Virtual Reality

Lifeliqe, HTC Vive Partner on VR for Education

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 07/18/16

A company that sells an app that allows students to explore biological creatures, botanical compositions, machinery, environments and other entities has signed on with a virtual reality company to make those same interactive models available to its users. Lifeliqe is working with HTC Vive to take its models to the new headset that the latter company launched in April.

HTC Vive, co-developed by smartphone maker HTC and video game-maker Valve, allows people to experience immersive virtual activities. Likeliqe's models, which are vetted by experts in institutions such as Stanford University and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, are currently available for use with Apple iPads and devices running Windows 8.1 and 10.

Wearing headsets coupled with the content from Lifeliqe will enable students to walk among dinosaurs, explore the internal organs of a shark, examine the parts of a heart and get inside an engine to see how the gears operate.

"The fact that HTC Vive chose to work with us proves that educational content is an important area for virtual reality to conquer," said Lifeliqe Co-Founder and CEO Ondrej Homola, in a press release. "We're excited to bring our content to life with this new technology and distribute across classrooms."

The company recently demonstrated its technology with the HTC Vive headsets during ISTE 2016. The goal, said Homola, is to begin piloting its use in schools starting this fall.