Virtual & Augmented Reality and 3D News - Page 14

Varjo just revealed that it would be announcing a new product later this month. The company hasn't revealed any details at all, but it is making it seem like this will be a big deal.

Varjo is a long-time player in the enterprise XR space. The company is best known for making headsets with some of the most advanced technology available. They're also known for making headsets that cost as much as $10,000 per unit. Varjo's claim to fame is its bionic display technology, which embeds a micro OLED screen inside a larger LCD for incredible image clarity in your central focus area.

Varjo's most advanced device is the XR-3 headset, which includes dual Lidar cameras for stereoscopic passthrough and depth scanning. We have no idea what Varjo's upcoming announcement is, but the event signup page makes it seem like we're looking at a forthcoming headset announcement.

Varjo is building mixed reality tools that can bring physical objects into view in virtual experiences through its flagship XR-3 headset. The blending of reality with the virtual unlocks new possibilities for training and entertainment.

Varjo this week showed off a new real-time masking feature for its XR-3 headset, which will be part of the company's upcoming Varjo Lab Tools update. Varjo's real-time masking feature makes it possible to blend any physical object with a virtual experience to create new immersive interactions.

The next Varjo Lab Tools update will give developers the ability to map 3D vertices to physical objects to create a passthrough mask for the lidar cameras on the headset. The company's Varjo Marker tool enables you to anchor the traced mask to the object's physical shape, which allows you to move it around and have the passthrough camera track the changes.

The Oculus Quest 2 is one of the best-selling VR devices ever, and it's arguably the best thing that's happened to consumer VR. On the other side of that token, Facebook's integration with the Oculus platform and its walled garden is arguably the worst thing that has happened to consumer VR. With Oculess, you can have the best of both worlds.

Oculess is a free utility that you can download from Github that enables you to break your Quest 2 free from Facebook's clutches. The utility allows you to log out of Facebook to disable the Oculus Companion, disable telemetry, and disable future updates. Thank you, user basti564, for the contribution!

The idea of severing ties with Facebook's servers will undoubtedly appeal to many people. However, it's important to note that doing so comes with sacrifices. If you run Oculess on your headset, you will lose access to the Oculus storefront. You will need to sideload all of your content from other sources, like SideQuest. You will also lose the social features of the Quest 2. PC VR will still work through Oculus Link, but you will need to sign in to the Oculus desktop app for that to work.

The Kickstarter campaign for the Lynx R1 AR/VR headset went live on Tuesday, and it's off to a great start. The company nearly met its goals in less than 12 hours.

The Kickstarter campaign for the Lynx R1 AR/VR headset is almost fully funded and it has been less than 12 hours.

The Lynx R1 is a new standalone headset from a France startup that offers virtual and augmented reality technology. The R1 is powered by a Snapdragon XR2 SoC, which puts its potential performance on par with the Oculus Quest 2, Pico Neo 3, and Vive Focus 3 headsets. The headset includes 6GB of memory, 128GB of storage, and a microSD card slot for expansion.

HTC Vive's next digital event is coming up on October 14, and it looks like the company has something special to reveal. Could it be an update to Project Proton?

The VR and XR markets are starting to heat up lately, with leaks and announcements coming left and right. Oculus is grabbing lots of attention lately as it leads up to the Facebook Connect conference, but HTC's event is coming first, and the company doesn't want you to forget about it.

Earlier this week, HTC Vive's Twitter account shared a crudely photoshopped image of a black cylindrical case sitting on a desk next to someone using a laptop. The post said only 10.14.21 vive.com #gowiththeflow.

Facebook is about to breathe new life into its discontinued Oculus Go headset. The company is getting ready to release an unlocked build of the Go's operating system so tinkers and hobbyists can keep these headsets out of our landfills.

Facebook discontinued the Oculus Go headset nearly two years ago, and it stopped accepting new app submissions for the platform at the end of last year. Until this week, it seemed like the Go was destined to become nothing but e-waste very soon. However, there's a fresh start ahead for the Oculus Go.

On Friday, John Carmack, Oculus Consulting CTO, revealed that Facebook would soon release an unlocked version of the Go OS to give developers and hobbyists a chance to keep the party going for 3-DoF VR experiences long after the Oculus servers are shut down.

Someone with access to Facebook's unreleased hardware might be in trouble right now. Last week, a pair of screen captures depicting a new set of Oculus controllers popped on Imgur, and there's a good chance they belong to the rumored Quest Pro headset.

The leaked screenshots appear to depict a modified Quest 2 Touch controller. The controller's shell is the standard white color of the Quest 2, and it has the same trigger and side grip buttons as the Quest 2 controller.

A notable difference between this leaked controller and the standard Quest 2 controllers is the lack of a tracking halo. Since the first generation, Oculus Touch controllers have always featured a halo that wraps around your hand and houses the tracking LEDs. This new controller doesn't have a tracking halo. Instead, it appears to have embedded cameras for spatial tracking.

DecaGear is preparing to release the details about its upcoming VR motion controllers. The company posted a screenshot early Friday morning showing off the new design and hinting at a few details.

DecaGear popped up out of nowhere about a year ago with a bold claim of releasing a biometric-enabled VR headset. The DecaGear 1 is scheduled to launch early next year with a built-in face tracking sensor and eye-tracking cameras. The new headset will also include a DecaMove locomotion controller and a pair of wand controllers.

DecaGear's new controller design borrows several features from Valve's Index controllers. The controllers feature thumbsticks and two face buttons on each side, which has become a standard input layout for VR controllers. The face of each controller also includes a menu button, which may support fingerprint scanning. DecaGear said that the menu button would eliminate the need for passwords, but it didn't specify how.

Facebook has temporarily stopped shipping the Oculus Quest 2 headset. The company said it would resume shipments in August with a new 128GB model. Every Quest 2 headset will also include a silicone cover.

Late last year, Facebook revealed that it was investigating reports of skin irritationcaused by the face cushion on the Oculus Quest 2 headset. The company said it had received reports from a small fraction of its customers of mild skin irritation caused by the Quest 2 headset.

To remedy the situation, Facebook announced a global voluntary recall for the original foam cushion, giving existing Quest 2 owners the option to claim a medical-grade silicone cover that won't trigger any allergies and is easy to wipe clean.

The Oculus Quest 2 is less than a year old, but already it seems like Facebook is getting ready to phase out the smaller version for a slightly larger capacity headset. Facebook may soon replace the Quest 2 64GB with a 128GB option.

Currently, Facebook offers two models of the Quest 2 standalone VR headset. Both versions have the exact performance specifications and features, aside from the storage capacity. The entry model includes 64GB of storage, which is not a lot for a system with games that range from 1GB to 10GB in size. The larger 256GB option carries a $100 higher price tag, making it less accessible and less attractive to new buyers.

A series of leaked images may indicate that Facebook is attempting to sweeten the deal a little bit. Multiple images of a 128GB Quest 2 headset have surfaced online. A pair of pictures on Imgur shows what appears to be new retail packaging for the larger headset. UploadVR noticed a French game news website called GAMERGEN found a retail listing for the 128GB version, which carried the same price as the current 64GB model.