Extended Reality (XR) - Page 51

Most people think VR is just for gaming, but it's going to find its way into all fields - medicine, education, science - the list truly goes on. Well, one of the first exciting things to see VR move into is medicine.

Medical Realities will be hosting the first live VR stream of surgery on April 14, thanks to a 360-degree camera placed on the operating table. What do you need to tune in? You'll need their app, and Google Cardboard (or a viable alternatives, as Engadget reports).

The company sees both VR and AR technologies as useful educational tools for aspiring doctors, with this new VR stream just a stepping stone into the future.

Virtual reality is all about immersion, and VR is at its best when its actively engaging players. Thanks to the HTC Vive's Lighthouse sensors, Vive owners can step into the games and get in on the action. Sony's PS4-powered PlayStation VR, however, is still largely a couch-based experience--and Sony says it'll stay that way for a while.

As noted by Popular Science, Sony's PlayStation VR is actually capable of tracking users' steps in VR games like Headmaster. The only problem is that it's extremely limited, and the hardware will only register a few steps here and there--nothing like the Vive's room-scale VR tracking. Although Sony agrees that the PSVR can indeed track your body movements, the Japanese console-maker admits the PSVR is mainly a seated experience.

"We have some tech demos that allowed users to play while standing up, however all the PS VR titles we plan to release in the future will recommend that users remain seated. We will announce further details of guidelines or regulations when ready," Sony told the publication in an official statement.

The legend behind Doom and Quake joined Oculus a couple of years ago as their Chief Technology Officer, but John Carmack has received the Fellowship at the British Academy of Film and Television Games (BAFTA).

Carmack receiving this award is the highest honor the Academy can provide, to those who have made truly outstanding achievements in their field - and Carmack, has done just that. Carmack delivered an awesome speech, but it was his mic drop moment that had me with goosebumps.

At the end of his speech, Carmack talked about VR, ending his speech with: "thank you very much for this honor, but I'm just getting started". It was the perfect way to end his speech, and has me excited for Carmack's future with not just Oculus - but VR in general.

Virtual Reality might look very appealing on paper and when reading, or even watching videos, about the technology, but living vicariously through the lives of others isn't a replacement for getting to test something for yourself. In this case that's a very large issue, because, in order to truly appreciate the value proposition and how wonderful VR actually is, you have to actually experience.

GameStop wants to fix that issues, and is partnering with HTC in order to let those that aren't able to travel to player-focused events play with VR right in their store. Most of the public, the people who might need a bit of convincing, haven't quite had the chance to actually take a look, so this could serve as a crucial means for helping gamers understand the experience and potentially helping to sell the idea to more people.

They're also partnering with Microsoft and plan on having the tech available in their physical stores as well. The first stores that'll have the VR demos available are the New York City flagship store, one in Bellevue Square in Washington State and one in City Creek Center located in Utah. There are plans to have the demo available in 30 stores this year. GameStop will have the demo available in 10 different locations by the middle of April. You should be able to go to the HTC Vive website and check availability of said demos. This is a big push for VR by HTC, to help cover the development costs and to simply help you see why it's such a large deal now.

Virtual reality is a magical doorway to another dimension--a dimension where just about anything is possible. But unless you've actually tried a VR headset for yourself, it's hard to fully grasp the scope of the new platform. Thankfully, Valve has us covered.

Valve has just published a brand new video that shows everyday people what it's like to wear an HTC Vive headset--and the best part is that you don't need to actually strap one to your face. Using special green screen tech, Valve allows us to see everything that the Vive wearer is seeing--but of course, it's stuck in 2D for us. Even still the video is jam-packed with enchanting wonder and whimsy, and reveals a unique world of delightful entertainment.

The video shows off footage from a huge assortment of HTC Vive's SteamVR launch games including The Lab, Job Simulator, theBlu, Everest VR, Budget Cuts, and Elite Dangerous. If you're thinking about picking up a Vive, or any VR for that matter, the footage is a great crash course into what you can expect from this new generation of hardware. But the Vive isn't just about gaming--Valve asserts that the platform will be used for tons of entertainment, scholastic endeavors like historical representations throughout time, and even medical treatment.

Well, this certainly came out of left field: IKEA, the Swedish company responsible for furnishing millions of homes, has launched an interactive VR app that allows users to remodel virtual kitchens.

