Virtual & Augmented Reality News - Page 1

Pico Interactive just announced the Neo 3, its third-generation 6-DoF standalone VR headset. The company has a significant presence in the enterprise market. The Neo 3 is the company's most significant push to capture the consumer market, but only in Asia. At least for now.

Pico Interactive's new headset is a 6DoF standalone VR device with inside-out tracking with four cameras and two optically tracked controllers. The headset is powered by Qualcomm's XR2 SoC platform and supports the Wi-Fi 6 standard.

The headset also bears an uncanny resemblance to theOculus Quest 2 equipped with an Elite head strap. The headset shares a similar oblong shape with two cameras facing forward and to the ground and two cameras are facing up to the corners, just like the Quest 2 design. The Neo 3 also has a rounded head strap attachment that looks a lot like the swappable attachment on the Quest 2. Pico also said the Neo 3 has three IPD settings, also like the Quest 2.

Facebook Reality Labs announced that the next update for Oculus Quest 2, v28, would introduce three new features to make the headset even more compelling. The company plans to unlock 120Hz mode, introduce the Infinite Office VR productivity solution, and enable native wireless PC VR through Air Link.

Oculus had previously announced Infinite Office, a productivity solution that enables you to use your Quest 2 headset as your work-from-anywhere computer. It allows you to create a virtual computing space with access to windowed web browsers, document creation tools, and chat communication apps.

Most importantly, Infinite Office enables you to bring your real keyboard into VR environments and allows you to see it through your Quest headset. You can pair the Logitech K830 Bluetooth keyboard to your Quest to enable this feature. Along with keyboard tracking, the new update will allow the Quest 2 to track your desk space and integrate it with your safety boundaries.

HTC recently launched a set of Vive-branded VR accessories, but it isn't done with the new announcements yet. It is now dropping hints that there's a new headset on the way.

HTC's marketing team had some fun on Friday. The HTC Vive Twitter account dropped a very dark image of a closeup of what appears to be an inside-out tracking camera on the edge of a headset.

The shot is cropped too tight, and the image has too much contrast to see any meaningful details. Attempts to enhance the image have been fruitless in uncovering anything else. Meanwhile, HTC also released a teaser on the Vive Blog, which cheekily confirms that a new headset is imminent.

HTC has not confirmed any details about this mysterious new headset. The VR headset market could use a Quest 2 competitor, and HTC is due to a refresh to the Vive Focus lineup. Hopefully, this device will be a consumer product, not a business-only headset like the Vive Focus. We should know more soon. When HTC started teasing the new Vive Tracker and Facial Tracker accessories, it was just a matter of days before the formal reveal.

HP this week revealed the price of its upcoming Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition. The new enterprise-focused VR headset includes various biometric sensors that are not included with the standard Reverb G2, and they come at a high cost.

HP first revealed the Omnicept Edition of its Reverb G2 VR headset in September of last year. The headset is based on the HP Reverb G2, which features dual 4K displays and Valve's over-the-ear speaker solution. The Omnicept Edition builds on that base and adds several biometric sensors to unlock advanced features for business uses.

The Omnicept Edition includes a pair of eye-tracking sensors from Tobii, which enable features like foveated rendering for improved performance. The eye-tracking sensors can also provide useful information about the user's level of focus and attention. HP also included a heartrate monitor, which in conjunction with the eye-tracker, can help determine a user's cognitive load level.

Spatial today announced a major update to its virtual collaboration platform that enables more realistic virtual environments modelled from real-world locations. The company is also making Spatial available for new devices to make the platform accessible to almost anyone.

Spatial started life as an augmented reality co-location system that would enable anyone with a Hololens or Magic Leap headset to meet remotely with other people with AR devices. The system includes a virtual avatar that can be projected into a remote location. If you want to get fancy, you could even use a 3D scan of your body as your avatar.

