Extended Reality (XR) - Page 46

Samsung has been working with Oculus very closely since the early DK1/DK2 days on VR HMD technology, with Oculus contributing to Samsung's own GearVR platform. But now, there's news that Samsung is working on a higher-end VR headset that could compete directly against the Rift.

Samsung is reportedly working on a higher-end VR headset called 'Odyssey' with it being spotted in Korean trademark filings, but unlike the Rift and HTC Vive, it won't need a PC to run. It would work on its own, which makes it quite an interesting device indeed.

The trademark filings were discovered by GalaxyClub, with listings for VR games and glasses. There's nothing else known, so we can't tell you much more. But if Samsung doesn't need a PC to run it, are we looking at Odyssey using a Galaxy smartphone of some kind? Or will Samsung jump right into the VR game with its own device that doesn't require a smartphone and runs completely independent? Because if so, that could really change the game - having a company as large as Samsung release a standalone high-end VR headset, would do an Apple and change everything.

Google has reportedly been working on a secret VR project that would compete against the likes of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, but according to the latest reports the company isn't doing that - and that VR project has been scrapped.

In its place, Recode reports that Google has a small team working on a dedicated headset that "blurs the line between virtual reality and augmented reality", reports Engadget. Recode reports that around 50 people were working inside of Google X lab on a standalone VR headset with a unique operating system, but this project has been scrapped.

Instead, Google has been assigning individual employees to work on a high-end headset, with some people inside of Google being told that Daydream, Google's mobile VR platform, isn't part of the Mountain View-based giants long-term plans for VR and AR. Daydream is a smaller step towards AR and VR dominance for Google, with sources saying the new headset won't require a PC or a smartphone to power it.

Oculus has provided support for multiple tracking cameras in its new Oculus Home v1.6 update, with the new firmware supporting up to four tracking cameras - but why are four tracking cameras needed? For the upcoming Touch controllers from Oculus, that's why.

Multiple tracking cameras will provide better hand-tracking for the Touch controllers in the VR world, providing much more immersive and realistic experiences compared to the Xbox One controller included with the Rift. You don't need to buy three more cameras, you can use a two camera setup that would provide the same room-scale VR experience that HTC offers with the Vive, by default.

Oculus Rift owners can now grab another camera or three, and have room-scale VR ready for the Touch controllers to be released later this year.

Oculus has no firm release date for its Touch controller for the Rift headset, with a Q4 release window, but now we know the company is shipping over 5000 Oculus Touch developer kits to any developers.

The "unexpected component shortage" which affected the first waves of Rift headsets saw months of delay for Rift consumers, has the company now "on track to launch Touch and introduce true hand presence along with an amazing lineup of games and experiences later this year", reports Road to VR.

Oculus Touch developer kits won't be available to the public like the first DK1 and DK2 headsets were, with Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe tweeting earlier this week that "thousands of Touch dev kits are going to developers now". One suspicious Twitter user asked Iribe in a tweet: "Thousands, you certain its not hundreds? This sounds very unrealistic considering you mentioned developers", to which Iribe replied "well over 5,000 will be sent to developers before the consumer version ships".

Valve and HTC released the Vive headset just a few months ago, and have quickly become the favorite VR headset amongst VR enthusiasts and gamers. To add fuel to the fire, rumors are suggesting Valve and HTC are getting ready to announce a next-gen Vive headset, with an updated "HTC Vive 2.0" in the works.

It would be foolish to think HTC and Valve aren't working on a successor to the Vive, but another generation ahead of Oculus before Oculus has its Touch controllers in consumers' hands? That's a new reality, and according to suppliers of HTC, it's going to happen in the next 6-8 months with a new sleeker design, and upgraded components.

Reports are suggesting a new Vive 2.0 headset will be released late this year, or early 2017. If the rumors are true, HTC and Valve could really begin to dominate the VR market since the Oculus Rift isn't room scale, and the Touch controllers aren't out yet. The company has been facing consumer backlash over its various DRM efforts, with the company rewinding on promises it made before the Rift manifested into reality.

With the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets already out with PC gamers enjoying them, Sony is behind the game after it delayed its PlayStation VR headset to October 13, 2016.

Well, it might play in their favor as Sony delayed PSVR to allow developers to make more software and games before it released its VR headset. During an interview with GameReactor, Sony's Jim Ryan explained: "It's a completely correct observation. It's one of the reasons we're launching in October, rather than the initially stated window of the first half of calendar 2016. You know, rather than meet our promise previously made, for us just to wait those few extra months and ensure that the software is there is really important".

