VR/AR

Kids are getting a better chance to bond with parents who are serving time behind bars thanks to virtual reality, a technology that continues to have an increased number of rapidly expanding uses.

The training consists of 10 virtual active shooting scenarios in environments like airports, schools and courthouses, meant to better prepare emergency crews for a variety of situations through a video game engine.

City officials have approved the purchase of new virtual reality training equipment for the police department. The equipment will offer a new approach to training for encounters with people who struggle with mental illness.

All public schools in the state will soon have access to $5,000 worth of state-provided computer science equipment, Gov. Janet Mills announced this week. The initiative will be funded with $3 million in CARES act money.

The online learning platform Inspirit and tech giant Meta will provide qualifying Title I schools with VR education starter kits, which include headset technology and professional development resources for instructors.

Irvine International Academy, which aims to cultivate Mandarin bilingualism and also focuses on science, technology, engineering, arts and math skills, has put $77K toward new virtual reality tools from zSpace.

The Union County, Pa., couple is making interactive maps of small towns throughout their state, starting a business earlier this year that combines nostalgia and a love of history with augmented reality technologies.

Officials at the University of Texas Permian Basin created a robot with a 360-degree camera that can act as a conduit through which remote students can tune in to lectures and interact with classmates.

Residents in the Southern California city will get to experience an underground stormwater project in an augmented reality experience designed to give them a better understanding of both the project and area.

Hoping to stem the tide of declining enrollment and rising tuition, universities have partnered with VictoryXR and Meta to use AR/VR technology to create “digital twin” campuses and make online classes more immersive.

The ed tech company, which has created its own VR headsets, announced a learning platform for K-12 that can be accessed by any device and brings students into a virtual environment for lessons and field trips.

With the participation of more than 20 universities and their researchers, a VR platform developer is mounting a study to gauge how schools can make the most of AR/VR tools for different age groups and use cases.

A student engagement company and a virtual mapping company are collaborating to offer VR-driven 3D mapping services to universities, made for designing 360-degree online tours for students, faculty and parents.

Meta has shared its plans to make political ad targeting data available through its Ad Library and Facebook Open Research and Transparency project. The process would entail updates to both platforms.

Virtual and augmented reality tools are gaining traction in both K-12 and higher-ed institutions, but experts say more planning and collaboration are needed to make the content practical and useful.

For training purposes, police in Westfield, Mass., can now experience de-escalation and use-of-force situations through virtual reality. One advantage of VR training is that officers can train day or night with the tech.

Governments may be reluctant to invest in metaverse-based services without a clearer sense of how the space is forming and how residents want to use it. These early days could be time for learning what the technologies might offer and how interventions could encourage equitable development.

The Lake County Sheriff's Department recently installed VirTra at their Crown Point headquarters this year after the system was purchased in 2021, making it the latest technology the department has added to its tool kit.