Extended Reality (XR) - Page 56

While the HoloLens headset might cost $3000 and won't be for consumers, for the meantime anyway, Microsoft sees a bright future for its augmented reality headset with NFL.

Microsoft has just teased a new concept that uses the HoloLens for NFL, just in time for Super Bowl 50. The video shows how NFL fans could use HoloLens to enhance the football-watching experience, in the center of their living room. One example sees someone wearing a HoloLens headset, using gestures to pull up a 3D hologram of a stadium, showing detailed information like stadium attendance, and the weather.

Another example Microsoft used was with another person who used HoloLens to see live fantasy football stats, alongside motion graphics. Right now these are only concepts, but I think HoloLens has a very exciting future when it comes to Microsoft's relationship with the NFL.

Virtual Reality Company (VRC) co-founder and the director of Maleficent, Robert Stromberg has teased that his company is working with legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg on a new project that is "solely for VR".

When he was asked about taking VR filmmaking to the next level, Stromberg replied: "it is about getting other filmmakers interested of course, from the independent level to getting major players involved as well... I can say here, my company - VRC - we're working with, for instance, Steven Spielberg on a project that's solely for VR".

Stromberg didn't say exactly what they were working on, but he did work on the movie tie in VR experience for The Martian most recently. Considering Ready Player One has been in the works for a while, with DreamWorks SDK (Spielberg helped create the company), it makes sense that Spielberg is stepping into the VR game at this period of time.

With the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Sony's PS4-powered PlayStation VR headsets on the way, all eyes are on virtual reality as the next big thing in gaming. Nintendo, however, has yet to embrace the new tech and remains skeptical of its lack of social interactions, but it looks like the Japanese console-maker is changing its mind about VR.

According to Kantan Games analyst Serkan Toto, Nintendo told its investors during a briefing that it's "looking into VR". The statement is quite vague, but could indicate a big shift in the company's future R&D plans. Or it could just be an affirmation meant to appease investors who see VR as a new lucrative platform.

Nintendo has traditionally been dubious about virtual reality over the past few years. Back at E3 2015, Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto said that because VR is an isolated, closed-off and personal experience, it "isn't a good fit" for NIntendo's current plans. The company's main ethos is to create social games that are dynamic, fun, and can be played by multiple people in a living room space, and VR seems to be the antithesis of that.

While the world waits in anticipation for the Galaxy S7 reveal from Samsung, the latest rumor is that Samsung will also unveil its new Gear 360 camera, a companion device for the Gear VR.

Samsung's purported Gear 360 camera would be a 360-degree camera that records video with two 180-degree fisheye lenses, making 360-degree content for the Gear VR headset, according to SamMobile. The Gear 360 would reportedly capture 1920x1920 from each camera, producing a much larger 3840x1920 panoramic image, capturing video for later use, but it can also blast the 360-degree video directly to a connected smartphone through the Gear 360 app.

We've heard about the Project Beyond 3D camera, so the Gear 360 could be a smaller, more mainstream evolution of this. We should expect it to be 100% compatible with the upcoming Galaxy S7, as well as the last couple of generations of Samsung's smartphones, too.

While VR is set to change everything from gaming to social interactions and entertainment, the actual virtual reality HMD's like the Oculus Rift have pretty much soaked up the limelight. But what about VR peripherals? Logitech is ready to jump into the new platform with a slew of VR-ready accessories.

Although most HMD's like HTC's Vive and PlayStation VR have their own controllers, Logitech wants to create its own unique line of VR peripherals, too. In a recent interview with the Australian Financial Review, Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell discussed his plans for VR: "Just like with the mouse and keyboard, optimizing the experience of the peripherals that go with VR will be an interesting place for us."

Rather than jump in right away, however, the renowned PC hardware manufacturer is biding their time and betting on the second or third generation of VR hardware. "We're in the middle of many discussions in that space ... and at some point you can bet we'll jump in," Darrell continued. "But we're years away from viewing that as a serious category. We'd rather come in late and better than come in early and awkwardly."

If recent reports can be believed, Apple has a secret division that's been experimenting with VR and AR technology long enough to develop Hololens and Rift-like prototypes.

According to a report by Financial Times (via Macrumors), Apple's "secret research unit" consists of hundreds of employees who are actively studying virtual and augmented reality tech. The team is made up of field experts like Virginia Tech VR specialist Doug Bowman as well as others hired from Microsoft and Lytro--who developed a Light Field Camera similar to RealSense.