He continued: "We stated that we'll have fifteen games between the launch and Christmas. There's a whole range of genres, a whole range of big games, little games, digital games...The statements that were made at the E3 2016 conference, with these big franchises coming to PS VR (Star Wars, Batman, Final Fantasy XV, Resident Evil 7), these are heavyweight franchises and to have them coming to the PlayStation VR really quite quickly, I think it makes a big statement".

Rick and Morty fans listen up! The show's co-creator, Justin Roiland, has been working on multiple VR projects for a while now, but it looks like San Diego Comic-Con 2016 could be the time that he teases a Rick and Morty VR experience.

On a post on Toucan, the official Comic-Con blog, reader Lenny Glionna spotted a mention of a Rick and Morty Virtual Reality experience that will take place during the 'Adult Swim on the Green' event during SDCC 2016. The post was swiftly updated, with the mention of the Rick and Morty VR experience removed. It could've been a mistake, but if it was real - it would be pretty kick ass.

As for Roiland, he has been a big advocator of VR - stating he has been working on an "original HTC Vive game" and that he "will get funding" for it. He said he's "five months into designing/writing/developing" the game, back on June 10, 2016.

AMD is betting big on virtual reality, but not just in the gaming space. AMD's Roy Taylor has been evangelizing VR to anyone who will listen, and that includes a spate of major Hollywood movie studios. The company has even opened an office in Los Angeles dedicated to helping the movie industry move toward VR, and assisting Hollywood with the technical hurdles of integrating it into as a new storytelling medium.

Their partnership with the VR Society makes perfect sense, as that organization's goal is to "accelerate the transformation, innovation and profitability of the Virtual Reality Content, Distribution and Technology Business." Together, AMD and the VR Society are producing "VR On The Lot," a two-day content and technology summit hosted this October at Paramount Studios.

By the numbers, VR On The Lot will comprise 20 keynote speakers including Roy Taylor and special effects wizard Robert Stromberg (Pirates of the Caribbean, Avatar, The Martian VR Experience), 1000 Hollywood and VR industry leaders, and 40 VR companies. But it's also set to be the home for several world premiere VR demos from major Hollywood studios like Marvel, LucasFilm, The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros, and 20th Century Fox.

Codemasters' Dirt Rally is one of the most exhilarating racing games I've ever played, so I'm excited that a VR version is coming to an HMD near you in the very near future. NVIDIA just sent word that we'll be able to play a "custom-built virtual reality version" on the Oculus Rift, and that their latest Game Ready WQHL driver (368.69) is locked and loaded with full support for an optimized experience.

From NVIDIA's latest blog post, it sounds like the launch of a standalone version of Dirt Rally VR is imminent on the Oculus Home store (considering their driver is already available for download). For existing owners of the game on Steam, a free update is headed your way this month, though no exact date was given.

My only reservation about Dirt Rally VR is that I've yet to experience a cockpit racer in VR that felt truly immersive. Space sims like Elite Dangerous and EVE Valkyrie have nailed the format, but VR has felt a bit tacked on with traditional racers. Here's to hoping Codemasters gets it right. If they do, those hairpin rights are going to be downright harrowing.

I really love seeing these 'only in Japan' news articles, but the latest is a gold mine. Japan has hosted their first-ever VR porn festival, but it ended prematurely as there were too many people trying to enter the building.

At the VR porn festival, companies were showing off the latest and greatest adult entertainment content in VR, with the festival featuring some of the most unique "accessories" to ever be made. Some of these included a rubberized, moving hand that is attached to a machine, while another is a scary looking blow up doll that doesn't have arms, legs or even a head - well now, Japan.

Hatenblog reported on VR Talk, in a translated post that read: "The event didn't start until 2pm, so I went there in high spirits an hour before then, but the city was already overflowing with people. There were so many that it was almost impossible to keep the situation under control. While waiting for my friends, I couldn't help but think that if they couldn't control the mass of people, a riot or something similar could happen. The 20 lucky guys closest to the building were let in by the staff".

Valve's new Steam survey for June 2016 revealed that 56% of gamers are using an NVIDIA GeForce video card of some kind, while AMD Radeon cards are used by 25% - and it also saw Windows 10 become the most-used OS by Steam gamers, with 40% of gamers using Microsoft's latest and greatest OS.

