HTC Vive Focus with Next-Gen XR2 Chipset Appears on Geekbench
A newly posted Geekbench score may point to what HTC has up their sleeves next for Vive Focus, the company’s class of standalone VR headsets.
Casual 3D Puzzle Game ‘Cubism’ Set to Launch Next Week on Quest, Rift, & Steam
Cubism is a casual VR puzzle that plays a bit like a 3D version of Tetris. The game is due to launch on September 17th on Quest, Rift, and Steam. A future update will add hand-tracking on Quest.
PlayStation Store PSVR Spotlight Sale Brings Big Discounts to Over 100 VR Games
If you were saving up to buy a PlayStation 5 when it launches this holiday season, you may need to save a little more, as one of the biggest PSVR game sales to date just kicked off today. Over 100 VR games are currently on sale, which goes from now until September 24th.
‘Echo Combat’ Not Currently in the Works for Oculus Quest
If you were hoping for the Rift-exclusive team shooter Echo Combat (2018) to eventually make its way to Quest after developers Ready at Dawn ported the zero-G sports game Echo VR, you’d better not hold your breath.
Someone Recreated ‘Fall Guys’ in VR and It’s Actually Awesome
Although Fall Guys (2020) is only available on PS4 and PC, it wasn’t long until a dedicated fan came along to recreate a few of the knockout-style game’s levels in VR.
NVIDIA’s DLSS 2.1 Supersampling Now Supports VR, Could Significantly Boost Fidelity
NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Supersampling (DLSS) technology uses AI to increase the resolution of rendered frames by taking a smaller frame and intelligently enlarging it. The technique has been lauded for its ability to render games with high resolution with much greater efficiency than natively rendering at the same resolution. Now the latest version, DLSS 2.1, includes VR support and could bring a huge boost to fidelity in VR content.
HTC CEO Yves Maitre Steps Down After Less Than One Year
With less than one year at the company’s helm, HTC announced that Yves Maitre is stepping down as the company’s President and CEO.
Rumor: HP is Building a Reverb G2 Model with Eye, Mouth, & Face-tracking
HP announced its Reverb G2 headset earlier this year and plans to ship it this fall. Another, rumored version of the headset referred to as the ‘Omnicept Edition’ is said to include eye, mouth, and face-tracking.
AR Glasses Startup Nreal Secures $40M in Series B Financing
Nreal, the China-based company behind the Nreal Light AR glasses, today announced its secured another $40 million in funding.
Social XR Collaboration Platform ‘Spatial’ Now on Oculus Store for Quest
The VirtualLink Single-cable Headset Connection Standard Has Been Abandoned
VirtualLink was an open standard that defined a USB-C based connection protocol that was “developed to meet the connectivity requirements of current and next-generation VR headsets,” and backed by major VR industry players. The goal was to make a single, thin cable the norm for connecting VR headsets to PCs, instead of having multiple connectors (USB, video, and sometimes additional power) at the PC-end of the cable. Unfortunately the standard didn’t gain traction and appears to now be abandoned by the group that created it.
Facebook Wants to Build an AR Headset to Supercharge Your Hearing, Create a Custom HRTF from a Photograph
The Facebook Reality Labs Research team shared some of its latest audio initiatives today. The group aims to build technologies into an AR headset that will supercharge your hearing by making it easy to isolate the sound of your conversation in a noisy environment, and to be able to reproduce virtual sounds that seem like they’re coming from the real world around you. A custom HRTF (Head-related Transfer Function)—a digital version of the unique way each person hears sound based on the shape of their head and ears—is key to delivering such experiences, but the process is time consuming and expensive. The team is investigating a scalable solution which would generate an accurate HRTF from a simple photograph of your ear.
‘Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit’ Brings AR Kart-racing to Your Living Room Floor with Switch
You simply never know with Nintendo. One year they’re bringing out a full VR Nintendo Labo kit for Switch, and the next they’ve mashed AR into a remote-controlled car for at-home Mario Kart races. One thing is for sure: Nintendo’s latest is bound to be this year’s holiday must-have for Switch owners.
Hands-on: ‘Eye of the Temple’ is a Clever Room-scale Puzzler That Lets You Become Indiana Jones
Eye of the Temple is an upcoming VR game that takes full advantage of the room-scale abilities of your VR headset, letting you walk, dodge, and duck your way through a vast temple complex. You use your own two feet to make your way through, which really brings you closer to the feeling of truly being Indiana Jones. Oh, and there’s a torch and whip. And a hat.
‘Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR’ Beta Updates Hint at “Upcoming hardware releases”
Updates to the beta version of Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR, the official integration which allows Windows VR headsets to be used with SteamVR, hint at “upcoming hardware releases.”
