WHITEFISH, MT / ACCESSWIRE / December 19, 2014 / What were once tiny Virtual Reality (VR) clouds and ripples off in the distance started by nascent technologies years ago have been chummed by more advanced technologies and seem to be growing into little waves today. There's no whitecaps or cresting waves and certainly not a VR hurricane by any stretch, but a steady flow of VR in tech and financial headlines lends to the idea that there is going to be a splash on the consumer shoreline in the not-too-distant future. Just take a look at some of the recent developments. Private cinematic VR company Jaunt, who recently raised $27.8 million in a funding in which investors like Google Ventures (NASDAQ: GOOGL) participated, is working on VR movies spanning from war to sci-fi to horror flicks. The company certainly came in above the fold with the recent release of a VR video featuring Sir Paul McCartney playing the hit "Live and Let Die" in 360-degree fashion and immersive sound. Classic rock band The Who is working with U.K.-based developer Immersive and Universal Music on an app for Facebook's (NASDAQ: FB) Oculus Rift headset in celebration of the band's 50th anniversary. The app is slated to cover a full gamut of immersive experiences for Who fans, ranging from scrolling through lyrics to being on stage during a concert. Fidelity Investments has launched "StockCity," a VR environment where users can monitor their portfolios where the height of buildings will change based upon Wall Street performance.
Sony's (NYSE: SNE) Project Morpheus, a headset that works through the PlayStation 4, is reported by some pundits as being ahead of Oculus in a few senses, such as "looking more finished" and utilizing motion tracking to make experiences feel more immersive. Google planted its flag in the VR industry ("cinematic reality" anyway) in October by leading a $542 million investment in the mysterious tech firm Magic Leap for a lightweight wearable device that merges the real and digital worlds. Even Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), who is notoriously secretive about their products, is drawing speculation about what they are doing with VR based upon a recent job posting.
VR and Underlying Forces
Oculus is the headline, but it doesn't get to where it is without the components. Companies like Himax Technologies (NASDAQ: HIMX) have considerable upside as a supplier of LCD timing controllers for Oculus headsets and of liquid crystal on silicon for Google Glass. Oculus may be the household VR name and Google's Glass has certainly come with mixed reviews (and a somewhat tumultuous relationship with Himax), but in the ongoing quest for total immersion, Himax has established itself. Don't shirk Glass for what it is today; it's a stepping stone in the advancement of augmented reality (AR), which naturally has to trail VR as it relates to overlaying data in a VR environment. Google is not giving up on Glass whatsoever, and is moving forward with Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), instead of Texas Instruments (NASDAQ: TXN), a move that is viewed as a bid for Intel to reverse multi-billion-dollar losses in its mobile and communications operations by entering the wearable technology space. Himax is a stock that has been depressed in 2014, but that can be viewed somewhat akin to leaders in the solar space that have fluctuated with market undulations. This is still a new industry, so that should be expected, and having a firm footing as an innovator is important as the industry develops, which leaves plenty of headroom for Himax with name brands for VR and OEMs within their core business.
Less heralded Toronto-listed Spectra7 has technology to weave electronics directly into the fabric or garments. The company's ultra-thin, ultra-lightweight active HDMI cable, called CouchConnect, just started selling on NewEgg. In the VR space, Spectra7 announced last month the VR7200, the industry's first chip capable of feeding dual ultra-high resolution displays that support resolutions of over 500 pixels per inch in deep color at 80 Frames Per Second at distances up to 5 meters from the source. This means that with Spectra7's chip, dual screen VR head mounted displays with a single super-thin cable and ultra-compact connector are now possible. The company seems to have a place in the infrastructure of next generation VR headsets as well. iFixit recently said while tearing down an Oculus Rift DK2 , that it showed a "Spectra7 VR7100 processor is buried under what seems to be a thick encasing of glue…[which] reduces size and weight of HDMI copper interconnects," helping explain why the cables got so much thinner when compared to the first iteration of the Rift.
VR and Games: The Wind and Rain Preface the Storm
Safe to say, VR is attracting real money this year and these household names aren't pouring an aggregate of billions of dollars into a potentially paradigm-shifting innovation that they believe is going to fizzle out like some other VR experiments have in prior decades. The common consensus is that VR is here to stay and its impact is going to be astronomical.
The obvious applications for video games, which are making strides towards commercialization, are just the tip of the iceberg. With the PlayStation 4 being one of its great successes, Sony is initially targeting gamers with its VR headset and nearing completion of its development, although it still hasn't revealed a targeted release date. Shuhei Yoshida, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, thinks that the PS4 user base could grow by "many more people who are not necessarily [Sony's] core gamers" because the content applications for Morpheus extend well beyond games.