The evidence of Apple VR has been building in recent months, and specific clues hint what Apple might do with its VR/AR tech. The Cupertino tech giant recently snapped up key startups like the motion capture guru Faceshift, whose tech was used in The Force Awakens, and the German AR Metaio, which made augmented reality software and content. We know what the startups are, and what their tech does, but we just don't know how exactly Apple is using them--the Financial Times suggests the AR/VR tech could somehow mesh with Apple's Project Titan electric car.

With Star Wars continuing to make huge profits at the box office, Slashfilm visited the Sundance Film Festival and tried out Lucasfilm and Disney's experimental New Frontier showcase that has been there in a bigger presence over the last few years, but this year Industrial Light & Magic joined in on the VR fun, teasing their new experimental work from the ILM x Lab.

ILM were showing off a project they call Holo Cinema, which Slashfilm explains: "which is basically an installation that lets you step into the world of Jakku from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But this isn't just another Oculus VR demo. Instead, it's presented using projections on the walls and floor that are synced up to your point of view using 3D head tracking. It's hard to describe exactly what this looks like, and even the videos can't accurately explain it. But the feeling is that what you are seeing is really in the room with you. BB-8 rolled around me, I could kneel down and look into his droid eyes. I walked around C-3PO".

This is all the tip of the iceberg, too - as they explained to Slashfilm that Holo Cinema is "just one of the many things they were developing at ILM x Lab. The experience is more augmented reality than virtual reality, although it sounds like ILM will be working on many VR experiences to be released in the coming years". The company plans on working with big-name filmmakers and screenwriters on future VR content for Star Wars experiences.

Sony is still working on its PlayStation VR headset, which will debut sometime in the first half of this year for the PlayStation 4 - but it will meet stiff competition from the Oculus Rift, and the HTC Vive. Well, what do some developers think of the PlayStation VR headset?

According to Carlos Coronado, the developer behind MIND: Path to Thalamus: "Yes, it's in the plans. Sony VR is an amazing closed VR system, and I think that is amazing! The hardware and the user base is already there so aside from the GearVR I think it is going to be one of the wider audience VR headsets when it is released. MIND: Path to Thalamus will run at 90 or 120Hz on PSVR, depending on testing".

Then we have Interdimensional Games, the developer working on Consortium: The Tower, where they said: "We think it's pretty cool, and it's certainly good that the PS4 has such a large install base to start with. We are very interested in making a custom VR mode for The Tower, but the priority is to make an awesome "normal" game first and foremost".

While CES 2016 was filled with companies like Alienware teasing "Oculus-ready" gaming PCs, bundled with the Oculus Rift, HP wasn't standing alone in the dark without VR-ready gaming PCs.

The company has announced "Virtual Reality Certified" systems, partnering up with HTC instead of Oculus. HP will have two PCs on offer, one that rocks an AMD Radeon GPU, while the other dons an NVIDIA GeForce GPU, with both models being the HP Envy Phoenix 860 desktop. The Envy Phoenix is HP's top-of-the-range desktop, released in mid-2015 but has been upgraded to Intel's new Skylake processors.

HP's high-end 860 model VR-ready gaming PC has customizable LED lighting that runs down the middle of the front of the system, and it looks gorgeous. The 860 also sports liquid cooling for the CPU, and Bang & Olufsen-tuned audio. One of the interesting takes from the "Virtual Reality Certified" PCs, is that HP has opted for the AMD Radeon R9 390X, and not the R9 Fury or R9 Fury X. This could be because the R9 390X has 8GB of RAM, but it's an interesting thing to see from HP. On the NVIDIA side of things, HP has used the GeForce GTX 980 Ti.

With VRLA over and done with, the speech that Roy Taylor gave during VRLA has now been uploaded. It provides a great insight into what AMD has planned for VR, which is great to see.

AMD has a major commitment into VR, partnering with countless industry giants, as well as their next-gen Polaris architecture. Polaris will be powering "GPUs to run minimum spec of VR, at lower cost, consuming less power, and running faster", says Taylor. I also agree, and I think Polaris is going to be absolutely paramount for AMD and Radeon Technologies Group. This is an exciting time for AMD, but what else does VR need to be huge?

AMD says that there's a killer app required - pulling the Sega card, and calling out Sonic the Hedgehog as making the first few Sega consoles successful. AMD is right, a killer app is required for VR headsets to truly take off - something that is so big, and so consuming, that everyone wants a VR headset.

With all the major players like Google, Samsung, HTC and Facebook entering the VR arena, everyone has been wondering when Apple will jump in to make their mark as well. Apple's CEO Tim Cook recently said a few words that could indicate that the Cupertino is indeed experimenting with VR, and recognizes the worth of the new platform.

