GAMERS WEARING headsets and wielding rifles adorned with flashing lights battle a horde of zombies, letting out the occasional terrified shriek.

The virtual reality arcade in Singapore is part of a wave of such venues being opened as backers of the technology seek to shake off teething problems and break into the mainstream.

The buzz around virtual reality (VR) gaming has seen Taiwan-based HTC, Sony and Facebook-owned Oculus VR battling to woo consumers with a range of headgear.

But it has been slow to really take off, partly due to the hefty price of top-end headsets, beginning at around $350, and the challenges in setting up complex VR systems at home.

But VR arcades, which have been springing up around the world, particularly in Asia, are now giving people the chance to try it out more easily and for a fraction of the price.

“Given the complications of at-home, PC-based VR systems, pay-per-use, location-based entertainment venues can fill the gap,” wrote Bryan Ma, from International Data Corporation (IDC), a consumer technology market research firm, in a recent note on the industry.

A group of gamers wearing virtual reality headsets at Zero Latency Singapore, in Singapore. / AFP 

Several VR gaming companies have made forays into Singapore, seeing the ultra-modern, affluent city-state that is home to hordes of expatriates as a good fit.

The zombie fight-out was taking place at a centre where participants stalked a room with a black floor and walls.

“I did paintball before, it’s quite fun… but I think the whole scene is much more interesting here,” said Jack Backx, a 55-year-old from the Netherlands, who was playing with colleagues from the oil and gas industry on a work day out.

The location is run by VR gaming group Zero Latency, which started in Australia and has expanded to nine countries. It uses “free-roam” virtual reality – where gamers move around in large spaces and are not tethered to computers with cables.

It’s not all intense, shoot-’em-ups – VR group Virtual Room has an outlet in Singapore that transports gamers to scenarios in the prehistoric period, a medieval castle, ancient Egypt and even a lunar landing.

A group of gamers wearing virtual reality headsets at Zero Latency Singapore, in Singapore. / AFP 

VR arcades have been springing up in other places. China was an early hotbed for virtual reality gaming although the industry has struggled in recent times, while they can also be found in countries across the region including Japan, Taiwan and Australia.

Many key industry milestones over the past two years have been in Asia but arcades have appeared elsewhere – London’s first one opened last year while there are also a few in the United States.

Consumer spending on virtual reality hardware, software and services is expected to more than double from $2.2 billion (Bt68.75 billion) in 2017, to $4.5 billion this year, according to gaming intelligence provider SuperData Research.

For the best-quality experience, it can be relatively expensive – a session in Singapore costs S$59 (Bt1,400).

“The equipment here is not cheap,” said Simon Ogilvie, executive director of Tomorrow Entertainment, which runs the Zero Latency franchise in Singapore.

The industry faces huge challenges.

China offers a cautionary tale – according to IDC, VR arcades have struggled there after expanding too quickly.

There have also been warnings that improvements in home-based technology may eventually lead to VR gaming centres suffering the same fate as traditional arcades that were once filled with Pac-Man and Street Fighter machines.

“The rise and fall of coin-operated videogame arcades in the 1980s suggests that such VR arcades may eventually fade in relevance as home-based computing power and prices fall within mass consumer reach,” said the note from IDC’s Ma.

Rebecca Assice, who runs Virtual Room in Singapore, said one challenge was getting people interested in the first place as many still did not know about the arcades.

“VR is still a really new industry,” she said. “A lot of people just don’t know this sort of activity exists.”

Beats Studio3 Wireless overear headphones can add more fun to music listening on your iPhone or iPad with powerful bass and effective noise cancellation.

You can count on long battery life and fast charging, as well as technology that makes it easy to connect to your Apple devices.

Studio3 Wireless is powered by an Apple W1 chip that ensures seamless setup and switching between devices.

When I put the headphones near my iPad Pro 10.5-inch, a dialogue box appeared on the tablet’s screen asking if I wanted to connect them. Then I just followed the instructions to complete the setup.

Once your all hooked up, it’s easy to switch to other devices running on the macOS Sierra, iOS 10 and watchOS 3 – as long as they’re linked to your iCloud account and you’re using the same Apple ID.

