Extended Reality (XR) - Page 60

It should come as no surprise to hear NVIDIA is working on a VR headset, but according to the latest rumors, the GPU giant is working with Stanford University on the next generation of VR headsets, according to Fudzilla.

NVIDIA hopes that its collaboration with Stanford University will provide a unique take on its VR HMD, with the Senior Director of Research at NVIDIA, David Luebke, saying that most VR headsets are uncomfortable to use if they're within arm's reach because of depth cues like stereo and accommodation. Luebke said: "This is because of the vergence-accommodation conflict, which is how much the lens of your eye has to change to bring sharp focus to your retina".

The issues with the 3D side of things is still a problem for some users, especially when people get headaches or see double images with a VR headset strapped to their head. This is why NVIDIA decided to work with Stanford University, as it sees a way out of this. Gordon Wetzstein, the Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford University said they created a new display technology that's called light field stereoscope, which fixes the vergence-accommodation issues. Wetzstein explained: "It provides a much richer and more natural visual experience than conventional head mounted displays and has the potential to reduce nausea, eyestrain, and also increase visual comfort".

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Google Glass, but then they stopped working (the screen is faulty) and I'm too lazy to send them in to get replaced. But rumor has it, Google is working on not one, but three new Glass headsets.

According to sources of The Information, Google is working on three next-gen Glass headsets, where one of them doesn't even include a screen. The audio-focused model is meant for the "sport crowd", making it a Bluetooth headset on steroids, in a way. Google is still reportedly working on an enterprise-focused model with a display, where I'm sure it'll be much higher resolution and quality than the Explorer Edition.

We should expect Google to unveil the new Glass headsets next year.

With the impending release of the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR, virtual reality is right around the corner. But what does Electronic Arts think about the VR market?

Well, according to EA's Chief Financial Officer, Blake Jorgensen, the company is cautious about VR. Jorgensen said during the UBS Global Technology Conference: "There's some challenges still and I think the biggest challenge is just the size of the market. We don't make games anymore for the Wii or the Wii U because the market is not big enough, the PS Vita - the Sony product - we don't make games for that anymore because the market is too small, so it's all about the size of the market".

Jorgensen continued: "As one of the largest software producers we have all of the manufacturers of equipment coming to us to try to sell us on their equipment and giving us development kits to try to build software for it. So we'll build software for various ones but we'll really wait and see how big the market is going to be. I think the reality is, the next one to three years, it's probably going to take some time to build up a sizable market place and you might see alternative uses for virtual reality first before it becomes gaming. Longer term, five plus years away, I think there's certainly a market there and it will be another exciting way to enjoy gaming".

We heard that ASUS were working on an AR headset, but now the Taiwanese giant has confirmed these plans. ASUS CEO Jonny Shih said: "It should be next year when we come out with a product. We think AR will be very important for people's lives".

The new AR headset from ASUS should be very similar to Microsoft's work with HoloLens, but at a much cheaper price. HoloLens will be hovering around the $3000 price point, pushing it out of the realm of normal consumers. If ASUS can nail it at $500-$1000, it'll attract a much wider audience.

We don't know what ASUS could do with its own AR headset, I just love the fact that ASUS will throw themselves (and plenty of money, R&D time, and man hours) into a completely new market. We should expect to see something at CES 2016 in January, if not I'm sure ASUS will take the stage at Computex 2016 in June with its new AR headset.

CCP Games has already been at the forefront of VR technology since the Oculus Rift hit Kickstarter all those years ago, but the company which recently divested itself of White Wolf Publishing, has secured a huge $30 million round of funding for all things VR.

The funding was led by global venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates, with the help of private equity firm Novator Partners LLP. The funding deal includes General Partner of NEA, Harry Weller, to join the Board of Directors at CCP Games, as well as Andrew Schoen from NEA, who will join as Deputy Director.

Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP, said: "We believe VR will revolutionize not just videogames, but the wider technology and media industry as a whole. We were there at the beginning, and this investment will give us strength to maintain our leading development efforts". Weller added: "We've been admirers of CCP for quite some time. Their legacy with EVE Online and early investments in VR have put them in a leadership position, and we want to partner with them to further build on the great platform they have already established".

Researchers from the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) lab at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany have developed technology that lets the user feel in virtual reality, rather than just see.

Impacto, as the tech is called, is currently in the prototype phase. It's integrated into a band you can wear on your arm, leg, or foot, and in combination with VR and custom software, simulates contact. This simulation is achieved via a haptic vibration engine and electrical muscle stimulation, which work together to create a close to real sense of pushing, pulling, hitting, bouncing a soccer ball, etc. -- so it's much more than what we see with vibrating controllers, for example.

