Extended Reality (XR) - Page 20

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.

Pico Interactive recently raised $37 million in a Series B+ financing round, ensuring the company has the capital on hand to launch its third-generation 6-DoF standalone VR headset. The company plans to launch the Pico Neo 3 in the next few months.

Pico Interactive is a small VR headset maker that largely caters to the VR industry's business side. The company makes standalone VR headsets that are used in corporate training simulations and medical applications. Pico does sell to consumers in China, but it doesn't have a consumer presence outside of the country.

With Pico's newly acquired investment, the company plans to put a larger focus on its consumer market. Pico's next headset, the Neo 3, is set to launch sometime in Q2 2021, and the company wants to capture a bigger slice of the booming consumer VR market in China.

HTC Vive dropped a bit of a tease on Twitter on Thursday. The company's social media manager released a screenshot of what appears to be a closeup of a new device with a Vive logo that we've never seen before. Is HTC about to make an announcement?

The HTC Vive Twitter page posted a screenshot of what appears to be a new Vive device on Thursday with a post saying, "It's your move." The image shows a tight closeup of a dark chrome Vive logo embedded in a black textured surface.

It's impossible to tell what the object is from the picture, but that's not stopping people from taking a guess. From the comments in the Twitter thread, it appears most people are hoping for an XR2-based standalone headset that competes with the Oculus Quest 2. Some people would also like to see a low-cost VR headset to replace the original Vive and fill the gap that the soon-to-be discontinued Rift S will create. Still, there is no shortage of cynical comments from people who don't trust Vive as a consumer brand anymore.

Vertigo Games today announced that its next VR title, After The Fall, would be launching this coming summer. And while a new game from the creator of Arizona Sunshine is exciting, it's a small detail in the press release that piqued my attention. It sounds like we have some VR headsets to look forward to soon.

Vertigo Games said that After The Fall would be available in summer 2021. As you may expect from Arizona Sunshine's creators, the game is set to launch on multiple VR platforms. Vertigo said it would support PlayStation VR and PC VR. But it's the next phrase that stood out. After the Fall is also coming to "yet to be announced VR platforms" this summer.

As of right now, we have no concrete information about any unannounced VR headsets coming down the pipeline, but there have been a handful of hints in recent months. In September, a benchmark test of an HTC headset with a Snapdragon XR2 processor leaked online. And just last week, Facebook Reality Labs hinted that a Quest Pro might be in the works.

Vertigo Games, the studio that created the smash hit Arizona Sunshine, is gearing up to release its next title. After the Fall, a post-apocalyptic co-op survival shooter is coming to VR platforms this summer.

From the name, you may expect that After the Fall is a sequel to Arizona Sunshine, but that's not the case. This is a completely new game with a completely different feel. Arizona Sunshine was a solo or co-op campaign set in a modern zombie-infested world. After the Fall is a fast-paced 4-player co-op game, like Left4Dead, set in a post-apocalyptic downtown LA overrun by undead creators called snowbreed.

Vertigo Games plans to support multiple VR platforms. The game will launch on PlayStation VR, PC VR, and "as yet unannounced headsets" with full cross-platform support between different platforms.

Valve's most recent SteamVR survey results are out, and the new numbers show fantastic growth for Oculus's install base. Quest 2 is now the most used VR headset on the SteamVR platform.

Facebook released the Oculus Quest 2 headset in October 2020. Within its short five-month existence, the Quest 2 has eclipsed the install base of every other VR headset on the market, giving Oculus a commanding lead in headsets sold.

According to Valve's data, Quest 2 owners comprise 22.91% of all SteamVR users, while another 21.58% use a Rift S headset. Oculus also owns another 13.49%, with the original Rift, and Quest headsets added. All told, Oculus is responsible for 57.98% of all VR headsets used on Valve's platform.

id Software is re-releasing one of its iconic classics for a new generation of gamers to experience. But this time, it will be more immersive than ever. Doom 3 is coming to PlayStation VR at the end of the month.

Sony today revealed Doom 3: VR Edition, a PlayStation VR exclusive version of id Software's 16-year-old Doom title. The VR Edition is a remake of the entire Doom 3 game, including the two expansion packs; Resurrection of Evil and The Lost Mission.

This isn't the first time we've seen Doom 3 in VR. In January, a modded version of Doom 3 landed on the SideQuest marketplace, allowing you to play Doom 3 on the Oculus Quest. The PSVR version is an official port from the original developer, and as such, it received a bit of a graphics overhaul for the PSVR release. id improved the textures, shaders, and sound effects to take advantage of modern graphics advancements.

Last week, Andrew "Boz" Bosworth hinted that Oculus could be building a higher-end version of the Quest that would come in at a higher price but with better specifications.

Facebook has been a leader in the VR industry ever since it threw down billions of dollars to buy Oculus in 2014. Mark Zuckerberg is famously bullish on VR, indicating on multiple occasions that he believes VR is the next great computing platform. He has also repeatedly stated that he's going after the mass market, which means focusing on lowering the barrier to entry and making VR devices affordable for the masses.