The Studio3 Wireless headphones deliver a premium sound experience with Pure Adaptive Noise Cancelling (Pure ANC) blocking external sounds and realtime audio calibration to preserve clarity, range and tone.

It continuously pinpoints external sounds to block while automatically optimising output, so you always hear the music as the recording artists intended it to sound.

I found that the Studio3 Wireless is particularly good for rock music because it reproduces the heavy bass and you get superb clarity in the mid and high ranges.

As for the battery life, when Pure ANC is turned on, it can last up to 22 hours, and if Pure ANC is off, you can get 40 hours. Fast Fuel technology also allows for three hours of play on a 10-minute charge.

The headphones are designed for long-term comfort. The soft overear cushions feature advanced venting and signature ergonomic pivoting, so there’s a custom, flexible fit for any head shape.

The light weight means you can wear them for hours without discomfort.

Connected to your iPhone, the Studio3 Wireless can control music playback. Press the “b” on the left earcup once to pause or play playback. Press twice to skip ahead a track and three times to skip backwards.

Press the “b” twice and hold to scan forward through a track, three times and hold to scan backwards.

To control the playback and phonecall volume, there are buttons above and below the “b”. Press and release Volume Up or Volume Down or press and hold to increase and decrease the volume continuously.

You can also use the Remote Talk cable to control playback volume.

For phone calls, press the “b” once to answer or end a call and press again to answer a second incoming call and put the first call on hold. When two calls are active, press “b” again to switch between them. You can reject an incoming call by pressing and holding the “b” for one second.

To stop listening through your headphones and send the call to the phone, press “b” twice.

To activate Siri on your iOS device or the voicecommand feature on another device, press and hold the “b” until you hear a chime, then say what you wish.

You can check the battery level and charging status on the Fuel Gauge by tapping the power button.

Pure ANC is enabled by default each time you power up the Studio3 Wireless, but you can turn it off by double-pressing the power button while connected to your device. You can turn it on again by repeating the process.

The package includes the 3.55mm Remote Talk cable that can be used for listening to music and controlling playback. The cable has a centre button that functions like the “b” on the earcup.

There’s also a hard carrying case that the headphones fold into for convenient transport.

The Beats Studio3 Wireless is available in Shadow Grey, Porcelain Rose, Matte Black, White, Blue and Red for Bt12,500 at http://www.Apple.com/th.

Key Specs

– Form Factor: Over ear

– Connections: Bluetooth, Wireless

– Batteries: Rechargeable lithiumion

– Height: 18.4cm

– Weight: 260g

– In the box: Headphones, carrying case, 3.5mm Remote Talk cable, Universal USB charging cable (USBA to USB MicroB), Quick Start Guide

You get 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage running on an Android 8.1 OS, a 6.1inch OLED Full View Display and a Huawei Kirin 970 CPU octacore processor. It retails for Bt27,990.

Enjoyable pokes in the ear

Jabra’s Elite Active 65t true-wireless earbuds are built for wearing while playing sports. There’s a secure fit, an integrated accelerometer for tracking via the Jabra app and protection against sweat, water and dust. Count on five hours of listening time on one charge. Get them in navy/copper for Bt6,990.

Sound goes vertical

Sony’s HTZ9F is a 3.1-channel Dolby Atmos/DTS X soundbar with the company’s new Vertical Surround Engine that fits perfectly in any home. Three front speakers reproduce “vertically”, creating virtual surround sound that seems to come from all around. Advanced digital processing converts audio into immersive sound. With power output of 400 watts, it sells for Bt26,990.

Good God, gamers!

The Nitro NP5155188BC notebook computer from Acer is plenty powerful for gaming. An eighth-generation Intel Core i78550U processor running at 1.8GHz, 8GB of RAM, a full terabyte on the hard drive and the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 adapter with 4GB of video memory will get you through anything. It’s in stores for Bt37,990.

Office mates will ‘Flip’

The 55-inch digital display on Samsung’s Flip phone lets you effortlessly connect and interact in the workspace. Up to four people can introduce content or annotate simultaneously in real time just by drawing or writing with a pen directly on the UHD-resolution screen. Flip users can write up to 20 pages per file. Expect to pay Bt129,000.

Watching content streamed by iflix on your big screen TV just became a whole lot easier with the release of the GMM Z Stream, an Android OS-base IPTV box.

