[bradford1Merrill]

Sometimes you don’t know where you want to go, and that’s OK. The Random Street View generator (powered by Google Maps) is the answer. It will take you on a virtual stroll down a random street somewhere in the world. Be careful, though. Exploring random locations is a bit addicting. One minute you may be virtually walking down a highway in Michigan, and then with a click, you could be in an alleyway in Romania. The best part is that you get to see places that other virtual tour sites and apps don’t offer. here

[Zerbie]

With Google Earth, you can go anywhere on our planet, from your hometown to the other side of the earth. You can use the website to take your journey, or use the app together with VR equipment to enhance your experience. Other than the awesome street views and ability to travel just about anywhere, you can also enhance Google Earth with your own videos and photos of places you have been in person. here

[forsaken1111]

There are plenty of ways to visit our fishy friends, too. The Monterey Bay Aquarium, The Georgia Aquarium, and The National Aquarium all have fantastic live webcams that allow you to watch sharks, jellyfish, stingrays, and much more. [links]

[bitboy]

When it comes to fine art, it’s hard to do better than a virtual tour of the Louvre. The website has a variety of tours you can take throughout the gallery, including The Galerie d’Apollon, Louvre’s Petite Galerie, and the east side of the Sully wing. When you’re finished at the Louvre, check out the virtual tours of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in South Korea, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and the Museu de Arte de São Paulo in Brazil. [links]

[jjenicewebstern]

With the Sites in VR app, you can take tours around the world using a virtual reality headset or just your phone or iPad. You can choose from cities or countries to visit, or you can go inside famous landmarks, like the pyramids. There are even space panoramas for a little out-of-this-world entertainment.

[kencausey]

Smithsonian Channel is currently making all 68 full-length episodes of “Aerial America” available for free and with no login requirement on Smithsonian Channel Plus. Every Tuesday and Thursday at 4 p.m. EST, Smithsonian Channel will also host a live "watch party” on their Facebook page to make the “Aerial America” viewing experience interactive despite social distancing. here

[bethany_dale]

Smithsonian readers interested in exploring more programs from Smithsonian Channel Plus can get two free months, after signing up for a 7-day free trial with code: BRIGHTERTOGETHER. here

[unavailable]

[links]

[vfdsaq]

[links]

[ChesterA321]

[HarryS]

The world is your oyster with this interactive, immerse VR experience that’s designed to be played by the whole family. There’s global travel and adventure in which your friends and family can join city tours, hot air balloon rides, back-country road trips, and plenty more. Or you can simply kick back and relax, practice meditation and get back to nature – all in the company of a guide or going solo, if you prefer. Other features include photo sharing, sound tracks, a range of fun game and media customisation. more

[sherrymade356]

Taking you on awe-inspiring virtual adventures across the globe, Gala360 is the result of the magic touch of an array of exceptionally talented photographers who have captured their globe-trotting trips in all their glory before being rendered into VR form. In professional 6K resolution, more than 300 tours around the world are featured, with some also including narration which allows you to listen to the stories behind the trips. Most of the tours are free, but you can pay a small fee to unlock more.

[beatfocus]

PRICE £29.99 HEADSETS Oculus Quest

[Klintel]

(Photo: Lyncconf Games via Flickr / CC BY 2.0)

[zlavernenasho]

· When data policies change, all users should be asked to opt-in again; consent should not be grandfathered through multiple iterations of a company’s privacy policy [links]

[daltonmiddleto]

· Not limiting access to an experience based on who opts-in to data collection, and never making opt-in the default setting [links]

[fuzeman]

In late 2018, VR and AR privacy policy professionals representing major players in hardware and software, as well as experts from academia and non-profits, were invited to attend a privacy summit at Stanford University to review the risks of this technology and to ideate potential solutions. The main areas of concern raised were loss of freedom, harm to reputation, and decrease in access and opportunity due to online identities becoming inseparable from offline ones. more

[Yahtee]

This is an issue that professionals in the medical research world have been grappling with for decades. Researchers have shown that health and medical information like DNA sequences, medical records, and health research data stripped of names and other identifying information, can be traced back to individuals by combining this data with other publicly available data sources. Unlike medical data, however, data collected by VR technologies is currently unregulated, and how it is collected, used and shared is not monitored by any external entity. more

[eche|on]

The issue here, though, is the unintended consequences that arise when such medically-relevant data is fed into users’ psychometric profiles. Such profiles may start out as relatively harmless, merely predicting when someone might be getting ready to buy a new car. However, sprawling psychographic profiles with medical inputs could leave people vulnerable to the type of scenario outlined above.