Category Archives: General

VRTO Presents FIVARS – Canada’s First Virtual Reality Stories Festival

General

FIVARS
FIVARS is the acronym for the Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories. VRTO – Toronto’s virtual reality meetup is very proud to host the inaugural event and the first of its kind in Canada.

Featuring 20 projects from countries as diverse as Russia, Ireland, New Zealand, England the US and Canada, festival director Keram Malicki-Sanchez and co-organizer and technical coordinator Joseph Ellsworth carefully selected a programme of titles that span not only the gamut of genres and themes but technical and narrative approaches.

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Kamchatka, Russia (Premiere)

The festival offers 8 viewing stations, including 3 on Oculus Rift and the remainder on Samsung Gear VR (now known as Oculus Mobile). It takes place at UG3 Live – a large music venue located in the heart of downtown Toronto during and steps away from the final two days of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door.

For times and the full catalog visit the official site at http://fivars.net

Knoxlabs custom VR goggles

The week in VR – 04-30-2015 – GoPro Spherical, Knoxlabs and View-Master!

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GoPro, makers of micro action cameras, (now shooting up to 4K video) acquired Kolor – makers of virtual reality and panoramic video stitching software. While speculation immediately began about GoPro moving into VR, their spherical mount has already been shown on their professional solutions page.

spherical_explorer

You can check out one of GoPro’s first official spherical videos “Land, Air and Sea” in the native Google Chrome player on YouTube, or below (note: requires Chrome browser to view)

Mattel has redesigned its View-Master, yes THAT View-Master that had you sticking little picture wheels inside their eyepiece throughout the 1970’s. Their new VR Google Cardboard certified product seems to use the old picture wheels for a kind of augmented reality bonus. Of the many “cardboard” offerings in the market, this may be our current favorite. Details TBA

Also, how about getting your own custom branded VR cardboard googles – well Knoxlabs, based out of Los Angeles, will do just that for you.

Knoxlabs custom VR goggles
Los Angeles-based Google Cardboard makers Knoxlabs offer custom VR goggles