In the Echo Arena update this week a blocked off section of the new lobby says ‘Echo Combat – Under Construction’, suggesting that the upcoming zero-G VR FPS would remain an expansion of Echo Arena rather than a separate game. Oculus has indeed affirmed this is the case, and says to expect more details at E3 in June.
Researches from Stony Brook University, NVIDIA, and Adobe have devised a system which hides so-called ‘redirected walking’ techniques using saccades, natural eye movements which act like a momentary blindspot. Redirected walking changes the direction that a user is walking to create the illusion of moving through a larger virtual space than the physical space would allow.
According to a report by CNET, citing an anonymous “person familiar with Apple’s plans,” the company is working on an AR/VR headset targeting 8K resolution per-eye, scheduled for launch in 2020.
Beat Saber, the hotly anticipated VR rhythm game launching May 1st, relies heavily upon colors to guide players in striking the correct notes. For those with color blindness, this could make the game more challenging. Fortunately the developer has confirmed plans for a color blind mode. Furthermore, the Beat Saber soundtrack will be released alongside the game itself.
As part of Mozilla’s ongoing efforts to make VR a first-class citizen on the web, the company today announced Hubs, a WebVR-based social experience which makes for effortless, one-click creation of virtual spaces which anyone can join—from smartphones desktop browsers to VR headsets—directly from the browser. The approach removes a heap of barriers that traditionally stand between two people and a face-to-face conversation in VR.
John Root co-founded VRLA with Cosmo Scharf in 2014, and it has organically grown into a thriving VR event with over 10,000 attendees at the Los Angeles Convention Center. VRLA is a non-profit where funding from sponsors helps to support about half of their exhibitors within the event’s Indie Zone, which helps them feature a lot of innovative independent VR experiments and start-ups. VRLA is happening this year on May 4th and 5th. I had a chance to walk the showroom floor of VRLA 2017 with Root where he took me on a guided tour through the history of VRLA, his thoughts on AR, using VR for film production, the future of privacy in AR/VR, as well as why he is interested in seeing where eSports in VR is headed.
Virtual Builds, a company spinning out of ASIC engineering firm Noisefigure Research, is a new entrant now selling SteamVR Tracking development hardware. With a full DIY kit starting at $200, Virtual Builds aims to make SteamVR Tracking more accessible for VR hardware companies and individual developers makers alike.
Echo Arena, which ranks among our 5 favorite Rift sports games, has seen the release of patch 9.0, which totally overhauls the game’s social lobby, a place where players can socialize and participate in a number of activities while waiting for matches to begin. An incomplete section of the lobby teases forthcoming Echo Combat content.
Oculus recently opened applications for its annual Launch Pad program, a developer mentorship that provides funding and resources to people from underrepresented backgrounds.
Leap Motion, the company behind the hand-tracking depth sensor, recently tweeted out another through-the-headset view of a prototype UI, this time centered on how some simple elements might work in the “augmented office” of the near future.
Pimax, the company behind the wide field of view “8K” VR headset, today unveiled a new controller design intended to ship alongside their upcoming VR hardware. Much like Valve’s still unreleased ‘Knuckles’ controllers, the new Pimax controller is designed to strap to your hand for an ‘open-palm’ experience.
Paper Valley is as pretty unique experience. Although it’s decidedly a more zen-like game without any real pressure to succeed, there’s something to it that’s just engaging enough to keep you moving forward, hopefully getting you into the quiet, focused flowstate.
Oculus Go is an upcoming standalone VR headset and controller that offers the same content library and a similar experience to Gear VR, but in a dedicated unit rather than a ‘headset shell’ accessory for a smartphone. What follows is a brief overview of everything we know about the soon the launch headset.