But what about VR? The latest Steam survey has 66% of gamers using the HTC Vive, while just 27.7% of gamers are using the Oculus Rift. The Oculus Rift DK2 headset is still being used, for now at least, by 6.2% of gamers - but these numbers are dropping every week.

Personally, I own both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift and would always recommend people to buy the HTC Vive. It's a better VR experience thanks to the room scale technology, while the Rift is a seated only experience - for now at least, and even with the upcoming Touch controllers, you'll just be standing around with the Touch controllers, not walking around the room enjoying the VR experience.

I recently wrote about popular stock photo company Getty creating their own VR group and breaking it in by sending their photographers to the 2016 Rio Olympics. Well, Samsung and NBC are delivering the kind of Olympics experience we VR enthusiasts have all been craving: 85 hours of sportsing awesomeness viewable in virtual reality.

"The world's greatest sporting event is always a showcase for cutting edge technology, and we're thrilled to partner with Samsung and OBS to bring our viewers even closer to compelling Olympic action with virtual reality," said Gary Zenkel, President, NBC Olympics. "Olympic fans can be transported to iconic venues such as Maracana Stadium for an unprecedented view of the Opening Ceremony, and Copacabana Beach for an immersive beach volleyball experience in the sport's ultimate setting."

The 85 hours of content will be viewable exclusively on Samsung phones compatible with the Gear VR headset (Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+ and Galaxy Note 5), via the NBC Sports app. As for the specifics of the programming, we'll be treated to the opening and closing ceremonies, men's basketball (including the semifinals and final), gymnastics, track & field, beach volleyball, diving, boxing, and fencing.

HTC has just doubled down on VR once again, if it didn't already with owning the room scale VR scene with its HTC Vive headset - announcing the Virtual Reality Venture Capital Alliance at GSMA Mobile World Congress in Shanghai, China earlier today.

The newly-formed VRVCA will see 30 VR investment companies all join forces to help fund startup companies that are working on not just VR content, but augmented and mixed reality, too. Alvin Wang Graylin, the President of VR at HTC China sits as the president of VRVCA, with the Vive division of HTC dedicated, alongside Immersion Ventures, The VR Fund and Colopl VR Fund. At their disposal, is a huge $10 billion in "deployable capital" between the 30 investors.

VRVCA will have six meetings per year, with a meeting every two months at their offices in Beijing and San Francisco. Startups from around the world will be able to make their pitch to the investors, with VRVCA saying that "anyone working of VR content, base technologies, tools, platforms, hardware, peripherals, accessories or other vertical applications can apply, and it's already possible to submit a pitch deck", reports UploadVR.

Twitter is shifting in an interesting direction, confirming with Engadget that it has acquired Alessandro Sabatelli as its new Director of VR and AR.

Sabatelli will lead the new AR team within Twitter Cortex, which is the social network's upstart machine-learning division. You know, the 140-character limit version of Skynet. Sabatelli was previously over at Apple as a UI designer, credited with helping create the iTunes visualizer. He also worked with IXOMOXI, which is a startup that focused on developing contextual overlays for both VR and AR systems.

Twitter also recently acquired Magic Pony Technology earlier this month for $150 million, a company based in London which has developed techniques to use neural networks to improve lower quality images.

I still know dozens of people who are waiting on their Oculus Rift pre-orders from January to ship out, but Amazon says you can have the $599 VR headset in your hands by tomorrow.

The Virtual Reality group on Facebook just made us wise to the Oculus Rift's new availability on Amazon. Although we're unsure what kind of quantities we're looking at, the Rift is being sold by Amazon directly, not a shifty 3rd party. I even successfully added it to my cart and had the option of selecting next-day shipping. Hopefully the stock is plentiful, as HTC is now shipping all Vive headsets worldwide within 72 hours.

Oculus continues to seep into retail at locations like Best Buy and e-tailers like Amazon, and while that's fantastic for the brand's exposure and for those curious about VR (or just craving it right now), we really wish the company would ship out pre-orders from 6 months ago first.

Last night I shot a few rounds of pool with Falcon Northwest president Kelt Reeves. We talked some shop, wore silly hats, chucked wooden chairs across the bar, heckled the other patrons, and tried to jump the cue ball over beer bottles. We weren't physically in the same space, mind you, but rather inside virtual reality playing Pool Nation VR on the HTC Vive. But it sure as hell felt lifelike, and was in fact one of the most immersive VR experiences I've had to date...and I've had at least 50 of them.

