Extended Reality (XR) - Page 55

We've known for a while that smartphones are rapidly catching up to console-grade graphics, and by 2017, we'll have phones that are better than a PS4. But what about today's phones?

According to Epic Games' founder Tim Sweeney, Samsung's new Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge duo are gaming powerhouses that actually match the performance of higher-end games consoles: "Features that were only possible on high-end game consoles now run on a device that fits in your pocket," Sweeney said in a recent promo tweet.

Both the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge pack Qualcomm's new beefy Snapdragon 820 SoC, which includes the powerful Adreno 530 GPU. The Adreno 530 is optimized to support next-gen API's like Unreal Engine 4 and Vulkan to enable photorealistic 3D environments, and sports enhancements across the board including 64-bit Virtual Addresses and other key architectural changes. These new upgrades will play quite nicely with Samsung's mobile Gear VR headset, adding in a new power boost to improve immersion.

As virtual reality promises to open up new dimensions and vistas in gaming beyond our wildest dreams, it's no surprise most people plan to use their headsets for gaming. While gaming is certainly a focus for VR headsets like the Vive, HTC says video games are only part of the equation: the Vive will transcend escapism to "transform people's lives".

HTC recently made waves in the VR scene by announcing the Vive's price and release date info, causing a virtual storm of hype across social media. While just about everyone is thinking about the incredible immersion that the Vive will bring to games like Alien Isolation, HTC reminds us that it's not all about gaming. VR has a wealth of practical uses, some of which are absolutely incredible.

"But it's not just about gaming. In addition to these launch titles, HTC is working with developers to foster the creation of content that spans multiple sectors including entertainment, retail, education, design, healthcare and automotive that will ultimately transform people's lives," reads the official blog post.

At MWC 2016, HTC just announced that it's final consumer Vive VR headset will cost a premium $799, a clear $200 over its Oculus Rift competitor. First shipments are slated to release in April, and the Vive VR will be up for pre-order on February 29 at 7am PST.

Unlike the Rift, consumer-ready Vive is a "complete system" and comes packaged with "everything you need" to experience VR right out of the box: two wireless controllers, the Lighthouse motion-tracking receiver that enables room-based interactions, earbuds, and a linking box that connects the headset to your PC. The Vive VR also comes with two free games, including Job Simulator 2050 and Fantastic Contraption.

The Vive has spent the past few months redefining the dimension of virtual reality, with TweakTown's own Anthony Garreffa calling it an "Oculus Rift killer".

MWC 2016 - LG just unveiled the G5 smartphone, rocking its magic slot accessory port, which takes a camera, and many other devices. One of the other devices LG unveiled at MWC 2016, was the new LG 360 VR.

LG 360 VR works with the newly-announced G5 smartphone, with LG claiming it simulates "a 130-inch TV viewed from two meters away". Not too bad at all. Instead of docking the smartphone into the VR headset like you do with a Samsung smartphone and the GearVR, you plug your G5 smartphone into the LG 360 VR through a cable. This means the LG 360 VR is also barely-there weight of just 118g (or 4.1oz).

As for the display, the LG 360 VR's display has a 639PPI, with VR set to look incredibly beautiful. The LG 360 VR will also support any 360-degree images and video, and any content from the Google Cardboard headset.

Mobile World Congress 2016 kicks off next week in Barcelona, Spain - so it's perfect timing that Acer begins teasing what the world will see next week.

Acer CEO Jason Chen teased reporters last week, saying that the Taiwanese company "has been conducting research and development of VR technologies for a while", and that it is "planning to introduce some new technologies to surprise everyone", reports Taipei Times. Chen added: "We are thinking of how to expand Acer's reach in the field and turn our VR technologies into a business. And that is an important element in the process of Acer's corporate transformation".

Considering Samsung and HTC have been in the VR game for quite a while now with their Gear VR and Vive, respectively, what could Acer reveal that would "surprise everyone" at MWC? It's exciting, and mysterious, and I love it.

