Re/Code Features Mixed Reality Lab’s Research and Role in Advancing Virtual Reality

Games writer Eric Johnson wrote a story about the VRLA Virtual Reality Meetup at ICT’s Mixed Reality Lab, a place he calls a de facto incubator for VR projects. Both Oculus VR’s Palmer Luckey and immersive gaming startup Survios came through Bolas’s tutelage, he wrote. The story notes the sense of optimism attendees shared about the future of virtual reality.
“The movie business came to Hollywood because they needed the light,” said Mark Bolas, in the story. “We don’t need light anymore, but we need people. And LA is one of the hotbeds.”
Johnson described his experience in Project Blueshark, ICT’s Office of Naval Research-funded project that explores the future of collaboration and work.
“VR had successfully tricked me into believing something that wasn’t real”, he said.
He also wrote about Evan Suma’s redirected walking work, noting that it uses a perceptual trick called change blindness to make a small physical space infinitely large inside a virtual world.