Sony's biggest console rival, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) hasn't exactly sat idly by, with its own developers nose down on its own VR prototype called "RoomAlive," which was unveiled in October. Microsoft is taking VR (and augmented reality) outside of the headset, transforming a whole room in an immersive experience via Kinect sensors and procams. RoomAlive is still only proof-of-concept and will not beat Morpheus to market by any stretch, but if Microsoft can affordably bring RoomAlive to market, it could quickly close a first-to-market gap with Sony.
Console makers pursuing VR also should have investors watching companies like Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA) and Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), big game-makers that have admitted to testing the technology, but still haven't revealed any games on the docket to date. That day will likely come.
If VR is the Eye, Games are the Eye Ball and Content is the Outflow
Yes, VR can create a seismic change in gaming, but it is not tethered to that space. "Whether you're talking about health, education, training, defense, emergency services and the way in which we interact socially, virtual reality is going to have a profound effect that will permanently alter the way we do certain things," according to Mike Hayes, Mercia Fund Management's head of digital and e-commerce division. Hayes' words have some serious substance, considering his prior job as CEO of Sega's Europe and America business where he revitalized the Japanese giant as an international gaming outfit.
These broad applications mentioned by Hayes speak volumes to the avenues of opportunity for specific sectors. It highlights companies like Next Galaxy Corp. (OTC: NXGA) that are making serious inroads to the head of the space as a content creator and aggregator. Next Galaxy founder Mary Spio knows a thing or two about being forward looking; she was directly responsible for developing the technology while at Boeing (NYSE: BA) for the first satellite-based digital distribution of major motion pictures in 2002 (Star Wars: Attack of the Clones). That technology is used everyday today. A decade later and Spio is entrenched in VR creation and broad distribution.
Next Galaxy is developing Ceek, a fully immersive entertainment portal to the metaverse. Think of it as a "virtual city" where users can log in, check out the command center and take to the streets either alone or in groups for VR experiences by "walking" to different locations.
Next Galaxy says Ceek will be hosting corporate-produced and third-party VR content of all types, presumably some free (likely with ads), some pay-per-view. The company has attracted the attention of Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim, arguably the most iconic college coach in history, to headline its sports offerings with an experience slated to be filmed at Boeheim's home basketball court.
The company is moving forward with its music initiatives too, on December 4 announcing an agreement to work with Grammy Award-winning record producer, songwriter and musician Teddy Riley to produce a VR experience featuring a medley of Michael Jackson hit songs Riley produced for the legendary superstar. Audio for the VR production will be optimized for full acoustic immersion with Next Galaxy's first in class Virtual Reality audio headphones, called CEEKARS(TM).
Riley has built a legacy for himself in the music industry with multi-platinum success with his own bands "Guy" and "Blackstreet" and as a composer and music producer for megastars such as Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Will Smith, Mariah Carey, Britney Spears and Snoop Dogg, to name just a few. In 1992, Riley won a Grammy Award for Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical, for the Michael Jackson album "Dangerous."
In addition to the Michael Jackson medley, Riley is said to be in discussions with Next Galaxy to create more experiences from his "extensive library of existing work, including non-published material by his own bands and other music icons." Riley is currently working on a docu-series telling the story of his life's work, a portion of which will be exclusively available on Ceek.
Next Galaxy’s high-profile partnerships should help clear the path to other endeavors into sports, music, education and more on the content side of things. In the hardware space, the company has solved a problem with VR related to "moving around" in a virtual environment when headsets prevent a person from seeing a keyboard. As Oculus CTO John Carmack put it at the Oculus Connect conference earlier this year, "The missing link in VR is controllers." Next Galaxy’s response to Carmack is the aforementioned Ceekars, a brand-agnostic audio headset complete with haptic feedback, mic and intuitive controller optimized to work with VR headsets.
2015: The Storm Starts Rolling In
Excitement surrounding VR has certainly grown in 2014, starting with the Facebook purchase of Oculus in March. The momentum has been slowly building and the industry just hit a milestone with the release of the Innovator Edition of Samsung’s Gear VR (an Oculus-technology-powered headset using a Note 4 as a screen) earlier this month. A headset is just a headset, though, and there is going to be a dire need for content. That’s when the storm will really start blowing in. Just like any other new technology, VR will build upon itself, with technology companies making components smaller, lighter and more powerful; manufacturers breaking new ground with style and function of products; and consumers becoming more accustomed to a new way of experiencing the world as a bevy of content choices are provided. Think back 25 years when only a few people had computers. Now they’re integral to every household, business and school. It’s going to be the same type of paradigm-shifting storm, only it could happen faster as VR devices will be affordable from the onset and generations have now grown up in a technological age. Where the industry can grow and how VR can be implemented is only limited to the imagination. VR is still only on the precipice of the change, but as it happens more and more companies are going to jump in with both feet. With that, there are going to be many winners, but the aforementioned companies have already made their intentions clear and are crystallizing their positions as industry pioneers.
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