Immersed VR/AR Conference Coming To Toronto Oct 4-6

If you have a hankering for more VR after an exciting series of announcements and news from Oculus Connect this week, consider heading out to Toronto from October 4-6, when the North American edition (Immersed Europe concluded recently) of the Immersed conference lands at the Ontario Science Centre, one of Canada's largest and busiest museums.

There, major players in VR, AR and 3D will converge for a few days of panels, showcases and workshops, and there's even a free public exhibition on Sunday, Oct 4 from 1-5pm local time. Attendees will get a chance to see demos of the latest in VR and AR technology.

There are nearly 30 speakers scheduled for the event, and panel moderators include the Discovery Channel and Tom's Hardware's very own Alex Davies. Keynotes will be handled by Sony Computer Entertainment, HTC, AMD and IM360.

Speakers And Keynotes

The list of speakers includes representatives from companies including HTC, Nokia, Basemark, StarBreeze Studios, Next Galaxy, and more. Keynotes will be kicked off by AMD's Sasa Marinkovic ("The Tipping Point For Virtual Reality") on Monday morning, Oct 5, and later in the day Phil Chen, HTC's Chief Content Officer and founder of HTC Vive, will be sharing his thoughts. On Tuesday, Oct 6, attendees can listen to a keynote on Sony PlayStation VR delivered by Sony PlayStation Magic Lab's Richard Marks. Details on IM360's keynote later that day are not yet available.

Workshops

For the more pro-oriented, there are workshops on Sunday, Oct 4. These include:

• Human Centered Design for VR: Dr. Jason Jerald, Principle Consultant, NextGen Interactions

• Working With Immersive Audio For Virtual Reality: Jan Nordmann, Senior Director Business Development, New Media, Fraunhofer USA Digital Media Technologies Division

• Making Effective Use of Gesture Control Devices: Ben Miller, Director of Content Development, WEVR

On Monday and Tuesday of the show, attendees will be able to see a showcase of Sony's PlayStation VR, and the AMD exhibit will be running two simultaneous HTC Vive demos. The Canadian Film Centre will be showing a range of VR experiences, including Bublcam.

It's also worth noting that Phil Chen runs HTC's Presence Fund, which is an investment fund set aside for VR and VR projects; if you're a VR pro looking to acquire cash to grow (or start), Immersed is a good place to try to connect with Chen on HTC's funding, or with other potential investors.

You can see a full list of speakers here, and the full schedule is online here. Tom's Hardware is a media sponsor for Immersed. Tom's Hardware readers can get a $100 discount on registration by using the code "TomsHardwareImmersed2015" when you sign up using this link.   

Seth Colaner is the News Director at Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.