Funktronic Labs, the studio behind Cosmic Trip (2017), today launched their latest title, an arcade remote-controlled taxi game dubbed Starbear: Taxi (2018). Starbear: Taxi launched today on Rift, Vive, and Windows “Mixed Reality” VR headsets.
At Facebook’s F8 developer conference Oculus revealed a glimpse at an intriguing new headset prototype dubbed ‘Half Dome’. Including a 140 degree field of view, varifocal displays, and what appears to be eye-tracking, the prototype is a tantalizing peek at the company’s research and what may lay ahead of us—just don’t expect it everything we saw “anytime soon,” says Oculus co-founder and Head of Rift Nate Mitchell.
Google is celebrating the life and artistry of French film pioneer Georges Méliès today with a charming VR short that commemorates his iconic silent films including the groundbreaking A Trip to the Moon (1902).
TSA Frisky is an upcoming room-scale game that turns the tables on travelers and their would-be airport security officers. The game, which appears to be a cheeky cross between Papers, Please (2013) and Job Simulator (2016), is slated to arrive on Steam for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Windows VR Headsets on May 17th.
One of Facebook’s underlying goals for VR is to use it as a means of connecting distant people. While today friends can talk and play in a range of social VR applications, including Facebook Spaces, the representation of users in VR is still a caricature at best. At F8 this week, Oculus showed work being done on hand-tracking to bring more intuitive control and accurate avatars into VR.
Oculus today at F8 overviewed some of the latest VR technology that they’d been working on internally. Among the projects mentioned is the ‘Half Dome’ prototype, a Rift-like headset with a 140 degree field of view, varifocal displays, and what appears to be eye-tracking.
At Facebook’s F8 developer conference, Oculus today announced it’s both overhauling and rebranding React VR, the company’s open-source JavaScript library that lets developers create cross-platform WebVR experiences. Now dubbed React 360, the company says the framework now “provides clearer prioritization for our future roadmap.”
Oculus Go, the company’s $200 standalone VR headset, launched at Facebook’s F8 developer conference yesterday to much fanfare—likely because everyone in attendance got one free. Now that anyone can get their hands on one, Oculus founder and ex-employee Palmer Luckey took it upon himself to post a single image of the headset laid bare, revealing a few interesting bits including what might be a replaceable battery.
Beat Saber (2018) is finally here, the block-slicing rhythm game that puts two lightsabers in your hands and tasks you with using your Jedi powers to slice to the beat. Less than a day since release, one Twitch streamer has already modded his Oculus Touch controller to play Darth Maul-style, aka with a single double-bladed lightsaber.
While high-end headsets like the Rift and Vive use external sensors for positional tracking, the Windows VR headsets use a fully ‘inside-out’ solution which eliminates the need for external trackers and simplifies setup, but certainly makes hand-tracking more challenging. While the Windows VR headsets are often criticized for the precision of their hand-tracking, I was surprised to find how well they hold up in practice even with a fast paced, highly active game like Beat Saber (2018).
Microsoft released its April Windows 10 update yesterday, and with it comes the official launch of SteamVR support for Windows “Mixed Reality” VR headsets.
Quill, Facebook’s VR painting and animation tool, is now getting a new and immersive avenue for sharing artwork created in the application. With today’s update, users can now share their artwork into Facebook Spaces, letting friends experience it together. Facebook VR artist Goro Fujita created a new short film animated in Quill and shared in Spaces as an example of the new capability.
Today at Facebook’s F8 developer conference the company announced a new partnership with RED Digital Cinema, a high-end digital film camera company, to create a VR camera based on Facebook’s Surround360 technology.
NextVR, the live event VR broadcasting company, today announced a partnership with Oculus to bring live VR events to Oculus Venues, the company’s upcoming social viewing app that will allow mass viewing of events such as sports, concerts and comedy.
Nearly seven months after its announcement back in October 2017, Oculus Go, the company’s first standalone VR headset, is finally here. The company’s thesis is that this affordably priced unit, which doesn’t rely on a docked smartphone, will make for a more seamless mobile VR experience. But does it go above and beyond Gear VR? Read on to find out.