The Hololens from Microsoft was revealed to be one of the most interesting augmented reality device coming in the near future. The possibilities outside of gaming are just massive. There are so many incredible uses and ways to interact with the world with such a device. A team within Microsoft has created the Galaxy Explorer, a way to physically (well, digitally) interact with the Milky Way right in front of your eyes.

Galaxy Explorer is an app that the community voted on that they've decided to dedicate some resources into realizing. It's an expression of some of the coolest things that you can do with the Hololens. In a way, it's almost a realistic, and personal, representation of the astrogation room from Star Trek. Or a 3D representation of the Star Citizen Star Map. Explore the galaxy in any way you want. Check out those exoplanets that have been found by Kepler in person. And even take a look at what the moon would look like as cheese.

They're in the planning phase at the moment, but the idea is to get people excited about Hololens and get people thinking about the possibilities inherent in the new platform. They're planning to have Galaxy Explorer ready to show at the Microsoft Build Developer Conference, which takes place from 30th March - 1st, April 2016.

While most people instantly think 'gaming' when it comes to VR, the applications in which it will be used are virtually limitless. Doctors at the Angers University Hospital in western France have used a VR headset to map a patient's brain during surgery, removing the tumor late last month.

During the procedure, the patient was concious, with doctors using the virtual environment to map zones of the brain. Up until now, mappning and monitoring neural connections in certain areas of the brain wasn't easily done, especially in the operating room. Neurosurgeon Philippe Menei explains: "By totally controlling what the patient sees and hears, we can put him in situations that allow us to do tests on certain connections that were not possible before".

In this procedure, doctors needed to monitor the patient's vision carefully, as the tumor had spread to one eye. In order to know what was going on with the reactions in the brain, the surgical team created a VR environment without a single point of focus. Instead, they employed "luminous objects" in the patient's peripheral vision. These results were positive, as the patient's sight remains intact post-op, considering where the tumor was. Doctors are now planning to use the setup for future cases that are similar, where they're impacting the region of the brain that controls sight.

AMD is partnering up with the Associated Press to bring an unprecedented level of interactivity to the world of news reporting with "next generation VR journalism".

With the help of AMD's Radeon graphics hardware, the Associated Press will report news on a new VR channel, allowing viewers to seamlessly enter real-time news broadcasts with full 360-degree field of views. The plan is to breathe new life into news coverage and documentaries using the immersive power of virtual reality, which could revolutionize the world of news reporting altogether.

AMD will leverage the power of its Graphics Core Next Radeon graphics technology in conjunction with LiquidVR to render environments for documentaries and news coverage. AMD is confident that it's tech will deliver "spectacular VR visual experiences to engage audiences both emotionally and intellectually". The AP promises that its new VR channel will immerse viewers with a new dimension of news reporting, allowing them to actually experience major news stories rather than just watching.

NVIDIA has released their financial results for its fiscal 2016 today, as well as its Q4 results ending January 31. NVIDIA has had a stellar year, with record revenues for their final quarter, and across the entire year.

NVIDIA's co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said in a statement alongside the financial results that the excitement around the VR market will boost the demand for its GeForce products. But, it has also noticed that other parts of its businesses are booming, too. Huang said: "PC gaming, VR, deep learning, and self-driving cars" are all big focuses for NVIDIA, but VR is a soft spot for the company - and that has me excited, too.

Huang said in the company's investors call: "We can grow by introducing new game platforms. The installed base of 100 million GeForce gamers in the world has a chance to upgrade when that happens". With NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference right around the corner, we are foaming at the mouth of the rumors for the successor to the Titan X to be revealed, as it'll be a Pascal-powered beast.

Leap Motion just announced their new motion tracking product specifically made for VR and hand tracking, the Orion.

This new development is a leap forward in tracking your appendages while moving about in a 3D virtual world. Not only does it track, but the sensors are sensitive enough to allow for full, natural interaction with your hands and fingers. With this, you don't need a separate controller. You are the controller.

The problem with VR has always been immersion. How do we fully feel like we're actually in another world. Especially when we're holding a controller, yet climbing a mountain, avoiding dinosaurs as best we can? The feeling isn't complete when you're not using your hands to do the actual climbing, especially when you can certainly seem them there. It can prevent you from fully suspending your belief, an important aspect in enjoying a VR experience.

