Virtual & Augmented Reality News - Page 1

After a month of delays, VR Cover has finally opened sales for its highly anticipated Oculus Quest 2 cushion replacement system. If you order one now, you should have it in time for the holidays.

VR Cover is calling the Facial Interface & Foam Replacement for Quest 2 its most exciting product yet. We're not sure how to quantify that, but we're sure it will sell like crazy. VR Cover has been around for longer than consumer VR headsets and it's easily the top name in sanitary VR upgrades. VR Cover's recognition, combined with its official partnership with Oculus, should entice many people to upgrade their Quest 2 headset.

As the name suggests, the VR Cover Facial Interface & Foam Replacement for Quest 2 is an aftermarket replacement for the factory cushion interface. The Quest 2 doesn't have a Velcro-attached cushion; it has a removable plastic bracket, not unlike that of the Rift, with a glued-on cushion. As such, the VR Cover replacement includes the whole plastic bracket interface. VR Cover's solution adds a Velcro layer that allows you to swap cushions as needed.

The global pandemic has claimed another business victim: it forced Intel to shut down its 10,000 square foot mixed reality film studio. It was the biggest and most ambitious project of its kind globally, and it's no longer a thing.

Intel opened Intel Studios in 2018 and operated the facility for a little over two years. It was a 10,000 square foot green screen dome designed for capturing volumetric video. Intel equipped the facility with over 100 8K cameras and an Intel-powered server farm to process the captured footage.

Intel Studios played host to several projects in the two years it operated, including music videos and stage performances. The resulting footage was used to create immersive AR and VR experiences. Sadly, Intel's corporate leadership set a mandate that Intel Studios must become self-sustainable and profitable, and the current global situation has made that impossible.

StarVR released the StarVR One ultrawide VR headset earlier this year, but it was available for businesses only at launch. The headset still isn't a consumer device, but hardcore sim hobbyists are now welcome to buy one.

StarVR had a long journey to bring its headset to market. The company first revealed the StarVR One prototype in 2015, when it toured several gaming events, including E3, showing off Overkill's The Walking Dead experience. The StarVR headset never came to the consumer market, but it has been available to select corporate customers since June of this year.

StarVR still doesn't offer the StarVR One headset to regular consumers, but the company is loosening its grip on the business requirement. StarVR announced that it would now accept requests for its headset from simulation racers. The StarVR One is now compatible with the most popular racing simulation games on the market. It was already supported in Project Cars 2, and now it works with iRacing and Assetto Corsa.

Last week Oculus announced that it would be giving away copies of Asgard's Wrath to Quest 2 owners who activate their headset between November 20 and January 31 and then plug it into a computer for Oculus Link. Now that promotion is available to all Quest 2 owners.

The new promotion, which Oculus launched to celebrate the first anniversary of Oculus Link, caught more negative attention than the company probably expected. The idea of giving a free game as a Black Friday sale would make sense, but that's not really what Oculus is doing here, and it appears the company now agrees.

Oculus Link is a way for Quest 2 owners to use their headset as a PC VR system, a great feature, but it's hardly a mainstream use for a Quest 2 headset. The average Quest 2 buyer is more interested in the console-like nature of the standalone VR device. Those people may need some enticement like a free game to pique their interest, but a PC VR title probably isn't the right piece of content for that crowd.

Oculus is celebrating the 1st anniversary of Oculus Link with a new promotion. If you activate a new Oculus Quest 2 between November 20 and January 31 and plug it into your PC to try Oculus Link, Oculus will give you a free copy of one of the best PC VR games on the Oculus platform: Asgard's Wrath.

Asgard's Wrath is a first-person VR action-RPG based on Norse Mythology, and it met critical acclaim when it launched last year. As Oculus put it, Asgard's Wrath is an "ambitious dungeon crawler" and "one of the most fully-realized VR worlds to-date." It's genuinely a must-try for anyone who owns a gaming computer and a compatible VR headset.

The process for claiming your copy of the game is simple. Activate a new Quest 2 between now and January 31, install the Oculus PC app on a compatible computer, and use a compatible USB-C cable to connect the two. Once you've done that, you should see Asgard's Wrath in your Rift library.

Kat VR is gearing up to release Loco S, the second-generation of its wearable VR locomotion sensors, and you can pre-order them now.

Kat VR is no stranger to the VR locomotion game. The company started off making omnidirectional treadmills for the VR arcade industry and VR enthusiasts. It now offers a handful of products for gamers and professionals alike.

Kat VR Loco S is an updated version of the original Kat VR Loco sensors, which allows you to control your movement in VR games by walking in place. The kit includes three sensors that you attach to your body; one for each foot, and one for your waist, which tracks your movements relative to a basestation receiver.

HTC just released a set of new enterprise features for its ageing Vive Focus Plus standalone VR headset. The company clearly still sees value for businesses in its all-in-one device.

HTC released the Vive Focus Plus in April 2019, which was an iterative update to the original Vive Focus. The Plus model added two 6-DoF motion controllers to the package and a slightly redesigned face cushion. The Vive Focus lineup never caught hold in the North American market, but it's pretty popular in Asia. With the latest update, HTC is hoping to attract the interest of more businesses.

HTC's new Vive Focus Plus update includes new security and device management features and integrations that would enable large businesses to manage their Focus Plus headset. The new update adds support for VMware and Mobileiron remote device management. The new update also makes it possible to connect the Vive Focus Plus to a corporate VPN for secure access to company network infrastructure.

JVC Kenwood, a company most known for its audio products, such as car stereos, headphones, home audio speakers, is apparently building a mixed reality headset and the specifications are kind of incredible.

It's taken a while for the news to make its way stateside, but JVC Kenwood revealed the upcoming headset to the Japanese tech press members in late October. Road to VR picked caught the news today, but the original story hails from Mogura VR, a Japanese VR publication.

According to Mogura, JVC's upcoming mixed reality headset will have display specifications that rival the best VR headsets. The unnamed JVC headset is said to feature dual 2560 x 1440 displays, giving the headset a total resolution of 5120 x 1440, which is the same resolution as the Pimax 5K+.

The Star Wars franchise has always been part of virtual reality. The Trials on Tatooine experience was one of the first pieces of content available for the Rift and Vive back in 2016. Since then, we've seen several new experiences on many VR platforms, including PC VR, standalone VR, and even exclusive arcade content.

Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge is ILMxLAB's latest VR experience, and this one looks to be a much more ambitious project than past endeavours. The game takes place "hundreds of years" before the events of The Phantom Menace, on a remote planet called Batuu. In this game, you play a droid repair technician who needs to escape the clutches of ship pirates.

Later you'll take on the role of Jedi Padawan Ady Sun'Zee, who gets to fight alongside Master Yoda himself. You'll also meet C-3P0 voice by none other than Frank Oz, who voices the movie's character.

Cybershoes today launched its Kickstarter campaign to help fund the production of Cybershoes for Oculus Quest. The company was looking for $30,000 to get the ball rolling, and it crushed that goal within a matter of hours.

Cybershoes, if you're not aware, is a physical locomotion solution for virtual reality games. The Cybershoes system includes a pedestal seat with a 360-degree swivel rotation, a circular carpet to place under the chair, and a particular sandal-like peripheral with rollers on the bottom. The wireless version also includes a receiver box that mounds to the Quest headset.

The Cybershoes peripheral has existed for a while for PC VR. Still, last month the company announced that it would create a wireless version of Cybershoes for the standalone Oculus Quest. Earlier today, the campaign launched, and in less than 10-hours, it had accumulated the $30,000 needed to fund the project.