"The key idea that allows the small and light Impacto device to simulate a strong hit is that it decomposes the stimulus: it renders the tactile aspect of being hit by tapping the skin using a solenoid; it adds impact to the hit by thrusting the user's arm backwards using electrical muscle stimulation," says team lead Pedro Lopes. "The device is self-contained, wireless, and small enough for wearable use, thus leaves the user unencumbered and able to walk around freely in a virtual environment. The device is of generic shape, allowing it to also be worn on legs, so as to enhance the experience of kicking, or merged into props, such as a baseball bat."

At this year's VRX 2015 virtual reality conference, Epic Games announced it's teaming up with NVIDIA to fully support Team Green's new GameWorks VR suite. This means that Unreal Engine 4 developers will get a huge set of new tools to work with, including tapping the performance boon that is VR SLI. One of the biggest parts of this news, is that Multi-Res Shading can boost rendering speeds by up to 50%, which is GeForce specific, something AMD can't do right now.

NVIDIA's GameWorks VR toolset is a new suite made up of libraries, API's and drivers aimed at optimizing VR performance. GameWorks VR is specifically designed to streamline the interactions between NVIDIA GPU's and VR hardware like the Oculus Rift in an effort to increase frame rates and push down latency.

GameWorks VR offers a number of beneficial upgrades to both game and hardware developers like Direct Mode, which improves headset compatibility, and Multi-Res Shading, which uses Maxwell's multi-projection architecture to improve render. Team Green's VR suite also supports VR SLI, which leverages the power of multiple NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPU's to "dramatically accelerate stereo rendering" by assigning a GPU to each eye. VR SLI also supports builds with more than two GeForce GTX GPU's as the raw graphical power is scaled to the headset using the GPU affinity API.

Earlier this year YouTube began offering 360-degree video support, but now the YouTube app has been updated with full support for Cardboard-compatible VR users.

Better yet, you can now watch any video in Cardboard, even if it wasn't filmed with VR in mind. The video sharing giant has a playlist of full 360-degree content, where it'll have a small Cardboard icon in the bottom right. Tapping this icon and sliding your smartphone into the viewer will allow you to be immersed in that world.

There's another part of YouTube's VR push, where you can load any existing video on YouTube and see it in a Cardboard-friendly UI. This option is found in the overflow option menu when watching a video, where it will shrink down the video and mirror it on both halves on the screen. Impressive stuff.

I have to admit; I'm pretty excited about PlayStation VR. I don't own either console, as I've decided to skip the Xbox One and PS4 as they pushed zero technological boundaries this time around - but PlayStation VR? I'll buy an entire PS4 and PlayStation VR headset. The latest video Sony has pushed out details their VR headset, check it out below.

PlayStation VR features 5.7-inch OLED display, with a '1920xRGBx1080' resolution (providing 960xRGBx1080 per eye), and a surprising 120Hz refresh rate (something we'll talk more about in a minute). Sony says PlayStation VR has sub 18ms latency, an 'approximate' 100-degree field of view, accelerometer, gyroscope, full positional head tracking through nine LEDs, 3D audio with mic and stereo input jacks, and HDMI as well as USB interfaces.

Now, the 120Hz refresh rate. The PS4 is barely capable of 60FPS in most games, and that's at up to 1080p, let alone 60FPS sustained at 1080p. What will Sony do to get to 120FPS? Or are we going to see 60FPS games on the 120Hz refresh rate? No. Sony has said that PlayStation VR will work with reprojection software, that will add an extra "tween" between every frame - so it'll feel closer to 120Hz, but it won't be running at 120FPS.

Virtual reality might be the bold new frontier for the next dimension of multimedia and gaming, but the new platform isn't going to become mainstream right off the bat. VR will need a good amount of time for consumers to digest and thoroughly understand, especially since it's such an intimate user-oriented experience.

How long will VR need in order to fully hit its stride? According to HTC's Chief Content Phil Chen, virtual reality might require as much as half a decade before it takes off. "VR will need at least three to five years after it's introduced before it becomes mainstream," Chen said at a VR summit in Beijing. "It will take some time for it to go to the masses."

Although HTC and Valve plan to fully launch the Vive VR headset in Q1 2016, the company doesn't expect a full adoption rate. Sony, on the other hand, is adamant that everyone who's tried its PlayStation VR headset will buy one. The problem is that not everyone has access to a demo unit, and it'll be hard to get the tech in the hands (and on the heads) of everyday people.

