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Technology

Student Uses Oculus Rift and Kinect To Create Body Swap Illusion 88

kkleiner writes Using an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, Microsoft Kinect, a camera, and a handful of electrical stimulators, a London student's virtual reality system is showing users what it's like to swap bodies. Looking down, they see someone else's arms and legs; looking out, it's someone else's point of view; and when they move their limbs, the body they see does the same (those electrical stimulators mildly shock muscles to force a friend to mirror the user's movements). It's an imperfect system, but a fascinating example of the power of virtual reality. What else might we use VR systems for? Perhaps they'll prove useful in training or therapeutic situations? Or what about with robots, which would be easier to inhabit and control than another human? The virtual body swap may never fully catch on, but generally, virtual reality will likely prove useful for more than just gaming and entertainment.
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Student Uses Oculus Rift and Kinect To Create Body Swap Illusion

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  • by AnontheDestroyer ( 3500983 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @07:40PM (#47570925)

    I would never leave the house.

  • Why robots? (Score:1, Flamebait)

    Homeless people would be cheaper than robots.

    • to expensive. Homeless people need food and a place to sleep. Robots just need electricity at $.10 a KWH.

      Why do you think business argue against paying people a livable wage?

      • If you have control of the homeless person, why do you need to pay them?
        The capital investment for a robot is much higher than a homeless person too.

        If the robot is destroyed because you sent it to the front line of a war or cut the wrong wire defusing a bomb, it's an expensive mistake.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by davester666 ( 731373 )

          you obviously have never heard the whining of some homeless guy only partially blown up. they can go on and on for days. the "please, can you help me find my arm", "would you mind making a tourniquet for my leg with this diaper'. and then bleeding all over the place.

          you pretty much have to find a new route to work for at least a week.

  • So when will people sell Technovoodoo service?
  • by Alien1024 ( 1742918 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @08:08PM (#47571063)
    Not a new idea [vimeo.com]. Only they didn't use Kinect or electrical stimulators, so they just relied on the partners' willingness to mirror each other's movements.
    • by Immerman ( 2627577 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @08:13PM (#47571109)

      Yeah, but it's not real science unless someone is wearing a shock collar...

      • Yeah, but it's not real science unless someone is wearing a shock collar...

        Hmmm ... it's only science if some of the subjects can shock some of the other subjects without actually knowing who (including themselves) will get shocked.

        Otherwise, I think it's just kinky adults, and the goth kids. ;-)

    • You have a hint of the truth there. Once again, as I have said in previous comments on earlier stories about HMD and virtual reality, this body illusion has absolutely nothing to do with the "power" of virtual reality, and still, so far, no tech company has any idea what they have (and I still hope to scoop them all with my subsequent patents, invalidating theirs, and make a fortune suing them... because their patents incorrectly describe the invention, or how it works). Don't bother replying, I'm not going
  • Strange Days (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thecountryofmike ( 744040 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @08:12PM (#47571093)
    Cool movie :) Strange Days [imdb.com]
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @08:21PM (#47571159)

    They were using the Oculus rift to look down at genitals of swapped bodies when it first came out fools.

    http://gizmodo.com/oculus-rift-lets-you-see-what-it-would-be-like-to-swap-1505973834

  • Gender-swap porn just got a lot more interesting.

    I'm just saying.

  • by wbr1 ( 2538558 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @08:59PM (#47571341)
    A robot is typically at least semi-autonomous.

    The word you are looking for is Waldo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... [wikipedia.org]

  • by Mister Liberty ( 769145 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @09:10PM (#47571389)

    Why do I^Hyou have the feeling that ''Showing" what it's like to swap bodies doesn't quite cut it?

  • It sounded really cool until it got to the part where they "mildly shock."

  • Tell me that this doesn't scream for implementation with porn?

  • those electrical stimulators mildly shock muscles to force a friend to mirror the user's movements). It's an imperfect system

    LOL, what could possibly go wrong?

    There's a super(hero|villain) origin story in here waiting to happen.

    VR, dodgy electrical shocks, a budding young scientist, a Microsoft product ... quick, someone should sell this to Marvel. =)

    • those electrical stimulators mildly shock muscles to force a friend to mirror the user's movements). It's an imperfect system

      LOL, what could possibly go wrong?

      There's a super(hero|villain) origin story in here waiting to happen.

      VR, dodgy electrical shocks, a budding young scientist, a Microsoft product and Facebook... quick, someone should sell this to Marvel. =)

      you forgot :P

  • by sootman ( 158191 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @11:59PM (#47572059) Homepage Journal

    You want to go skiing without leaving your den, you can. But I'm assuming a guy like you, you wanna go skiing you fly to Aspen. That's not what you're interested in here. It's about the stuff you can't have... right? The forbidden fruit... see that guy, with the drop-dead Philipino girlfriend? Wouldn't you like to be that guy for twenty minutes? The right twenty minutes? ... You want to be a girl... see what that feels like? ... It's all doable.

    - Lenny, Strange Days [imdb.com]

  • "... the body they see does the same (those electrical stimulators mildly shock muscles to force a friend to mirror the user's movements). It's an imperfect system, but a fascinating example of the power of virtual reality. What else might we use VR systems for?"

    Are you kidding? Brainwashing!

    My guess is strapping somebody on a bench with an OR and giving him violent electroshocks to the testicles each time they see a Qur'an or a half-moon in their virtual reality and an electric orgasm if they see ham and

  • VR control of robots (and body swapping/mind-sharing with other humans) is the central premise of Joe Haldeman's Forever Peace [wikipedia.org]. Definitely a novel worth reading.
  • By operators of factory/medical robots and drones. You start to feel you are actually there. It will get so much better with the new Oculus
  • 1. At GITMO.

    2. Another remake of the "Body Snatchers?"
  • What if one of the users is a computer AI. It takes over the body of the other by providing those stimulations that force the user to move their body. Now the computer has a body. Rather than a simulation it is possession and possession is 9/10ths of the law...

Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations"

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