Formula 3 Cup Championship.

Dave Allen, digital and creative services manager in external relations at the University of Wolverhampton, said: “We’ve created our first 360-degree video to really showcase what our engineering courses offer – giving potential students the chance to virtually see what it’s like to sit in and drive an F3 racing car around a world-famous track.

“The university has invested £10 million in engineering facilities at our Telford Innovation Campus and the new virtual video shows off our drive towards innovative, hands-on education for students.

“Our venture into yet another new realm of technology is very exciting and will provide people with a completely new – and panoramic – perspective on engineering.”

Engineering students at the university are heavily involved in its race team which are taking part in the F3 Cup Championship and is so far dominating the grid.

They are taught how to run a car professionally to the standard of a Formula 1 team under the help and guidance of professional motorsport engineer, Matt Fenton, and professional driver and team mentor, Shane Kelly. The team competes in all rounds across the season at world famous tracks.

– Shropshirestar

 

360° Camera Video of Stig on Top Gear Test Track

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360° Camera allows you to take a ride around Top Gear’s test track with the Stig

Ever wondered what it’s like to be sat in a high performance car whilst being raced around one of Britain’s most famous race circuits?

Thanks to 360° Technology, you can now take a seat in the new Ariel Nomad whilst Top Gear’s Stig races around Dunsfold Circuit at high speed. Check out the video below.

Bone Conducting Headset Creates 360 Degree Sound

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Prototype headset sends sound directly through the skull, converting experiences that we usually see into something we can hear.

A team of inventors have created a prototype headset that they claim could give us an extra sense.

Sonna uses bone conduction to transmit sound directly through the skull – and because it bypasses the ear canal, you do not need headphones.

“We have these little vibrating pieces that send sound vibrations into your skull and those then travel to your ears,” said Allison Rowe, Sonna’s co-creator.

“Then your brain does a whole lot of the work to sort of trick you into thinking that those sounds are coming from some location out in space around you.

“So you can actually sense as if these are in some 360 degree radius around you.”

Bone conduction is not a new idea but those behind Sonna think they have come up with an original use for it – helping cyclists to navigate their way through cities.

They hope to be able to turn their prototype into a device which sends audio instructions directly into riders’ skulls.

These sounds would then be targeted at specific areas of the head, so all the users would need to do is follow where the audio is coming from.

The technology that Sonna uses could also benefit people with visual impairments, by sending them audio cues which might usually come from apps that you need to be able to see.

However, Sonna is not the only device using sound in an innovative way. Grammy-winning music producer Timbaland has teamed up with Android co-creator Andy Rubin to create Subpac.

This transmits low frequency sound through the body so you can ‘feel’ what you are listening to. It is already used for gaming, virtual reality and music but it could also benefit people with hearing loss.

“As we focus on the low end and the physicality of the music, it allows people who are on the hard of hearing spectrum to really engage with music in a whole new way,” said James Williams from Subpac.

But despite the potential benefits that devices such as Sonna and Subpac offer, they might struggle to achieve mass appeal.

“I think it’s a very difficult sell to have things like bone conduction technology, because it is quite scary, but it depends on the audio experience,” said technology journalist Gareth Beavis.

“It could catch on. Maybe not mass market…but definitely there will be a niche for people that want to buy this stuff.”

– The Swipe Team

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