Now you can get even fancier by bringing scanned objects and environments into the mix. The new Spatial update enables you to bring high-fidelity LiDAR scans into the platform, which you can use to recreate real-world environments to use as virtual meeting places. You can also import virtual copies of real objects into your virtual meeting space, making virtual collaboration feel a bit closer to the real thing.

Tundra Labs launched its Kickstarter campaign for its Tundra Tracker SteamVR tracking pucks on March 29, and within a matter of hours, the company had raised more than double its original goal. With 59 more days to go, this fundraising campaign is off to a roaring start.

Tundra Labs revealed the Tundra Trackers, an alternative to HTC's Vive Tracker hardware, late last year. Tundra Trackers a smaller and lighter than even HTC's newly revised Vive Tracker 3.0. These smaller trackers also sip less power than Vive Trackers, giving them longer battery life to the tune of up to 7-hours of use between charges.

The appetite for Tundra Labs' tiny tracking pucks is significant. The company was looking for $250,000 to fund the manufacturing of the hardware. The Kickstarter campaign secured pledges for more than $500,000 from backers in less than six hours.

HTC designed the new Vive Facial Tracker accessory exclusively for the company's Vive Pro lineup of headsets. Still, as soon as reviewers and developers got their hands-on the hardware, they mounted the face tracker to all sorts of headsets. HTC quickly moved to support the VR community.

The Vive Facial Tracker is an exciting advancement in immersive gaming. The device tracks the movement of your mouth, cheeks, and tongue and the accompanying software maps those movements to your virtual avatar. When HTC revealed the Vive Facial Tracker, the company said it would only work with the Vive Pro. That, however, is only half true. The tracker will work with any device; it's just designed to attach to the Vive Pro's outer structure.

Several people have created custom mounting solutions to pair the tracker with headsets, such as the Oculus Quest 2 or the Valve Index. After seeing the VR community's ingenuity and their excitement for the facial tracker, HTC decided to release a 3D CAD file to help more enterprising creators design more effective mounting solutions.

Newly published patents from Valve Corporation reveal some of the design ideas that Valve has been toying with for future VR headsets. The company has been working on improving comfort and cutting cords.

Hat tip goes out to RoadtoVR for discovering a patent application from Valve Corporation that was just published on March 18. The patent was initially filed in September of last year, which indicates these are design ideas that came after launching the Index in 2019.

The patent application primarily focuses on head strap design. The patent depicts several head strap designs that incorporate a mechanical actuator adjust for the upper strap. There's a design with a dial on top of the upper strap, which replaces the Velcro strap found on the Index headset. That design also incorporates a new rear cushion that features a hinge to better conform to the shape of the wearer's head.

Sony recently announced that it is working on a successor to its PSVR headset, and today we got our first real taste of what's to come. The company revealed details about the controllers that will pair with the next headset. It looks like Sony's VR team has been putting a lot of thought into its next hardware generation.

Sony describes the controllers as "orb shape." They feature a halo that you stick your hands through to reach the handles. Sony said this design helps keep the controllers "well-balanced and comfortable to hold."

Sony's new PSVR controllers share many features from the PS5 DualSense controller, including adaptive triggers, high-fidelity haptic feedback, as well as familiar face buttons and analog sticks for each hand. The controllers will also include grip buttons, which replace the L1 and R1 shoulder buttons from the DualSense controllers.

HTC just announced two new products in its Vive VR hardware lineup. The company is releasing a revised Vive Tracker, and it just introduced a facial expression tracking camera.

HTC's new Vive Tracker 3.0 is a significant change from the previous generation tracking pucks. The Vive Tracker 1.0 and 2.0 are virtually the same, with the only real difference being the device's tracking sensors. The Vive Tracker 3.0 is a complete redesign from the ground up.

The new tracker is smaller, lighter, and offers dramatic battery life improvements. HTC said the new Vive Tracker is 33% smaller than the previous models, which resulted in a 15% reduction in overall weight. The batteries in the Vive Tracker 3.0 provide up to 75% more runtime per charge, which gives you up to 7-hours of use per charge.