In a quarterly earnings call, CEO Tim Cook was asked by analyst Gene Munster if Apple will tackle virtual reality. "In terms of VR, I don't think it's a niche. It's really cool and has some interesting applications," Cook said. Sure that's not a confirmation, but we should all note that Cook definitely understands the merits of VR, and how it'll fit into the future of tech.

While the tech titan hasn't revealed any concrete VR plans thus far, evidence says otherwise. Apple has recently hired Virginia Tech professor Doug Bowman, an expert in the field of virtual and augmented reality tech. Bowman has created some impressive 3D user interfaces for VR and AR tech, and will be a huge asset for Cupertino's secret projects.

With the VR boom steadily inching forward on the horizon, search titan Google has reportedly made plans to enter the new arena with its very own consumer-grade virtual reality hardware. A few new job listings suggest that Google wants to bolster its not-so-secret virtual reality division with key talent, and has even recruited ex-Vine exec Jason Toff to work on VR.

Google Cardboard isn't on anyone's minds when VR is mentioned; instead it's all about the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, or the PlayStation VR. Even Samsung's Gear VR headset beats the no-frills Cardboard. It looks like Google wants to change all that and become a leading competitor with its own mass-produced VR hardware. Google has posted a few recent job listings that give clues about the division itself.

According to RoadtoVR, the company is looking for a whole manner of VR specialists, including a Hardware Engineering Technical Lead Manager, an Engineer Project Specialist, an Electrical Hardware Engineer, and a PCB Layout Engineer.

As soon as I was introduced to VR tech, I instantly thought "this needs to be in an arcade". VR could be what arcades need to completely rise from the ashes--a new, exciting platform to rejuvenate public gaming spaces like never before. Luckily, StarBreeze--the minds behind Overkill's PayDay games and the StarVR headset--agree and plan to kick off the VRcade revolution.

The VR-centric arcade will be called StarCade, and it'll likely be a major venue for StarBreeze's very own StarVR headset. The reasoning for a VR arcade--or VRcade--boils down to a simple point: you have to experience VR to believe it. You can't sell someone on VR without letting them try it first, and the mainstream public isn't going to drop $500-600 on hardware out of faith. VR needs to be accessible not just to buy, but to try.

"We continue to iterate the fact that VR really needs to be experienced in person to fully be able to appreciate the phenomenon, and why not have your first experience in a real premium setting in our StarVR headset?" Starbreeze CTO Emmanuel Marquez said. "We've managed to secure a prime location where people are welcome to step into our StarCade and enjoy our OVERKILL's The Walking Dead VR experience. We're developing our own StarCade catalogue of experiences, but we're open to any content. We will invite developers to join us and give them the opportunity to put their content in our StarCade. We as an industry continuously need to educate ourselves to make VR truly successful, and this is just the first step in our planning to do so."

With the hoopla surrounding the impending release of the Oculus Rift on March 28, and the HTC Vive the month after, we're not surprised to hear that EA's Frostbite Labs is working on VR and AR content.

The Stockholm-based developer is a group that EA says will help them push the "boundaries of technology and shape the future of gaming". As for the team, EA explains that Frostbite Labs will "begin as a small, multi-disciplined team within EA Studios. Based initially in Stockholm but reaching around the globe, the remit of Frostbite Labs is to explore the undefined or nascent opportunities for new experiences and ways to reach our players. These will be high-potential and possibly high-risk opportunities. Every project will have an intended destination within EA Studios or across Electronic Arts, and key measures to understand the return on each opportunity".

When it comes to the VR and AR content, Frostbite Labs is looking for a Senior Software Engineer, as well as a Senior Game Designer for VR projects. DICE's Technical Director, Johan Andersson, recently tweeted that EA is building a "small VR Frostbite team", and it looks like this is it. Personally, I'm excited to see what Frostbite Labs can cook up in the world's of VR and AR.

While we may have seen the elusive AMD Radeon R9 Fury X2 powering the HTC Vive at VRLA, NVIDIA was also there teasing its VR prototype, powered by Light Field technology.

Anshel Sag of Moor Insights & Strategy provided us with the above images, explaining: "This headset is an NVIDIA headset developed as a research project in conjunction with Stanford University project called the "Lightfield Stereoscope" which allows you to essentially view light field images in the headset and focus on virtually any point in the headset with your own eyes. This headset is clearly important enough to NVIDIA to show off at an event like VRLA and could be used for viewing things like Lytro's Lightfield photos that Lytro created with their light field cameras. This headset can also be used in VR to allow the entire scene to be rendered once and to let your eyes decide where to focus making the VR experience more realistic".