When asked about the possibility of making a Quest Pro that sells at a higher price point, Bosworth said he thought the idea was "interesting" and gave a bit of a smile and a wink. While that is far from a confirmation, the idea that Facebook could be building a higher-end Quest falls in line with Mark Zuckerberg's comments during a recent Facebook earnings call about his company's current work on headset development.

The Oculus Quest could be getting a new update this month that enables the screen to run at up to 120Hz. That would mark the second time Oculus increased the refresh rate of its mobile VR device.

Oculus released the Quest 2 in October 2020, and when it hit the market, the displays in the device operated at 72Hz. At launch, the company said that 90Hz would be supported, and true to its word, the 90Hz update rolled out in time for Christmas. At the time, John Carmack gave developers are warning that they should not set their games to operate at the highest refresh rate available, as future increases were on the table.

As recently as mid-February, Andrew "Boz" Bosworth, Head of Facebook Reality Labs, gave a literal thumbs-up to a question about Oculus Quest getting 120Hz support that he received during an Instagram-based Q&A session. Facebook's Quest development roadmap reveals that the feature is scheduled to roll out later this month.

The popular Virtual Desktop app just got a surprise update today. After more than a year of refusing to allow wireless streaming of PC VR games on the Oculus Quest through Virtual Desktop, Facebook has approved the feature and enabled it on the official Oculus store.

Guy Godin's Virtual Desktop is one of the most popular VR applications. The software has been around since the earliest days of consumer VR and its had many iterations over the years. Virtual Desktop enables you to access your Windows desktop and all its features and applications in a virtual window within a virtual environment, including PC games and other applications.

When Oculus launched the Quest back in May 2019, Virtual Desktop launched on the standalone VR platform, and with it came a unique feature that Facebook was not fond of. The Quest version of Virtual Desktop would enable you to access SteamVR content and stream it wirelessly to your Quest headset, giving you a full untethered PC VR experience. Facebook allowed Virtual Desktop to remain on the Oculus Store, but it forced the developer to remove the streaming feature.+

Valve released a significant update to the SteamVR platform on Wednesday. Steam VR version 1.16.8 now supports the OpenXR 1.0 API, giving developers an easy path for cross-platform game releases.

Khronos Group revealed the OpenXR 1.0 specifications more than a year and a half ago. It has taken a while, but VR companies are finally getting around to embracing Khronos Group's plans. The idea behind OpenXR is to remove barriers that prevent developers from supporting all VR platforms. With OpenXR, theoretically, you can build a game once and play it with any hardware through any platform.

OpenXR is an application interface layer that interprets instructions from any game engine or XR platforms, such as Unity or WebXR. The OpenXR layer translates the instructions to work with any hardware, including Oculus Quest, HTC Vive, Magic Leap, or HoloLens 2.

Qualcomm today announced the Snapdragon XR1 AR Smart Viewer reference design, which will help hardware designers create powerful AR smart glasses for the consumer and enterprise markets.

Qualcomm's new AR Smart Viewer reference design is based on the company's Snapdragon XR1 platform. But unlike the XR1 VR reference design, which places the processing power inside the headset, the AR Smart Viewer reference requires an XR1 powered host device to do the heavy lifting.

AR smart viewers differ from AR simple viewers in that they include onboard processing hardware. AR simple viewers entirely rely on the tethered host device to handle the processing. AR smart viewers split the processing load between the host device and the viewer device. Qualcomm said this approach not only increases performance but also reduces overall power consumption.

The Climb 2 is about to drop, marking Crytek's return to VR development. Oculus announced that the game would be available on March 4.

In 2016, Crytek released The Climb as a launch title for the Oculus Rift. A few months later, the company launched Robinson: The Journey on PSVR. We haven't seen a VR game from Crytek since. Until now.

Throughout 2016, the year consumer VR hit the market, Crytek struggled to pay its bills and its staff. At the end of the year, an investment from the Turkish government kept the company afloat, but the small install base kept Crytek from experimenting further with VR. After Oculus released the Quest, Crytek ported The Climb to the mobile VR system. Since then, the company built a full sequel to the VR rock climbing game.

Sony today confirmed that it is developing a new PlayStation VR headset for the PlayStation 5 console. The new device would offer better displays, a wider field of view, better tracking, and new controllers.

Sony recently launched the PlayStation 5 console, and with it came support for the existing PSVR headset. Before the launch of the PS5 console, Sony wasn't very forthright with the details about its next VR system. Until today, we didn't know for sure that Sony would carry on with VR for the new console generation. The company's executives made it seem like we wouldn't see a new headset anytime soon.

A handful of patents have been uncovered in recent months, including a design for new motion controllers that includes additional buttons and a thumbstick for each hand. The patent diagram shows a pair of wand controllers that resemble Valve's Index controllers, with a sensor-embedded halo that wraps around the wands. Sony said the new controllers would integrate features from the DuelSense wireless controllers, although it didn't elaborate on which features precisely.