Supporting HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, Supermedium is a new, fully VR browser from the creators of VR web framework ‘A-Frame’ and part of the original Mozilla team behind the WebVR initiative. Available to download on Supermedium’s website, the browser aims to become the new home for lightweight, fast-loading, web-based VR experiences.
Sparc (2017), the VR sport from EVE Online developers CCP Games, is hosting a free weekend for Rift players on Oculus Home. Temporary free access has already begun, and will conclude on February 4th at 11:59 PM PT (local time here).
Two images showing a seemingly consumer-ready box containing Oculus Go, the company’s upcoming standalone VR headset, found its way to Reddit and Twitter recently, possibly indicating that launch is right around the corner.
Sólfar Studios’ new title IN DEATH, launches today in Early Access with a launch week discount. The “roguelike” bow-shooter makes use of procedural generation to create different experience every time you play, the developers say, while players come upon “monsters, mysteries and loot.”
VRgineers is a Czech-based startup building a VR headset positioned strictly for the enterprise world. Compared to today’s consumer VR headsets, it’s undeniably huge and heavy, but a hands-on with their latest VRHero “5K” Plus shows that they’re on a path to delivering on their promise of unmatched image quality.
Sundance New Frontier had a solid line-up of VR experiences this year with a number of immersive storytelling innovations including SPHERES: Songs of Spacetime, which takes you on a journey into the center of a black hole. It’s a hero’s journey that provides an embodied experience of the evolution of a star from birth to death with a poetic story written and directed by Eliza McNitt, narrated by Jessica Chastain, and produced by Darren Aronofsky’s Protozoa Pictures.
VR/AR expert Antony Vitillo (aka ‘Skarred Ghost‘) got an opportunity to speak with HTC Vive China President Alvin Wang Graylin recently, and while Graylin predictably couldn’t answer the question on everyone’s mind—”how much is Vive Pro going to cost?”—we learned the headset is definitely targeting a prosumer price range that makes it “more expensive than the existing consumer product.”
VirZOOM, makers of VR arcade exercise games and the VirZOOM Bike Controller, announced the successful closure of a $5.5 million seed funding round which the company says will help expand its commercial business worldwide with a second generation of its VZ Module and VZ Sensor, a retrofitting kit for stationary bikes that turns them into VR controllers.
Jeremy Bailenson founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, and his latest book Experience on Demand traces his academic journey through virtual reality. It’s an intellectual memoir that focuses on his personal work in VR, and the insights that VR provides into human communication dynamics, as well as the impact of VR on our identity, empathy, education, medicine, and our ability to understand complex issues such as global warming and our impact on the environment.
If you were alive in the ’90s, chances are you’ve heard about Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, the American domestic terrorist that between 1978 and 1995 killed 3 people, and injured 23 others in a nationwide bombing campaign. Now, HTC Vive Studios and The Newseum, an interactive news museum in Washington, D.C., have come together to produce a VR experience detailing the Unabomber case, which features an interactive inside look at Kaczynski’s infamous Montana cabin where he planned his bombings.
Having just celebrated a successful closed beta, which showed off some of the game’s new mechanics and solo challenge mode, Survios now says its infectious footracer Sprint Vector is set to launch on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift on February 8th. PlayStation VR players will have to wait until February 13th to join in the fun.
Google Blocks, the 3D object creation tool for VR/AR app developers, just got a big update that includes new environments, improved object snapping, and a number of experimental features that the company says makes Blocks “more powerful and even easier to use.”
Back at CES, Oculus announced that Chinese electronics giant Xiaomi would exclusively bring its own branded version of the standalone Oculus Go headset to China. The headset will support the Oculus Mobile SDK, meaning existing Gear VR and future Oculus Go apps can be packaged up for sale to the Chinese VR market through Xiaomi’s Mi VR store.
Starting toward the end of 2017, the number of listed job openings at Oculus has nearly tripled, with the current number of openings floating around an all time high.