You might remember our story last year, where NVIDIA announced it was collaborating with Stanford University on a VR headset, which should reach us sometime in 2018. Well, checking out the official NVIDIA GeForce Twitter page, the GPU giant tweeted: "A user goes eyes-on with our Light Field Display prototype at @vrlosangeles. #VRLA".

Both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive require cables tethered to your head, and your PC in order to get VR experiences to consumers. But it looks like Nitero might have worked out a way of delivering wireless VR, thanks to using 60GHz wireless, and video compression to send data and high-fidelity visuals to a VR headset with "latency in the order of 100s of microseconds".

Nitero CEO Pat Kelly says he's confident that apart from "a meteor hitting the Earth", his company will release a product with a hardware partner in the "second half of 2016". This product would be an accessory at first, versus "something sold with the headsets themselves", reports Upload VR. Sven Mesecke, VP of Business Development for Nitero, added: "We have a large roadmap with second and third generation HMDs approaching big resolution numbers we are building our system to scale with the technology. We are making sure that this tech will work with 8K VR and beyond".

Elite: Dangerous developer Frontier Developments has always been one of the original supporters of VR as it became mainstream, and they're shifting focus to concentrate on the SteamVR platform while still supporting the Oculus Rift.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Frontier said that they've altered the course of their VR focus due to SteamVR having a more stable driver out much sooner than Oculus. That doesn't mean that they won't support Oculus' solution, just that their teams will are going to more actively pursue the SteamVR solution, as that makes more sense at the moment.

In the end it makes sense to support as many VR HMD's as possible for a game that can actually make use of the head-tracking and immersive experience. But it seems that after Oculus 0.6 SDK, they're switching gears. But they're still working closely with Oculus as well.

With Facebook owning Oculus, it should come as no surprise that the social networking giant is optimizing 360-degree video for VR experiences. Facebook engineers are now encoding videos using pyramid geometry, which reduces their file size by a huge 80%.

The pyramid geometry technique takes flat frames, turns them into spheres, and places them inside of a pyramid. From there, it uses the highest resolution image at the base of the pyramid, with the sides "gradually decrease in quality as you go up", reports Engadget. Each pyramid has 30 different views, with Facebook creating five streaming in various resolutions for each one. Facebook then saves all 150 versions of your video on its servers, streaming the one you're looking at - depending on the speed of your Internet connection.

Before using the pyramid geometry technique, Facebook used cube mapping which reduced file sizes by 25% - but a saving of 80% is a huge deal. The company has also replaced its video processing system with Streaming Video Engine (SVE), which splits files into multiple parts in order to upload and encode them separately, all at once. This method both speeds up the encoding process, and playback, by 10x.

If there's a game I want to try out, it would be OVERKILL's The Walking Dead. Starbreeze Studios has been showing off the VR shooter since E3 2015, but it has now confirmed it will be made available to gamers in 2017.

On top of this news, Starbreeze Studios announced it has received an investment from Smilegate, while securing an agreement for the release of the formers' upcoming titles in Asia, under the latters' guidance. This new partnership will see Starbreeze nab itself a 10-year right to develop, publish and distribute an all-new first-person, cooperative game based on Smilegate's CROSSFIRE franchise for Western markets, and distribution rights on the Smilegate platform.

The distribution rights are decent, as it'll allow Starbreeze to push out editions of PAYDAY 2 and OVERKILL's The Walking Dead into Asian markets, through the platform. In the press release, it notes: "OVERKILL's The Walking Dead will be expanded with more content where an Asian version will be developed for simultaneous launch with the western version. To maximize the new opportunities, Starbreeze, 505 Games and Skybound have decided to release the game in all markets during the second half of 2017. The partners are convinced this will pave the way to success, maximize revenues and cement it as a tent pole product for the next decade to come".

Project CARS is still one of the best-looking games on the market, but it will get much better when VR support is delivered - with developer Slightly Mad Studios teasing it has a "whole bunch" of VR extras being prepared. The Oculus Rift launches on March 28, so we should expect VR support "as the CV1 goes live" according to Slightly Mad Studios.

SMS confirmed in a new thread on the Oculus subreddit that a new patch is being rolled out today, adding support for the public version of Oculus' v0.8 SDK. The team said: "We're rolling out a patch today that will bring the public version up to SDK 0.8. Internally we have been working for a few weeks now with the RC SDK, and as the final version will only be released when the CV1 hits the street, this means that any updates we've been working on will also roll out when that happens".

The team added: "So short term that means that you won't be getting any new features/fixes for Project CARS, but luckily it's only a very short time. As soon as the CV1 goes live, you'll be receiving a game update with a whole bunch of features, fixes, and optimizations".