Virtual & Augmented Reality and 3D

After being unceremoniously turfed from Facebook in 2017 after being "outed" as a supporter of President Trump, Oculus VR creator Palmer Luckey has returned to Meta in a different way: partnering with the company to make the best XR headsets for the US military.

The big new deal was funded through private capital, without the use of any US taxpayer funds, and has been designed to save the US military billions of dollars by using high-performance components and technology that were originally created for commercial use.

Anduril explained on its website: "This partnership comes at a pivotal moment in the evolution of national defense. America's national security has benefited from U.S. technological leadership at every phase of the computing revolution, from the first microchips and PCs to today's internet and mobile devices. As a new era of computing takes shape-built atop AI and body-worn devices-Meta and Anduril are committed to maintaining America's technological edge while reinforcing our economic and national security".

Apple has reportedly "made progress" on the next-gen chip it has been developing for its new smart glasses, which once released, will compete directly against Meta's Ray-Ban spectacles.

In a new report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, we're hearing from the usual "people with knowledge of the matter" that have said Apple has "made progress on the chip that it's developing for smart glasses".

Gurman adds that the move indicates that Apple is ramping up work on its smart glasses, and that the silicon team has become a critical piece of Apple's product development engine in recent years, which really kicked off when Apple began replacing Intel processors with its in-house A-series and M-series processors in 2020.

Apple is still hard at work on its new smart glasses codenamed N50, with a new report teasing that the device "isn't close to being ready yet" but the idea is to turn glasses into an Apple Intelligence device.

In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman writes that Apple's new smart glasses will analyze the surrounding environment, feeding information to the wearer, but Gurman notes that "it will stop well short of true augmented reality". Apple's also developing camera-equipped AirPods that have been long rumored, that "will do much the same thing".

Apple's goal is to make augmented reality glasses that act similar to how the Vision Pro headset works, and it could be one of the biggest projects the company is working on right now.

Apple is said to be working on a couple of different AR headsets: a higher-end enterprise-focused headset in a successor to Vision Pro, and a cheaper and lighter version that is reportedly called Vision Air.

The new Apple Vision Air -- which is a name I totally dig, in line with the iPad AIr, MacBook Air, etc -- is a cheaper and lighter version of the Vision Pro, with an inferior chassis, A-series SoC instead of a higher-end M-series SoC, and other downsides. But, it'll play to an audience that is far wider than the $3500+ price of the Vision Pro.

In a new post on X by tiper @Kosutami_Ito, we're hearing that the new Vision lineup is "so thin" and that it features titanium to reduce weight, including the connectors and the battery. The leaker notes that this thinner and cheaper AR headset might not be called the Vision Pro, but rather the VIsion Air.

Apple is reportedly moving fast into a lighter and more affordable Vision Pro headset, with another that will be tethered to a Mac with zero latency for the enterprise.

In his new PowerOn newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman writes that Apple had previously been working on a "more basic refresh" of the Vision Pro -- that would move from the M2 processor in the current-gen Vision Pro, to the new M5 chip without any major hardware changes -- but now, that's not happening.

Gurman writes that Apple's higher-end Vision Pro will be for high-end enterprise applications, with the idea from Apple is to reportedly create an ultra-low-latency system for streaming the display from a Mac. Some users have been using the Apple Vision Pro for things like viewing imagery during surgery, or for things like flight simulators, which are use cases where you want the least amount of lag as possible, and that's not possible with a wireless display.

For a few years now, there have been rumors surrounding Valve releasing a follow-up to the Valve Index VR headset under the codename Valve Deckard. Earlier this year, we reported on a fresh report that confirmed that the headset would be a standalone wireless all-in-one device, ala the Meta Quest 3, that would run a modified version of SteamOS optimized for the SteamVR library.

There's a lot of evidence pointing to Valve working on a second VR headset, mainly in the form of SteamVR updates mentioning the new hardware. Leaks have also showcased renders of the new controllers codenamed 'Roy,' with an insider claiming that it will offer a big screen for Steam Deck-style big-screen gaming. As an all-in-one device that won't rely on a PC with a GPU for its rendering, it will be interesting to learn what hardware will power it.

The latest leak, from @SadlyItsBradley on X, is interesting because it implies that Valve's Deckard headset is entering the manufacturing stage soon, pointing to a release that could be here later this year.

Napster has been acquired by Infinite Reality, a US-based VR company, for the sum of $207 million. The acquisition aims to leverage Napster's infrastructure as a subscription music service to build an immersive VR music platform for artists and fans.