GameStop's CEO, Paul Raines, told Fox News yesterday that Sony's PlayStation VR HMD is going to be available starting this fall, and that they'll be carrying it in stores of course.

During an interview regarding how tax refunds help to drive the economy and how taxes could be more fun if they were like video games, Raines mentioned the upcoming release of VR hardware in general being one of the major industries that'll likely be targeted by customers. He also mentioned quite pointedly that PS VR will be in stores this fall, that they'll "launch the Sony product this fall."

Raines is excited about the potential in the VR market, especially with his chain of stores providing one of the only ways to try VR for yourself once the PlayStation VR is available in store. It could very well be the revival of his brick and mortar operations, adding a particular value that can't be had anywhere else. Certainly, with the PS VR specifically, Raines things it's better than the other solutions with better content at launch, he says.

Reports indicate that Google is working on a self-powered, all-in-one VR device that won't leverage the power of a PC or smartphone to function. In a sense, Google's self-reliant headset would be to VR what Microsoft's Hololens is to AR.

VR is about to explode onto the tech scene, and every big name in the industry wants a piece of the action. While titans like Google and Apple have yet to formally unveil earnest VR hardware, there have been rumblings about Cupertino's secret VR divisions and Mountain View's dedicated Cardboard VR successor.. Now those rumblings become even louder as The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is working on a standalone VR headset in conjunction with a smartphone-powered device.

According to WSJ, Google's all-in-one VR device will feature "a screen, high-powered processors, and outward-facing cameras powered by Movidius motion-tracking processors".

Not content with letting Unreal have all the fun, Unity has revealed its own toolset that enables devs to build games while in virtual reality. Now developers can literally tweak games while standing in their creations, which could open up the doors to amazing possibilities down the road.

Unity's VR-in-VR scene editing toolset is called SceneVR, and is a direct contender to Unreal's recently unveiled VR Editor. Using an Oculus Rift headset, Unity engineer Timoni West showcased a SceneVR preview at this year's Vision AR/VR Summit.

Using SceneVR, West was able to manipulate in-game objects in real-time. She started off with filling in a basic modern rooftop scene, all the while discussing basic features of the suite. West affirmed that the team is still working on optimizing SceneVR to make it more user-friendly, and that it'll be just as customizable in VR as Unity is to 3D.

There are few moments in life where you become so surprised that your mouth literally hangs agape at home. But watching Gabe Newell, usually a quiet, reserved and mysterious person that rarely makes public appearances do something this generous is one of those. He gave away HTC Vive Pre's at the 2016 Unity Vision Summit like a veritable Oprah.

Even though it's pretty clearly a marketing stunt and probably doesn't cost Valve very much to give them away, it's still an incredible gesture to the assembly of people eagerly awaiting his presence. He appeared on screen with a fluffy white beard and did what only the Internet Santa Claus can do, give away awesome prizes.

Lord Gaben has a surprising way of exciting crowds, even if there are plenty of people who disagree with how he runs his business. But this was is moment, or his Oprah moment as he proclaimed. "And our third announcement, I get to have my Oprah moment, all the developers at the Vision Summit get their own Vive. You get a Vive. You get a Vive. You get a Vive. And you get a Vive. I'm very excited to see what you guys come up with and I hope you enjoy it."

AR and VR companies Magic Leap and Virtuix are the latest to join the Entertainment Software Association.

Magic Leap only recently secured itself a huge $800 million investment, which will see their augmented reality (AR) technology leap into the arms of consumers in the near future. Virtuix on the other hand, is a VR firm that took to Kickstarter with its Virtuix Omni platform, which enables physical movement and mobility in the VR world.

Jan Goetgeluk, founder and CEO of Virtuix, said: "We're proud to join ESA during this exciting time of transformation for video games and virtual reality. We look forward to joining ESA at the forefront of critical policy issues facing our dynamic industry".

