Here at WIRED we’re constantly writing about new and weird tech. But at WIRED2016, conference attendees got the chance to try out some of those incredible innovations firsthand. The Test Lab was a playground for technophiles, filled with VR and AR technology, dancing robots and drones. Here is a rundown of some of the best innovations we got to try out on the day.
Pepper is a Japanese robot designed by SoftBank Robotics and demonstrated by its UK partner Emotion Robotics, created to be a companion rather than a tool. Pepper will clock your face and follow you as you move, mimicking the attention of a human companion. Pepper has large eyes and small body, and is best at ‘guided conversation’. It can also dance to the locomotion, which is a nice addition.
Fancy sticking a needle in a knee muscle and feeling the resistance of the skin as you puncture the skin? Fundamental VR has developed a freakily authentic VR programme that lets you practice medical procedures like injecting anaesthetics into a muscle. Having consulted six different surgeons across the US, the company has created a comparable sensation to performing actual operations by adapting variables like surface resistance puncture pressure. WIRED can confirm it feels alarmingly real.
This chair costs £20,000 and makes you feel like you’re floating. It’s based on ten years of research by scientist and designer David Wickett, and uses your body weight to balance you, mimicking the sensation of being in a flotation tank.
This app makes you fall asleep. It uses soothing music and voice overs to help you fall asleep quickly. Used in conjunction with a sleep pod at WIRED2016, a voice slowly explains how to relax and coaxes you into a sleep state. It was certainly relaxing, which the soporific voice assured me was good for my health.
Not quite a technology but a clever technological campaign. Flash drives for Freedom is an initiative that sends USBs full of media - usually Korean films and music - across the border to the North Korean black market. Using wiped flash drives, the organisation originally sent USBs down the river via people crossing the border, but has since started using drones to more safely transport the information. In a country where there’s little internet and a dictatorship perpetuates an oppressive regime through the suppression of information, Flash Drives for Freedom is hoping to subtly show what a world outside North Korea actually looks like.
This fantastic award-winning VR film lets you climb outside the International Space Station to inspect the state of a satellite. The experience uses a rumble pack and two controllers that function as your hands, allowing you to pull yourself forward, grab onto things and physically conceptualise your space better. Rewind:VR, the company behind the graphics, tested the 15-minute experience on astronauts to crowd test its realism. It is both captivating and terrifying - but vertigo suffers beware, it does actually feel like you're 402km above Earth.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