Before, tuning into the TV series and movies available through the iflix service on your large-screen TV meant attaching a Google Chromecast to your TV then “casting” from the iflix app to the Chromecast.

Now the GMM Z Stream, which runs on Android 6.0 operating system, can run the iflix app and thanks to its HDMI output, plays iflix movies directly onto your TV.

The box is a powerful multimedia hub. It’s powered by AMLOGIC S905X quadcore 64bit cortex-A53 processor with a clock speed up to 2 GHz and uses a pentacore MALI450 processor to handle graphics tasks.

It has two gigabytes of working memory or RAM and 8 GB of storage for installing apps. The box is capable of decoding and outputting up to 4K video at the rate of 60 frames per second. It also supports decoding 1080P video at 60fps.

The IPTV box comes with two USB ports and a microSD card reader, one HDMI port, and one optical digital output as well as a LAN network port. It also supports wireless connectivity with dual Wi-Fi bands of 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. With the builtin Wi-Fi connectivity, the box supports DLNA, AirPlay and Miracast multimedia streaming.

In fact, the box is just like an entertainment computer for playing Android games and apps with output to your TV. You can connect a keyboard and a mouse to its USB ports to use it more conveniently than through its remote control alone.

During the test, I used a Logitech wireless mouse to navigate and interact with apps on the box. I could click the onscreen keyboard to log on to my iflix and Google accounts effortlessly. The box streamed movies and TV series from the iflix server with good 1080p quality and excellent sound without any performance hiccups. I tested it using LAN cable connection as well as with True Online’s SuperSpeed Fibre 50/29 Mbps package. The iflix movies streamed beautifully and both sound effects and dialogue matched the pictures perfectly.

Using the wireless mouse, I could conveniently browse through iflix’s vast library of popular international, Asian and local TV shows and movies, while selecting audio language and subtitle options.

I could also browse TV series and movies by category – movies, TVs, kids and studios, for example. The TV series currently include Top 200, Korean, Chinese, Thai, Thriller and Horror while the movies category has Top 200, Action, Animation, Chinese, and Korean.

The GMM Z Stream box is also pre-installed with YouTube, Atime-Online, OneHD 31 and GMM 25 apps.

The YouTube app allows you to conveniently watch YouTube clips on your large screen TV while the One 31 and GMM 25 apps get you live content from the two TV stations, streamed via the Internet. The Atime-Online app lets you listened to Internet radio stations from the Atime Media, including Chill89, Hot915, 94EFM, and Greenwave 106.5.

Since the box supports a mouse and keyboard, you can use the builtin web browser and a Chrome browser to browse websites just as you would with a computer and mobile phone.

You can also use Google’s Play Store to download and install more games or apps that support Android 6.0 to run on the box.

Another option is playing Full HD 1080p movies stored on external hard drive or USB flash card. Several apps are pre-installed for playing movies, including Kodi 16. During the test, I tried using the pre-installed Kodi 16 to play Full HD 1080p movies on a flash drive connected to one of the USB ports. The movies played smoothly and it was easy to select both soundtracks and subtitles.

iflix is currently collaborating with GMM Z Trading to allow buyers of the new GMM Z Stream box to enjoy three months of unlimited access to iflix content.

GMM Z Stream is distributed by Z Trading, a subsidiary of GMM Grammy, for Bt2,490 and is on sale at GMM Shops, PowerBuy, MegaHome, JIB, O Shopping, Big C, HomePro and Amorn Electronic shops.

Key Specs

– OS: Android 6.0

– CPU: Amlogic S905X QuadCore 64bit CortexA53

– GPU: Penta Core ARM Mali450 GPU up to 750MHz+ (DVFS)

– Memory: DDRIII 2GB

– Flash: EMMC Flash 8GB

– Wi-Fi: 2.4G + 5G (Dual Band)

– Video: UHD 4K, FHD 1080P, VP9 HW decoding

– Audio: MP3, AAC, WMA, RM, FLAC, OGG, AC3, Dolby

– Picture: jpg, JPEG, MJPEG, PNG

– Multi Screen: DLNA, AirPlay, Miracast

The Environmental Education Centre Thailand, an organisation set up by English-Thai actor Alexander Simon “Alex” Rendell to provide direct education on environmental conservation, is helping the Tourism of Thailand Authority “Go Local” by taking young people as well as their parents on camps in various parts of the country and getting the messages over through a host of fun activities.