Pool Nation VR is simple, as most Vive games currently are. Grab a cue stick, select some rules, play solo, or invite a friend to your billiards table. The developers have done a fantastic job creating an atmospheric setting, from believable lighting to a jukebox blasting blues, to a slew of props like giant dominos, haphazardly placed beer bottles, and of course books with titles like "Kitten Juggling."

The only criticism I have is that everyone else in the bar is huddled in groups, just swaying and staring at the floor. I suspect this is because the framerate would take a hit if multiple games were happening simultaneously within your field of vision.

In a sign that Oculus might be listening to their critics and responding positively to the VR community's frustrations, the creators of the Rift have removed an element of their restrictive DRM from Oculus Home that prevented HTC Vive users from playing games that were intended as exclusives to the Rift. In addition, the company has pledged that they "won't use hardware checks as part of DRM on PC in the future."

This has been one hell of a roller coaster ride. Let me briefly catch you up. A programmer known as CrossVR developed software called ReVive which aimed to make games purchased on Oculus Home playable on the HTC Vive. Oculus responded by updating their Oculus Home software (essentially a portal for Rift content that anyone can download, with or without owning the headset) to include a hardware check that blocked non-Rift headsets from running the games from Oculus Home.

Whether or not you believe this is within Oculus' rights, it's worth mentioning here that Rift creator and Oculus VR co-founder Palmer Luckey once stated that "If customers buy a game from us, I don't care if they mod it to run on whatever they want." This move by Oculus blatantly contradicted what Luckey said, and is one of the many reasons I urged Oculus to silence Palmer Luckey and replace him with a more professional spokesperson. I don't want Luckey gone obviously -- I just want him to do what he does best without making promises and then breaking them.

SyFy's Halycon, a futuristic police procedural that follows the events surrounding the world's first virtual crime, launches on September 22 on across the network's broadcast channels, websites, and VR systems like Oculus Rift. In fact, 5 of Halycon's episodes are exclusive to virtual reality platforms.

Emmy-winning studio Secret Location is producing the short-form series for SyFy, and in Halcyon's world virtual reality is so common that a police unit is now dedicated to monitor for crimes in VR. The premise sounds a bit silly, but then again so did Ready Player One...

I'm guessing certain elements of the story will actually take place in virtual reality, and that's where viewing the show in 360-video would really nail the intended immersion. Don't worry gang, I'm sure it will look nothing like Lawnmower Man. Thankfully fans who don't have any type of VR system will be able to watch episode recaps on SyFy's websites.

Samsung is launching a new program to encourage storytellers, game developers, and filmmakers of all types to explore the medium of virtual reality and 360 video. Dubbed the "Samsung Creators" program, it's an initiative that will reward 10 winners in as many different categories with $10,000 cash and an invitation only "masterclass" with professionals in the VR filmmaking space.

It sounds like a great opportunity to shine a light on aspiring content creators, and to bring VR that much closer to the mainstream spotlight. Wait, is 360 video actually VR though? We'll save that debate for another time...

Of course, this is also a clever way to promote Samsung's end-to-end ecosystem, which encompasses the newest Samsung Galaxy S7 phones, its Gear VR headset created in partnership with Oculus, and new Gear 360 camera which Samsung has announced as "launching" today in the US. We're eager to get our hands-on it, but it's a reach to call it a launch -- it's only available to purchase in person at VidCon in Anaheim, California, with further release plans TBA.

Earlier this year, the first annual Virtual Reality Developers Conference (VRDC) ran alongside the Game Developers Conference (GDC) and was quickly sold out. Beyond that, GDC basically felt like a VR party this year, with developers and companies from around the world showcasing their new products, software, games, and experiences. Its maiden voyage was so successful that the organizers have decided to host a standalone VRDC event in San Francisco this November.

"Now that VR platforms have hit the market, virtual experiences that entertain, inform, and provide entirely new ways to engage are increasingly in demand," explained Meggan Scavio, General Manager, VRDC and GDC. "We're thrilled to provide the highest quality content for VR developers, while exploring innovative applications for the technology across entertainment, healthcare, journalism, travel, manufacturing, retail, live events, real estate, training, and so much more."

Not only is it getting a standalone event (VRDC will also continue alongside GDC), but the November edition is expanding to include more augmented and virtual reality games, entertainment, brands, and a "wide range of innovative use cases." The organizers have already confirmed talks by NASA and the developers behind modern day history book Chernobyl VR Project.