Virtual Reality Technology Is Rapidly Advancing Th
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By JACK DELANEY, Associate Editor, Money Morning • April 18, 2017
https://moneymorning.com/2017/04/18/virtual-r...ough-firm/
Virtual reality technology is rapidly advancing, allowing doctors to practice surgeries and teens to simulate driving before getting their license.
But there's one area where virtual reality (VR) is lacking: human emotion. The technology doesn't effectively relay nonverbal cues like facial expressions between VR users.
However, there's a company that plans to change that. And investors are lining up to get in on the action, investing $100 million in the last funding round.
MindMaze, a Switzerland-based tech company founded in 2011, created "MASK," which synchronizes physical emotions with digital emotions.
"By syncing the physical body in all its expressive capacity with a digital avatar, MASK allows developers to build playable characters that emote in pre-real-time," MindMaze said on its website.
According to http://www.TechnologyReview.com, MASK recognizes 10 different expressions, some of which include smirking, grimacing, and eyebrow-raising.
And investors are buying into this being the next big trend in VR…
In February 2016, MindMaze raised $100 million, led by multinational conglomerate Hinduja Group. That brought MindMaze's valuation to $1 billion.
this company has established contracts with Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), and Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO).
To make things even better, this company has been selected to take part in a $425 million project with the U.S. Department of Energy.