PAX Australia 2015 - Aiming to bring virtual reality and motion capture up to another level, Deakin's Motion Capture lab serves as a dual purpose facility to offer education and research towards betterment of games and movies alike.

With its Friday showing at PAX Australia involving a short virtual reality space demo in which you can control limb movement and rotations with your body as the controller, Saturday was an even more impressive experience - hosting a live model testing out a full body motion capture suit.

Deakin Motion Labs director, Professor Kim Vincs, discussed the advancements in the VR and motion capture industries, pinpointing how her facilities help provide a hands-on experience for students. Unfortunately, due to hustle and bustle at PAX, with the added stress of them being next to the extremely loud Twitch booth, further discussion on the future of development was near impossible. Not wanting to disappoint, expect a full feature article from TweakTown as we aim to attend the motion lab early in November.

PAX Australia 2015 - One of the most exciting things we tried at PAX Australia this year was from Opaque, a Melbourne-based studio that has been collaborating with NASA, along with a bunch of other companies including Valve, NVIDIA, HTC and more.

Earthlight pits you inside of the Steam VR-powered HTC Vive, where you're an astronaut in space and use the two controllers as your hands. The trigger on the back of the controller acts as your fingers, so if you press the trigger, your fingers in Earthlight close. Once you've orientated yourself, you're sent outside of the ISS capsule, and have to crawl along specific bars in the game that light up yellow.

It feels very Mirror's Edge like, where your navigation is highlighted by the yellow bars to hold onto. When looking down in the game, it is frightening as you're hovering thousands of miles above the Earth, looking down at your death. At the end of the demo there's an explosion and you let go of the railing, where you begin floating into space - it felt very Gravity-like, where I called out for George Clooney to come and help me.

It looks like the immersive realism of virtual reality can actually be harmful and shocking to a person's psyche, especially in first-person shooter games where wanton bloodthirst and violence are mainstays. As a result, VR devs have toned down the death factor quite a bit in order to save audiences from too-real experiences.

"[Death in VR] is more intense, you can look away from it but you can't escape it. You will feel it, like everything in VR, you will feel everything much more intensely," said Guerilla Games dev Piers Jackson. "We made some core decisions early on that we weren't going to kill people," said Guerilla Games' Piers Jackson. "Not having to confront death -- that was something we deliberately chose."

Guerilla Games is developing a multiplayer FPS game called RIGS for the PlayStation VR headset that involves mech-style shooter combat. The devs made a conscience choice to go with robots because the PSVR platform is so immersive it makes FPS violence and havoc feel "too real". And VR isn't like a movie where you can just look away from the screen to escape the gruesome parts--your eyes are glued to the screen for good and ill.

Since it was announced, Sony's PlayStation VR headset has arisen as part of the "big three" virtual reality triumvirate, joining the ranks of the pioneering Oculus Rift and Valve's Vive VR. Although Sony has announced a number of PSVR games, there's still uncertainty on whether or not the experiences will be specifically dedicated to the platform or just VR-ready additions to existing games.

According to SCE Worldwide Studios VP Michael Denny, PlayStation VR games will embrace both sides of the spectrum. We'll see exclusive PSVR games that aren't playable anywhere else, and we'll also see PSVR iterations of existing PS4 games.

"We've not been prescriptive in the kinds of experiences that we want," Denny said in an interview with Games Industry Biz. "We leave that in the hands of the developers, our creators, always. When they get their hands on this they want to develop something from the ground up that's dedicated to the new system, dedicated to what's different about it [compared] to the normal PS4 games. That said, we've got a prototype working of DriveClub in VR, which adds a new dimension to an existing game. So I think you will get developers, studios and publishers playing with new experiences and translating existing ones."

While VR tech is in full swing for its release in 2016, the next avenue of dimensional computing has kicked off thanks to Microsoft's HoloLens, and it looks like major players are getting involved in augmented reality. Not long ago we reported that ASUS is thinking about making its own AR headset, and now the online retailer giant Amazon is jumping into AR as well.

A recently published patent filing shows what appears to be the Amazon AR headset and reveals key details on the device. The filing notes that the Amazon AR glasses are technically a "tablet goggles accessory" with a "single-touch immersion control" that's tethered to a tablet. The tablet will control and trigger various functionalities such as switching between AR and real-life views.

The patent shows a huge number of variants of the Amazon AR, using different technologies like polymer dispersed liquid crystals, suspended particular devices, and electrochromic solutions that could all be used in the device's variable-transparency layers. The patent notes that the Amazon AR goggles will need a tablet in order to function (probably a new-gen Kindle Fire) meaning the HMD will leverage a tablet's power.

