HP Inc And Nvidia Join Forces To Create Life On Mars VR Experience

HP Inc and Nvidia have joined forces to a suite of content creation focused companies to create a virtual reality (VR) experience that simulates what life on Mars could be like with a million humans on the red planet. 

With help from Technicolor, Unreal Engine, Autodesk and Fusion, HP Inc and Nvidia’s HP Mars Home Planet project builds out the work that has been done wit the Mars 2030 virtual reality project focused on open world exploration created by Fusion and NASA. 

Mission to Mars 

The new project looks to bring in more engineers, architects, designers, artists and students to imagine and create what life on Mars could be like for humanity. 

“Through HP and partner technology, we are unleashing engineers, architects, designers and students to help anticipate and solve the real world problems we’ll face to inhabit Mars one day,”  said Gwen Coble, director, of workstations, thin clients, retail solutions and immersive computing, for HP Inc’s EMEA region. 

The overarching goal of the project is to see how people might tackle the challenges or urbanisation on Mars, addressing areas such as infrastructure, transport for Mawrth Vallis, the Welsh name given to a valley in Mars identified as a potential landing site for the red planet. 

Embracing VR 

HP Inc appears keen to embrace VR technology not only to simulate otherworldly experiences but also put the technology to use in the business world. 

To that end, the company revealed a wearable VR-centric PC aimed at professional use. 

Businesses working in healthcare, product design and architecture will be able to put VR into action to get a more immersive and visual take on the products and people they are working on, without the need to set up a static system with movement sensors limited to a single room. 

The HP Z VR Backpack could be the means to facilitating virtual walkthroughs of building designs, provide effective simulated training, and enable the use of virtual showrooms for product development, amongst other things

With both the Mars project and the business focused VR backpack, we can see examples of the potential for the immersive technology to expand beyond just the marketing, gaming sectors and shake off its niche appeal. 

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