As HTC and Valve start to ship the first Vive VR headsets, the Steam VR storefront is filling up with games and virtual reality entertainment. The VIve isn't just about gaming, however; the Vive will support a host of different immersive activities including remodeling digital kitchens. The IKEA VR Experience represents a kind of proof-of-concept that highlights the swath of opportunities that VR offers, such as allowing everyday people simulate and map out home alterations and experience them in full 3D.

The app is only limited to a kitchen area for now, and users can make alterations like swapping out floor and surface materials, as well as interact with objects and see through a child's point of view. The kitchen is fully scaled to a real-world size and apparently there's a nifty teleport function. IKEA notes that the app is a "test pilot app", and that the company plans to support the software until August 2016, so we could eventually see all kinds of different rooms and furnishings added. It'll be like the 3D tours you take when you're thinking about buying a home, but this time it'll be much more realistic.

NVIDIA will be pushing into VR during its GPU Technology Conference next week, with NVIDIA Research to show off its "computational display" prototype for next-gen fidelity and form factors in VR/AR headsets.

NVIDIA's Vice President of Graphics Research, David Luebke, will be talking about the complex optical, display, and form factor challenges that are found in today's VR and AR headsets, and ways to overcome these issues. Leubke will talk about "computational display" prototypes, which co-designs the entire pipeline of rendering, display, and optics in order to hit the high resolution, wide field of view, and small form factor devices.

This session will take place on day two of GTC 2016, on April 5 at 3PM PT.

Oculus has had its fair share of issues with the Rift and its launch, with customers meant to have their VR headsets shipped on March 28 - but due to various issues, it didn't happen. Well, now HTC is experiencing their own issues with their Vive headset.

HTC is experiencing technical issues with their payment processing system and customers' banks, which are seeing some preorders for the Vive being cancelled, and real life tears shed. Road to VR has had more than one person tell them that after preordering their Vive, they have had it cancelled due to the aforementioned payment processing issues.

In the last 24 hours, customers began receiving cancellation notice emails from HTC - which are stemming from the 3 digit security code on the back of consumers' cards missing from the transaction. I've had issues with my Rift shipment (still not processed, still no payment done - so if this happens for the Vive I will be crying myself to sleep tonight).

Although Oculus was supposed to start shipping the first phase of Oculus Rift headsets on March 28, most pre-buyers have yet to receive any official shipping confirmations, or even payment processing. Up until now Oculus has been quiet on the matter, filling the Rift community with unease.

Now Oculus has finally broken its silence to explain why the pre-orders shipments are late, and promises to make up for it by fully refunding shipping costs on all orders made up until April 2. The Facebook-owned company sent out a batch of emails to all consumers who pre-ordered the system, saying that the shipments were delayed due to "unexpected component shortages". The email also mentions order statuses should be updated by April 12.

The VR pioneers plan to make up for this inconvenience by covering all of the shipping and handling costs on orders made up until today. Given how international shipping for the Rift tacks on at least $100 to the Rift's price tag, this is a pretty hefty bit of savings, to say the least. It's great to see Oculus not only explain what happened but make up for it and go out of their way to cushion the blow. Check a full transcript of the emails below, and if you pre-ordered a Rift, check your inbox.

Oculus opened up the preorders on the Rift headset on January 6 at 8AM PST, promising that any preorders up until 8:10AM that morning were to be included in the March shipment batch. Well, plenty of people on the Oculus subreddit, including myself, ordered before 8:10AM that morning and haven't received any shipping notification. I think 'WannabeTesla' puts it best, by saying: "Any communication at all. They've been silent for a week. That is absurdly unacceptable".

Furthermore, no communication from Oculus has been received, period. Countless people on /r/Oculus haven't heard anything - with 'kami77' saying:

'kami77' continues, saying: "I wouldn't say "f***ing furious" but I would say "f*** frustrated." I was so excited for this week, and Oculus just took a big shit on that. The launch was a disappointment. I thought this week would be filled with a million unboxing videos and everyone talking about their awesome experiences. Instead we get this. The store opens when almost no one has a Rift, developers must be wondering why no one is buying their games, and now everyone is just angry or frustrated. All I want is communication from Oculus. If that makes me an entitled brat, then I am an entitled brat...".