Razer has now opened pre-orders for its OSVR Hacker Development Kit headsets, with the OSVR headset available for $300, and begins shipping on November 23.

The peripherals giant wanrs that the OSVR headset has a warning that "the OSVR Hacker Developer's Kit is for development purposes and will ship with a 30 day warranty". Consumers can dive in, but Razer has warned you. As for the OSVR itself, it features a 5.5-inch OLED screen with an awesome 120Hz refresh rate, offering a pixel density of 401PPI.

The Razer OSVR also has an IR camera operating at 100Hz, and 360-degree tracking, too. Razer CEO Min-Liang Tang added: "Gaming is moving towards the virtual reality platform and this poses huge benefits and challenges to gamers at every level. OSVR brings game developers, gamers and hardware manufacturers together to solve those challenges and make virtual reality gaming a reality for the masses".

While virtual reality tech requires high-performance hardware to simulate the low-latency mirage-like magic of a virtual space, the other half of the VR puzzle lies in a developer's experience. Devs need to have in-depth knowledge and be familiar not only with professional-grade GPU's and hardware, but also be able to push the tech past its known boundaries--but the VR space is chocked full of inexperienced devs.

Everyone wants to get in on VR. As the new gaming platform of the future, VR represents a leap forward in innovation and possibility, attracting a staggering amount of developers across the world. But not all of these developers are actually qualified to create games on the platform, leading to amateur experiences rather than the dazzling and immersion games that fully harness VR's potential.

"What we often find is less experienced teams that we're seeing demos from, they don't have enough experience with graphics optimisation," said Thor Gunnarsson, developer at Solfar Studios, an interview with Games Industry Biz. "Things like shader development, lighting, and so on. Consequently, they often end up with these quite basic, solid-shaded or cartoony style experiences. We think that's a bit of a challenge. You ideally want to have teams that have some background from console or high-end PC development to actually create the richness of the environment."

According to its founders, Magic Leap is more than hologram-laden augmented reality tech: it's an idea, a kind of ethos that's founded upon a natural symbiosis between our physical, tangible reality and the ether that projects images to change our lives. In a sense, Magic Leap wants to unify the digital and real-world as one.

"Magic Leap is an idea," reads the official Magic Leap website. "An idea that computing should be shaped and forged to work for us: our life, our physiology, our connected relationships. That exploring human creativity is as great an adventure as exploring space. It's an idea based in the belief that people should not have to choose between technology or safety, technology or privacy, the virtual world or the real-world."

Since the company has raised half a billion dollars in funding, receiving major injections from titans like Google, it's fair to say that people believe in Magic Leap. But how does it work exactly? Even the recent Magic Leap tech demo showcased at the WSJD conference doesn't answer all the questions. Magic Leap is indeed based on the principles on augmented reality, but leverages the term "cinematic-reality technology" rather than AR. We know it has HoloLens-levels of potential, but the details are still somewhat vague.

PC-maker ASUS is quite interested in augmented reality (AR) headsets and sees great potential in the new layered technology. Since ASUS apparently doesn't have its own R&D arm focused on the new AR platform (yet?), it has initiated tentative discussions with Microsoft to leverage the HoloLens rather than build its own AR headset from the ground up.

Right now Microsoft is the first major commercial tech company pushing the boundaries of augmented reality tech, but ASUS might join the fray to help solidify the platform. CNET reports that ASUS CEO Jonney Shih and Microsoft Windows exec Terry Myerson are discussing the possibility of a union, which could lead to a more affordable, ASUS-branded HoloLens.

Interestingly enough, Myerson hints that Microsoft is open to the deal."It's ultimately up to Mr. Shih if [ASUS] decides to make its own version of HoloLens." It's no surprise that Redmond would want to expand the Windows ecosystem across third-party products, which has done with its entire array of devices from PC's to mobiles. AR headsets would just be another category. "Everything we're doing in hardware, we do with the mind of how do we grow the Windows ecosystem. That is why we're investing to create a category."

In a bid to break dependence on video games and get kids interested in the real-world around them, the U.S. Forest Service plays a trick that reminds us real life has amazing graphics.

To achieve this feat, the initiative used faked VR headsets and told the kids they had a rare opportunity to test out the world's "most realistic game in development". The kids were naturally excited at the prospect of trying out a brand new immersive video game set in the brave new world of virtual reality.

The "game" is called "the forest", and sports full surround sound, high-def graphics and is fully immersive. The real magic happened once the kids took off the headsets and saw through the ruse, doing kid things like actually running around and playing. Our generation could learn something from this, and I'd love to see this kind of trick played on adults, who are absolutely glued to the smart devices that run their lives.