Mindmaze, a spin off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, has taken a proficiency in VR and neuroscience that makes them one of the top startups in Switzerland and charged forward into consumer healthcare applications. The company is now taking an additional step forward by collaborating with Dacuda, a private computer vision company that developed a SLAM scanning technology. Together, the two companies have announced the MMI platform that aims to bridge a gap in capability between mobile VR platforms and more premium options like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.
Here’s how the initiative is described:
The technology pipeline behind MMI is based on some of the most advanced neurotechnology and real-time computer vision algorithms. It features MindMaze’s neural markers combined with Dacuda’s SLAM Scan 6DoF room-scale tracking technology. With its ability to measure emotions and body interactions, MMI will facilitate engaging social virtual reality interactions.
VR/AR with positional tracking on a mobile device is a definitive path into the hands and households of lots of consumers, and a number of companies are trying to solve this problem– including Oculus.
“Many are quite disappointed that Oculus still has not released anything for mobile room-scale VR – we can close that gap today, as shown publicly…with our positional tracking demo,” said Erik Fonseka, Dacuda founder & VP of mobile VR, in a prepared statement
Dr. Tej Tadi, founder at Mindmaze, recognizes the opportunity in front of them.
“To redefine high quality consumer VR and AR experiences beyond media and gaming into healthcare and wellness has been a long standing interest for MindMaze and with the MMI platform we intend to usher a new era of neural VR technologies accessible to millions of consumers,” he says.
The MMI platform will be deployed during 2016’s 4th quarter, with its sights focused on bringing the fully immersive VR experience to mobile devices. Of course, mobile positional tracking is an incredibly difficult problem to solve and we haven’t tested the latest technology from Dacuda and Mindmaze yet.
