By Anick Jesdanun, Technology Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --When watching sports in virtual reality, it's best to remind yourself that TV wasn't born in a day. Early television was mostly radio with pictures. It took years — even decades — for producers to figure out the right camera angles, graphics and instant replays to deliver.
Sports is going through a similar transformation. VR holds the promise of putting fans right in the middle of the sporting action — on the 50-yard line, say, or in a ringside seat, or standing behind the catcher as the umpire calls strikes.
But today's VR sports have an empty and distant feel to them. Watching through a headset sometimes feels like being there in the stadium … by yourself, absent cheering fans, hot dogs and beer. And it doesn't get you close enough to the action to compensate.
For now, the zoom lenses of television cameras do a much better job of showing a pitcher's intensity or a free-throw shooter's concentration.
Yet Intel, NextVR and other companies are working to bring a variety of sports — boxing, golf, soccer, you name it — to VR. Major League Baseball has delivered a free game in VR every Tuesday (subject to blackouts of hometown teams); next week, it's the Colorado Rockies playing the Giants in San Francisco.
To enjoy it, it's best to think about what VR could be, rather than what it is now.
THE TROUBLE WITH VR
Start with some of the weird artifacts of VR. Many sporting productions don't actually give you a full 360-degree view, one of the main attractions of the medium. Instead, they often black out what's behind you. The reasoning is obvious — you're focused on the game and not other fans — but even television has cameras pointed at the stands.
Worse, VR camera placement is often downright odd. During the March Madness college basketball tournament, for instance, a coach or another camera operator would sometimes stand right in front of the VR camera, blocking the game play. The VR camera was also at floor level, which leaves you feeling as if you were watching while lying down by the court.
A VR camera in a baseball dugout should offer a unique perspective on the game — but in practice, what you often see are players' legs as they walk by. Any competent sports cameraman could have framed the shot better. (Intel Sports executive David Aufhauser says those blemishes add realism, much the way people can walk in front of you at a stadium.)
In Intel's baseball coverage, in fact, some of the best views come from a standard camera that captures the pitcher, batter and catcher in one shot. It's sequestered in a box within the virtual environment — which itself is sometimes just showing the catcher's back from behind home plate.
VR AS A SUPPLEMENT
Maybe it's best not to think of VR as a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, television.
Baseball does this well with its At Bat VR app , which requires a subscription starting at $87 for the season (discounted to $8 now that the season is almost over). Instead of VR video, you get a perspective from behind home plate, with graphical depictions of each pitch. A colored streak — red for strikes and green for balls — traces the ball's trajectory, using sensors in place at all major-league stadiums.
You're getting more information than you would with regular television, without missing out on what TV does best — the close-ups. The TV coverage appears on a virtual scoreboard in the outfield.
You need an Android phone and headset compatible with Google's Daydream system. The app isn't available on iPhones or Samsung Gear VR headsets, though Samsung's Galaxy S8 and Note 8 phones work with Daydream headsets. (On the flip side, Intel's baseball coverage works just on Gear VR with Samsung phones — not Daydream.)
WHAT'S TO COME
Some of what VR does really well comes in the form of highlight videos and player profiles. These are usually just a few minutes long.
And because these were produced during practice and other non-game settings, the VR camera can take you to more interesting locations. For a series on up-and-coming baseball players, one camera was just in front of second base, and another was in the bullpen during a pitcher's warmup. It feels as though you're getting access you wouldn't get on television or in person.
So why couldn't a VR camera show relief pitchers warming up during games, too? In an interview, Aufhauser says Major League Baseball and the individual teams will need to get more comfortable with VR before expanding camera access. For now, he says, producers look for other places that won't get in the way, such as the swimming pool near center field at Arizona's Chase Field or the tall "Green Monster" wall at Boston's Fenway Park.
And forget about placing cameras in the middle of the field. Instead, Intel has alternative technology that integrates footage from dozens of cameras surrounding the field to depict how a play would have looked to a player. Television networks are using this now to show as instant replays. Computers aren't powerful enough yet to do this live — but Aufhauser says that's the hope one day.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More