A newly published patent granted to Valve envisions new Index headsets that could be wireless or standalone, and include new head-mounts for improved ergonomics.
At the all-digital version of SXSW 2021 today, Facebook’s Mark Rabkin, VP of Oculus, showed off an upcoming new version of its avatar system on Quest.
Beat Saber, the block-slashing rhythm game, is getting its fourth original sound track (OST) installation today, coming to all supported platforms for free.
Pimax’s top of the line offering, the “8K” X headset, originally shipped with a max refresh rate of 75Hz for its native resolution mode. Today the company is releasing a beta update which pushes that up to 90Hz. The company says it worked with NVIDIA to overcome prior “bandwidth limitations” to enable the higher refresh rate on most GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs.
Facebook today revealed some of its latest research and vision for a wrist-worn input device that the company expects to form the basis of AR and VR interactions and haptics in the future. The device, still in a research prototype phase, senses electrical signals in the user’s arm to detect intentional inputs. In addition to functioning as a simple ‘button’ input, the company says the device can even enable accurate, keyboard-less typing, and more.
In preparation for the reveal of its next VR headset, Sony today gave a first look at its next-gen VR controller for use with PS5, something that appears very similar to Oculus’ Touch controller.
Speaking on a panel at the online GDC Showcase today, Facebook’s VP of Play, Jason Rubin, and Facebook Reality Labs’ VP of Content, Mike Verdu, furthered the company’s bullish outlook on Quest. The duo claimed that the platform is very near to being a sustainable developer ecosystem, and that the data shows a clear trajectory in which VR will eventually reach ‘AAA’ scale.
Realities.io, the team behind the photogrammetry-based VR experience Realities (2016), announced that its 3D jigsaw game Puzzling Places will arrive on PSVR sometime later this year.
Zenith: The Last City is an upcoming anime-inspired VRMMORPG from indie studio Ramen VR. It’s still in closed alpha, but Zenith’s first long-format gameplay video reveals that it’s shaping up nicely.
A message uncovered by IGN Italy when plugging in a pair of wireless headphones into an Xbox Series X/S caused a stir in the VR community, as it seemingly alluded to some level of VR support baked into Xbox consoles. Microsoft says however that the error message was inaccurate, and that VR for Xbox is still not a happening.
Last week HTC announced a new accessory, the Vive Facial Tracker. Though the device is designed to mount to the Vive Pro, it turns out it’s technically compatible with other PC VR headsets, provided you can find a way to mount it in the right spot.
While Oculus doesn’t offer much publicly in the way of understanding how well individual apps are performing across its VR storefronts, it’s possible to glean some insight by looking at apps relative to each other. Here’s a snapshot of the top 20 Oculus Quest games and apps as of March 2021.
The 3D puzzler Cubism will be updated this Wednesday, March 17th, to support controller-less hand-tracking. A prior update released in December has paved the way for user-generated puzzles and puzzle sharing.
The Museum of Other Realities (MOR), the immersive multiplayer art museum for virtual reality, is temporarily open to the public for free in celebration of select British XR artists, who are presenting their works via a special showcase called The Immersive Arcade.
In an interview with The Information, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg continued to project his bullish outlook on XR as the future of computing, saying that the company is already working on Oculus Quest 3 and 4. He also spoke about what he believes are key features and challenges for future Oculus headsets.
