Photo by Michael Martine, 2013

As the sign says, just like in the movies, you can now fire up your lightsaber and enter the competitive world of fencing, courtesy of the French Fencing Federation, which has now officially recognized the lightsaber via l’Académie de Sabre Laser.  Michael M’s history of fencing while at UNC, and more recent martial arts experience has him especially intrigued by these stories.  Ian shared a link about Beat Saber, a VR music game that required Value to update Steam because the players were just too fast.  

Or you can stow your lightsaber in favor of your blaster and play a couple of rounds of the new Harmonix game Audica, blasting your way through some funky tunes.  

Measure twice, cut once, goes the saying — and the folks over at Medivis have that spirit at heart, with their augmented reality visualization tools to help surgeons envision not just the procedure, but the patient conditions, before they begin their work.

Walmart, with their incubator Store No. 8 have created an amazing VR experience jointly with the DreamWorks How to Train Your Dragon franchise, whereby people are transported to the world of the dragons via Positron Voyager VR motion chairs and powered by HP’s VR Backpack PCs.  Now, if there were only a way to train your dragon by playing a game involving awesome music…  

Michael R winds up this week’s show with his Emotiv headset experiences, tying them to the news about the Emotive VR project.

Selected Links

Lightsaber dueling now a competitive sport in France — https://www.si.com/olympic-fencing/2019/02/18/lightsaber-dueling-competitive-sport-france-fencing-federation 

Newsweek article: Star Wars in Real Life: Lightsaber Dueling Officially Recognized as a Sport by Fencing Federation — https://www.newsweek.com/lightsaber-duelling-star-wars-sabers-french-fencing-federation-lightsaber-1335111 

Fédération Française d’Escrime l’Académie de Sabre Laser (ASL) — http://www.escrime-ffe.fr/les-differentes-pratiques/anthony-lococo-s-impose-a-beaumont-sur-oise 

Kotaku article:  Value Updates Steam VR Because Beat Saber Players Are Too Fast — https://kotaku.com/valve-updates-steam-vr-because-beat-saber-players-are-t-1832536574 

Beat Saber by Czech-based indie studio Beat Games — http://beatsaber.com 

Fruit Ninja — https://fruitninja.com 

Audica — https://www.audicagame.com 

Tweet by Jesse Damiani about Audica:  Fascinating development from @Harmonix: a rhythm shooter. If you've ever wanted to dance while shooting things, Audica is your chance.This is the type of innovation that most excites me about VR gaming — remixing genres to generate something novel. pic.twitter.com/325eiTT3WR— Jesse Damiani (@JesseDamiani) February 13, 2019