“Go Local”, the TAT’s latest campaign, aims to promote 55 secondary tourist destinations nationwide while better balancing the distribution of tourist arrivals between urban and rural areas, evening out the seasonality factor between the months of travel, and encouraging more travel during weekdays to reduce pressure on the weekends. Its targets are young people, families and the so-called Generation Y.

“Gen Y refers to the young people who prefer to travel alone, or sometimes with friends or family members and use the social media to post and promote the beautiful tourist destinations they have discovered. Gen Y takes selfies and talks about their finds with others. These youngsters play an important role in attracting other generations to tourist destinations. This is the second year that we are focusing on tourism in the secondary provinces, and it is to these places that we would like Gen Y to travel, spend time in the communities and help keep the environment clean and safe. So we have joined with Alex, who is passionate about environmental protection, to encourage these young people to share his love for the environment and take care of nature,” says Somradee Chitchong, executive director of TAT’s northern region.

“People are travelling more than ever, and they are choosing to spend time either in forested areas or under the sea. Natural or green tourism industry is growing and scuba diving is now so popular that you have book a place on a boat well in advance. Social media has done a lot to promote the beauty of the waters off Thai shores and two of the top ten dive sites are in Thailand,” Alex adds.

“My aim is to build a platform that educates people about the environment, as I firmly believe that education is key to sustainable tourism. There are two groups of participants who are interested in our camps. The first is children who love nature and animals, and the second is the parents who sign up their kids for camps. That’s important because we don’t advertise the camps but rely on word of mouth,” he explains, adding that the partnership with TAT covers 15 camp activities and continues through September.

“I’m a single mother of two and am involved in the ‘New Generation Tourist Pays Attention to Environment’ campaign presented by Tik Jesdaporn,” says Somradee. “After taking part in a culture camp and a birdwatching camp, my kids lost interest in playing games on their mobile phones all the time. They had a great time at both camps and really enjoyed learning. I find they have a lot more self-discipline. Alex’s activities aren’t created just for children but also for parents and other adults. I think these activities help family relationships.”

Alex concurs. “One of our popular activities is the ‘Elephant in the Mist’ camp, where we take children walking along a nature trail in Khao Yai National Park in Nakhon Ratchasima and use instructional media for learning and analysing elephant housing and elephant saltlicks as well the history of relationships between pachyderms and man. We tell the kids to collect elephant dung and they analyse it under a microscope. Our experience shows that the youngsters develop emotional strength from this kind of outdoor activity and cultivate an environmental awareness that they will pass on to others. We also took children to a Moken village in the South and they were fascinated. They instinctively understood it was not the place to take selfies. Conservation isn’t only about the forest and sea but also about humanity.”

Set up slightly less than a year ago, Alex says he was inspired to create the Environmental Education Centre Thailand by his happy memories of some 18 years ago.

“When I was young, I got to know khru Alongkot Chukaew, an elephant expert and now a highly esteemed member of the EEC Thailand family. At that time, I went with him to the forest to help a wild elephant that had injured its leg. When we came back, we helped raise funds to purchase medications. When I grew up, I met khru Alongkot again and watched him use an elephant in the development of blind children with multiple disabilities. It was a lovely scene and made me determined to support elephant conservation. Then I had the idea of setting up a centre to educate people about conservation and as a stage to teach kids about giving. Now my aim is to mix environmental education with tourism,” he explains.

“The main focus is organising camps but we also want to promote environmental education through the social media and through collaborations with government and private organisations. We don’t expect all kids to be environmentalists but we hope to build a conscience about environmental protection. Some children tell us they want to become veterinarians or marine biologists, or maybe work with the UN. We try to help their dreams come true by facilitating innovative science camps,” he continues.

A certified divemaster, Alex instructs, tests and awards diving certificates and serves as the MC for other camps.

“With the number of celebrity influencers around, I think this year will see many more people take up scuba diving. It’s not hard to master and Thailand’s dive sites are too good to miss.”

Dig a little deeper

For more information about EEC and a schedule of upcoming camps, visit http://EECThailand.com/en/.