The purchase was announced on Tuesday, with the tech startup announcing its bold plans to usher in the 'immersive era' of music. Napster's CEO, Jon Vlassopulos, wrote in a blog post:

Samsung is reportedly working on new smart glasses that will be revealed before the end of the year, with the South Korean firm rumored to be set to unveil both a glasses-type device and a head-mounted device, simultaneously, by the end of 2025.

In a new report from ETnews, we're learning from their industry sources that Samsung is developing smart glasses by the end of the year, where the smart glasses will be worn like regular glasses, showing important information or images onto the glasses, transmitting sound from the frame, too.

Each and every person has a different face structure, so Samsung is said to be putting "a lot of effort" into a human-customized design, because smart glasses are hard (or near impossible) to have physical buttons on them, the company is working on hand movements to control the cameras and sensors on their upcoming smart glasses.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 will be receiving unofficial VR support, thanks to the work of Luke Ross, a well-known VR modder who has developed a series of ports allowing players to experience popular AAA games in Virtual Reality.

His mods are often referred to as "R.E.A.L VR," with a lineup of ports that include GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077, and Horizon Zero Dawn -which have gained significant popularity and are available through his Patreon page.

Ross recently teased the mod release for Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, with footage showing off the highly acclaimed title running in VR. It's not expected that the mod will include motion controls, as Ross has highlighted in a previous blog post. But at the very least, players will be able to jump into the world of Kingdom Come with a full six degrees of freedom (the ability to physically move and turn your head in the virtual space).

Amazon is changing their product family moving forward, with higher-tier products that will better compete with Apple, and some of those new Alexa+ ready devices could include new AR (augmented reality) glasses.

In a new report from Mark Gurman on Bloomberg, we're learning that AR glasses and new "wrist-worn devices" could be part of that lineup in Amazon's future. Amazon is well aware its home robot Astro didn't sell well, with former Microsoft executive Panos Panay not ruling out that the company wouldn't push more into the robotic front, but only if he's sure that it would give customers more reason to use Alexa.

Amazon dipped its toes into the smartphone business with its Fire range of handsets, but if we use the dipping of toes into water metaphor, then piranhas devoured their foot. Gurman reports that Panay said that Amazon has no plans to develop a new smartphone, but didn't fully rule it out, Panay said: "it would be foolish of me to not step back and look at how the world's changing in front of us. You always have to evaluate".

Valve leaker @Gabe Follower shared on X that several sources have confirmed Valve's plans to launch Deckard, a standalone wireless VR headset targeting a late 2025 release. Unlike the Valve Index, Deckard will reportedly function independently without needing a PC, running on a modified version of SteamOS adapted for VR.

The leaker claims the full bundle will be priced at $1,200 and will include in-house games or demos that are already completed. Additionally, previously leaked models of new controllers (codename Roy), discovered in a SteamVR update, are cited as further evidence of Valve's ongoing VR development.

One of Deckard's key features, according to the leak, is its ability to play flat-screen Steam Deck games in VR on a big screen, potentially making it a high-end hybrid device that bridges VR and traditional gaming.

As a programmer and pioneer of the first-person shooter genre, John Carmack needs no introduction. His credits include Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Doom II: Hell on Earth, Quake, Quake II, Quake III Arena, and more. John Carmack was also instrumental in making VR gaming successful after joining Oculus in 2013 as its CTO, where he continued to drive and shape the Meta Quest platform until 2022.

With the release of a fully playable and unofficial Quake 3 VR mod by Team Beef that uses the game's free demo version as its basis for multiplayer, the quality and impressive way in which it captures the iconic shooter's feel in VR has garnered a lot of attention in the VR and classic gaming community - including John Carmack. If you ever played Quake 3 back in the day, the Quake 3 VR footage above (via @verociity on X) will bring back some fond memories.

After being asked about the port on social media platform X this past weekend and about it being made cannon (as in official), John Carmack confirmed that's precisely what he tried to do while he was at Meta. He even went so far as to promise id Software and Microsoft over one million dollars in sales for Quake 3 VR to be officially available on the Meta Store, but was still rejected.

As one of the fathers of the FPS genre and the programmer responsible for both Doom and Quake's smooth gameplay, John Carmack is an absolute legend in the game development and PC gaming community. After leaving id Software, he's probably best known for jumping in on the rise of VR gaming, joining Oculus and then, later, Meta.

John Carmack is no longer at Meta, but over the weekend, the talented programmer took to X to post his feelings on the current state of VR - specifically PC VR gaming. It's no secret that VR never quite took off in the way PC gaming handhelds have in recent years. It's still considered a niche thing to put on a headset to play a game, even heavy hitters like Half-Life: Alyx or Star Wars Squadrons.

John Carmack notes that when it comes to VR, the release of standalone all-in-one headsets like the Meta Quest was "the biggest win that VR ever had." And it was never a case of the right AAA title arriving before everybody would get into VR gaming and make it mainstream. "Beat Saber was far more important than Half-Life: Alyx," he adds.