During the Unity Vision Summit, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey had some choice words to say regarding the expectations of Rift pre-orders, and that it should be far more than a few hundred thousand units.

Luckey said: "A few hundred thousand dev kits is nothing compared to what we will be doing this year...". Luckey also added that Oculus had shipped around 200,000 developer kits to developers, including the DK1 and DK2 units. Judging by what Luckey is saying here, it looks like he's hinting that Oculus would be shipping millions of Rift units, and that doesn't seem right.

We reached out to our good friend Anshel Sag, Staff Technologist and Technical Writer of Moor Insights & Strategy, who said: "I believe that it would be extremely unlikely that Oculus would ship more than 100,000 to 200,000 Rift headsets this year. I believe that Palmer's statements are more of his wishes and hope than the reality of the current situation, similar to what we saw with pricing of the Rift".

If you're wanting to buy a new Oculus Rift-ready gaming PC, pre-orders for Rift-ready gaming PCs bundled with an Oculus Rift start on February 16 at 11AM Eastern, or 8AM Pacific.

As for the companies offering the Oculus Rift-ready gaming PCs, we have Alienware, Dell and ASUS - which will be selling their gaming PCs through Amazon, Best Buy and the Microsoft Store. If you do pre-order any of these gaming PCs, you'll get your PC sometime in April (with the first batch of Rift headsets shipping on March 28, this works out well).

The PCs on offer are normal desktop gaming PCs that meet the Oculus Rift specification, but you'll score yourself a discount if you've already pre-ordered an Oculus Rift (between $100-$200 off). Considering the cheapest Rift-ready PC is $949 after the discount, you can get into VR gaming for less than $1K, which is great.

Google could be on the verge of launching another VR headset sometime later this year. The Financial Times is reporting that Google's Cardboard venture was so incredibly successful that they may be looking to compete in the more expensive tiers of VR, going toe to toe with the likes of Gear VR.

The new device will have integrated sensors that improve the accuracy and speed of position tracking. Much like Gear VR it'll have actual lenses integrated to improve the viewing experience. Crucially, this device, according to the Financial Times, should be compatible with a wider variety of devices, and not limited to Samsung's Galaxy series.

Google recognizes the importance of virtual reality and the potential it holds. Just last month Clay Bavor, the new head of Google Cardboard told Time magazine just that, saying in an interview that "VR is too important and too powerful a medium to be accessible to only a few."

360-degree video and VR content are all the rage right now, and as were preparing for Mobile World Congress 2016, notorious mobile leaker Evan Blass (aka @evleaks on Twitter) posted something on Twitter regarding the 'LG 360 VR'.

Blass tweeted "LG 360 VR", which we're expecting to see as a VR headset in the fashion of Samsung's Gear VR headset. But, the LG 360 VR could also be a 360-degree camera, which makes just as much sense. Better yet, the LG 360 VR could plug into that mysterious "magic slot" on the bottom of the G5 smartphone that LG teased yesterday.

We'll know more on February 21, which is when LG will unveil its new G5 smartphone - the same day that Samsung will show off its next-gen Galaxy S7 handset.

Virtual reality is poised to completely change our lives and shake up a number of industries. We've seen how VR can be used for tons of different applications, but what about games development? Thanks to Epic's new Unreal VR Engine, devs can now build games in fully immersive VR spaces. It's like VR-ception!

In a new video, Epic Games' Mike Fricker is seen developing a game in real-time while ensconced in a HTC Vive headset. Using the new Unreal Editor's VR mode, developers can literally create video game environments while standing in them, adding a whole new depth to content creation. The editor is rendered virtually in a VR environment and contains the full scope of utilities and tools as traditional 2D software, and devs will be able to use Oculus Rift motion controllers to mold and shape digital world's.

VR expert and Moor Insights and Strategy analyst Anshel Sag adds some perspective to the new Unreal VR Editor: "With this new tool, developers can finally preview their games as they are making them in VR and get a good idea of how things will feel for the gamer, immediately. I don't see someone building or finishing a game in this tool, but I do see someone making minor changes to a game with it and making it a part of the development phase."