Now that the Oculus Rift CV1 is available, the guys and girls at iFixit have completed their awesome teardown of the first consumer VR headset release from Oculus. Check it out, below.

iFixit revealed that the Oculus Rift CV1 headset has 2 x 90mm OLED displays with 456PPI - and that the screen needs to be 8 inches away from your eyes for the pixels to be indistinguishable. The outfit reported that Oculus have used a single set of non-removable fresnel lenses in the Rift.

Oculus manufactured hybrid fresnel lenses, with an extra sloping layer at the back of the lens, which iFixit says "creating a shape that mimics a traditional curb lens to vary along the vertical axis of the lens". Impressive stuff, Oculus. iFixit gave the Oculus Rift CV1 a repairability score of 7/10, which isn't too bad at all. iFixit praised the cable management improvements from the DK1 and DK2 units, added that the earpiece speakers are "super easily removed" and that the face pad is held in with plastic clips, and pulls out easily.

Virtual reality is a making a strong comeback after being on hiatus from consumers for nearly 20 years. But the technology that's being developed for consumers is having some surprising innovative uses in the medical field too, one of those being the ability to help rehabilitate stroke patients just as quickly as traditional methods, but at far less cost to the patient.

That's an important consideration when in a part of the world where medical costs, and any resultant costs the occur due to that treatment, isn't part of a free program. Rehabilitation is a specialized activity that can also be quite tedious and immensely difficult when looked at head-on. But new advancements in the use of VR world's can help to make rehab a much easier to digest activity, one that could even be seen as being a fun activity, too.

Researchers from the University of Toronto have successfully shown that the Wii U is a better tool for improving motor functions after a stroke or similar brain injury. They took a 10 individuals and had them play on the Wii and 10 others that did normal rehabilitation activities, such as playing Jenga apparently. The Wii group was able to complete a motor function test 7% better than those that didn't play on the Wii. That's statistically awesome. It's not quite VR, but it's an interactive and immersive technology is a natural starting point to further, true, VR avenues.

Just in case you already happen to have the other myriad accessories that are needed to make Sony's upcoming PlayStation VR work properly, you can now pre-order the "Core" version of the HMD that only includes the headset and appropriate connector cables.

If you only need the headset, or want have missed the pre-order cutoff for the larger, more complete, bundle, then you can find this one at GameStop, Walmart, Best Buy or Target for $399. It's currently listed as being unavailable on Amazon, though they're bound to open-up their pre-orders quite soon as well.

This standalone bundle was the first one announced when the price and availability was announced earlier this month. The $399 price (without console) is cheaper than the competing VR solutions despite being an incomplete bundle. Though the cost of entry to experience VR is still lower in total for the PlayStation 4 considering that they still aim to run games at the full 1080P and at least 60FPS that the headset is capable of. The graphics might need to be downgraded to achieve that performance. That lower cost of entry of the entire system could make it far more popular to the masses, out-selling and performing the PC-based counterparts. Sony has said that this is not only for the enthusiast, but for the mass-market.

After calling Microsoft out for 'monopolizing PC games development' with UWP, Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney now challenges Oculus' definition of an "open" storefront.

By default, the Oculus Rift blocks content not sold on the official Oculus Store. Users can easily fix this by switching on a setting, but the worry is that most people won't bother--or even know they can do it. Once Epic Games' Time Sweeney heard about this, he responded by Tweeting: "Very disappointing. Oculus is treating games from sources like Steam and Epic Games as second-class citizens."

"In what possible sense is this an 'open platform'? Developers have to 'request keys' for Oculus DRM," Sweeney continued, directly contesting a snippet from a recent Oculus blog post. According to the blog, if you're a dev who wants to sell games on the Oculus Store and somewhere else, you have to request game keys to distribute to other platforms.

Despite claims that the Facebook-owned VR startup Oculus is walling off VR content for its Oculus Rift headset, Rift owners aren't locked into buying games from the official Oculus storefront.

If you plan on grabbing an Oculus Rift, you'll be pleased to hear that you won't have to buy games exclusively from the Oculus Store--unlike Microsoft's pushy Windows Store PC exclusives. So even if you own a Rift, Valve's direct VR competitor, you can buy Rift-supported virtual reality games on Steam and retain all the benefits that the storefront has to offer, including its fantastic refund policy.