Apple is being very cautious with its next move in the headset market, after its insanely expensive flop in the Vision Pro.

In his new PowerOn newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman explains that Apple is still hard at work on a new pair of AR glasses, with Apple's Vision Products Group boss, John Ternus, not wanting another (expensive) flop on his hands in a post-Vision Pro world.

Gurman explained: "As I reported last month, Apple recently scrapped plans for augmented reality glasses that would tether to a Mac. This device wasn't the dream AR glasses that everyone is waiting for, but it might have served as a nice stopgap product".

Apple has reportedly axed plans to build advanced AR glasses that would've paired with the iPhone and Mac, adding another notch to the company's headset failures in a post-Vision Pro headset world.

In a new report from Mark Gurman on Bloomberg, Apple shuttered the program this week, with the "now-canceled product would have looked like normal glasses but include built-in displays and require a connection to a Mac, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the work wasn't public. An Apple representative declined to comment".

Apple launched its expensive, controversial Vision Pro headset for $3499 to not-so-great headlines, hoping to make a headset that everyday users could use, with a cheaper price tag. Meta has been selling its Ray-Ban smart glasses, with the company moving into a version that adds AR (augmented reality) and will reportedly have AR glasses on the market by 2027, which is when Apple had expected to launch its codenamed N107 headset.

Pimax has just teased the design and specs of its upcoming Pimax Dream Air VR headset, in a beautiful small-and-thin headset that rocks an 8K panel offering 27 million pixels, head, hand, and eye-tracking, integrated spatial audio, DisplayPort connectivity, and a self-adjusting backstrap. Check it out:

The new Pimax Dream Air is a PCVR headset, borrowing a bunch of components from the previously announced Crystal Super, including the micro-OLED panels and pancake lenses, but crams it into a small form factor headset. There's a new design language, which signals the small form factor era for Pimax.

The company says that while the Crystal Super excels as the ultimate PCVR headset for seated simulation experiences like flight and racing games, the new Pimax Dream Air is tailored to active VR users, with its portability and lightweight design perfect for VRChat, room-scale VR, and entertainment on-the-go.

Apple's next-gen Vision Pro headset could feature an in-house 5G modem, with smart glasses expected to ship with a 5G modem in the coming years.

In a new report from insider Mark Gurman on Bloomberg, we're learning that the Apple Vision Pro successor launching in 2025 with the company's new M5 processor, will NOT ship with an in-house 5G modem. However, in future-gen Apple AR glasses we could expect a 5G modem, and a future Vision Pro successor of the future with a built-in 5G modem (because we all want, or need it.. Apple being Apple).

Apple's future AR glasses will most likely tether to an iPhone which will have a 5G modem inside, with the company's in-house 5G modem expected to beat the 5G champion -- Qualcomm -- with its future-gen iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max smartphones which should debut with mmWave baseband chips.

Apple has reportedly sold just 500,000 units of its expensive Vision Pro headset since its launch earlier this year.

In his new PowerOn newsletter, insider Mark Gurman explains that current Vision Pro customers aren't using the $3500 headset anywhere near as much as Apple expected, and that it's a growing problem that's not affecting just Apple, but the likes of Meta and other headset makers.

Gurman explained in his PowerOn newsletter: "Since the Vision Pro went on sale in February, I'm told that the company has sold fewer than half a million units. And a large number of Vision Pro buyers (those who haven't returned it) aren't using the product as much as Apple anticipated, according to internal data gathered by the company".

We've previously covered Virtuix's Omni One, a full-body VR system that offers 360-degree movement because you're on a treadmill. It solves one of the key issues of VR gaming: being able to move around freely when confined to limited space.

The Omni One, priced at $3,495, is a complete system that includes a Pico 4 Enterprise headset with an impressive 4K 4320 × 2160 (1200 PPI) resolution, 90Hz refresh rate support, and the Snapdragon XR2 chipset. It is an all-in-one system, ala the Meta Quest, with its games, storefront, and library, while also being able to connect a PC and access SteamVR.

That brings us to the Omni One Core, which brings the same immersive full 360-degree movement and freedom as the Omni One system for PC gamers who already have a VR headset with controllers.

Microsoft has announced that it's bringing support for Meta's VR headsets to Windows 11.

As part of the Ignite conference, Microsoft showed off the Meta Quest 3 and Quest 3S running Windows 11, featuring an array of massive virtual monitors, overlaid on real-world surroundings - check out the above launch video from YouTube.

You can stream your local Windows 11 desktop PC to the VR headset, or a Windows 365 Cloud PC for when you're not in your office or at home.