Virtex Apps Creates Active Virtual Experiences
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., April 30, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Have you ever taken a 30-foot tall pet robot for a walk? Or survived a stampede of buffalo in your local park? These kinds of experiences can now be a reality thanks to a new startup, Virtex Apps (http://www.virtexapps.com), that has developed technology to merge real and virtual worlds in unique ways. And instead of requiring a bulky headset, the gateway to the virtual world is through a standard smartphone or tablet, a device millions of people already own.
Virtex Apps creates active virtual reality experiences for mobile devices. With this type of app, a smartphone or tablet is a window into another reality. A user not only sees and hears this virtual world, but also physically moves around inside of it, as though the virtual objects were truly there in the area surrounding the user. Because it works on mobile devices, the virtual experience can be enjoyed in any open area, anywhere in the world.
The first such virtual experience from the company is "Chicken Charge," a whimsical game in which the player walks around to catch chickens while avoiding obstacles such as the 30-foot tall robots and herds of buffalo. Virtex Apps founder, Jeff Green, says the game, "is like being inside a life-size cartoon. It's intended to be silly and fun, but it also demonstrates an entirely new way of playing a game or experiencing a virtual world."
The game was developed using the proprietary Virtex Framework, patent pending software that handles the number-crunching details of generating the virtual experience. Among other things, the framework will coordinate a device's sensors to translate real-world movement into virtual-world actions, and it supports taking shareable photos that merge the real and virtual worlds. "The Virtex Framework takes care of the algorithms and functionality common to all active virtual experiences," Green explains, "so to create a new app, you need only plug in the new characters and behaviors unique to that app."
Games are a natural fit for this kind of app, but the concept could be useful in other fields as well. "It's really a new medium that can be applied to almost anything," Green says, "including film, music, sports, and education. For example, imagine being inside a movie trailer, able to walk around and watch the characters from any angle as the action unfolds around you." Green plans to license the technology and work with partners to create such apps. As he puts it, "We're hoping to create experiences that have never been seen before."
Virtex Apps will next be demonstrating this capability at the Startup Conference on May 14 in Redwood City, California. But for Android devices, the game "Chicken Charge" is already available now from the Google Play store for free. So maybe next time you go to a park, you'll bring your giant robot with you. Just make sure it doesn't step on the jogger nearby.
For more information, please contact:
Jeff Green
650-270-4119
[email protected]
SOURCE Virtex Apps LLC
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