Cross-store compatibility isn't switched on by default, however--you'll have to enable "unknown sources" manually within the Oculus Home app. You can do this by simply navigating to Settings -> General -> Unknown Sources and ticking it on. Voila! You're all set. Remember it's up to developers whether they sell the Rift version on Steam, so make sure to double-check.

After four years in the making, the Oculus Rift has launched today, with a flurry of VR games ready for new adventures, in a new dimension - or should I say, reality?

New games confirmed for the launch of the Oculus Rift are Alpha Wave Entertainment's Euclidean; The Body VR from Moshe Ben-Zacharia; FIRMA by Think Heavy Ltd; COLOSSE; Viewpoint Games' VR Karts; Immersive Entertainment's The Grand Canyon VR Experience; Subnautica from Unknown World's Entertainment ; ZeroTransform's Proton Pulse Plus and Time Machine VR by Minority Media - thanks to a report from VR Focus.

The future of gaming and technology is here, thanks to the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive shipping months before Sony can get its own PlayStation VR in the hand of its consumers. But what game will be big enough to sway the naysayers from their flat screens, into the 360-degree, all-encompassing world of VR? Star Wars, that's what.

According to Vice President of Marketing for Sony Interactive Entertainment, John Koller, Star Wars Battlefront VR will be a "very special game" that will show gamers "what it means to be in the world of VR". During an interview with Fortune, he continued: "We are working with EA, DICE, Lucasfilm, and Disney to try and make that experience something so special and so intrinsic to what's in many people's DNA, which is, 'How can I be in that world of Star Wars?' Battlefront is going to be one of those games that will really show gamers what it means to be in the world of VR. It's very special. And just by the nature of it being designed as a VR experience, it's going to be very different than the PlayStation 4 game".

He continued: "Star Wars is a great example of something that we will really own during that launch period. But over time there will be games that launch, where we've been helping with the development process, that will be most special on PlayStation VR, whether it's exclusive or not. It's going to be best played on PlayStation VR".

Can you believe that after all of these years, the Oculus Rift is now shipping to consumers? Those who backed the Rift on Kickstarter back in 2012 (has it been that long?!) are receiving theirs first, with a signed Thank You note from the Oculus team.

The Facebook-owned VR company has been a pillar of strength for the technology and PC gaming community, stirring up mixed feelings from consumers and gamers - and total commitment from companies like AMD, as they see a huge future in VR. Well, the first reviews are here -with the New York Times saying the Oculus Rift is a "clunky portal to a promising virtual reality". The Wall Street Journal says "VR's rising star isn't ready for the mainstream" - but both the NYT and WSJ aren't gaming outlets, so those opinions are just very harsh headlines.

We have a list of reviews below, with our unit not being processed or sent yet. I pre-ordered within 2-3 minutes of it opening up in January, so I'm disappointed to say the least. Here's the list of reviews of the Rift so far, but expect our VR coverage to expand expontentially this year.

We all know VR is the rage right now, but Visionary VR is the latest coming to make some bank from it, raising $6 million in Series A funding.

The funding round was led by DFJ Venture, with Visionary VR CEO Gil Baron saying in a statement: "Today, only expert-level developers can create VR stories, we're going to change that". DFJ Ventures' Bubba Murarka added: "Given Visionary VR's insights into how storytelling is going to be redefined by virtual reality in the future, this company is aligned with DFJ's long history of investing in disruptive technologies. Even after seeing hundreds of VR demos and even creating our own VR app at DFJ, experiencing Visionary VR's product left our team slack-jawed. It is that impressive".

Visionary VR has a storytelling in VR-focused goal, where it is creating software to help make the process easier for others who wish to do the same. The company has been keeping its secrets close to its chest, but recently the company teased the first piece of content created with its Visionary Focus technology: a David & Goliath short experience.

On the eve of the Oculus Rift launching, with the first Rift being hand delivered by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey himself, the box contents of the HTC Vive have been revealed by Polygon.

Inside of the $799 virtual reality headset, you'll receive the Vive headset itself, the super-awesome Lighthouse controllers, and so much more. Here's what you'll get in the box for the HTC Vive:

The HTC Vive launches on April 5, with one of the best games being Budget Cuts - an awesome, awesome game that deserves to be purchased on day one later this year.