Steam Audio, Valve’s free made-for-VR spatial audio system, has added support for AMD’s GPU-based TrueAudio Next technology, as well as the popular FMOD audio software.
Dinner Party is an immersive exploration of Betty and Barney Hill’s widely known 1961 alien abduction story that premiered at the Sundance New Frontier film festival. Rather than using normal alien tropes, writers Laura Wexler & Charlotte Stoudt chose to use the spatial affordances of VR to present a symbolic representation of each of their experiences to highlight how vastly different they were.
Sairento VR (2018), a VR ninja action game from indie developer Mixed Realms, ended its year-long stint in Steam Early Access today. The game, which features both single player and multiplayer modes, also launched on Oculus Home today.
For Fun Labs, the developers behind Eleven: Table Tennis VR (2016), are hosting a free weekend for Rift players this week on Oculus Home.
Wal-Mart, the big-box retail giant, unveiled its Store No. 8 tech startup incubator last year with the aim of researching and investing in emergent tech like AR and VR. Now, Store No. 8 has acquired Spatialand, a startup that has created a platform and toolset for enterprise companies to create VR content.
HP is bringing out an enterprise-focused version of its Windows ‘Mixed Reality’ VR headset in March. Called the ‘Professional Edition’, HP is pushing out basically the same headset hardware-wise save a few tweaks it considers necessary for VR-use in the workplace.
The full release of Godot 3.0 is now available, bringing VR support to the engine via a lightweight, 3DoF, ‘Cardboard-like’ solution, and OpenVR support through a GDNative-based plugin. The multiplatform Godot Engine is an open source, non-profit project available to download for free via the official site or through Steam.
Noitom, the Beijing-based company building affordable motion capture systems, announced the release of Perception Neuron 2.0, a hardware refresh of the company’s original tracker which resulted from their 2014 Kickstarter campaign. The company also announced a new product ecosystem which will allow both 1.0 and 2.0 owners to use the tiny 1.2 gram snap-in sensors with specialized straps and a full body mocap, zip-up suit.
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.”
