Back in August, developer Enhance Games announced that Rez Infinite (2016) would launch on Google Daydream “later this year.” With little forewarning, the futuristic action-shooter is now available on Google Play for Daydream-compatible smartphones.
Taeyong Kim, VP of Samsung Electronics and Head of Graphics R&D, took the stage last month at the company’s annual developer conference to talk a little bit about the future of VR for the company. While no big reveals were expected for the talk, Kim actually mentioned to the crowd that the company is actively working on a standalone VR headset with inside-out tracking and 6 DoF controllers as their ‘next mobile VR product’.
Toyota recently revealed T-HR3, the company’s third-generation humanoid robot. Designed primarily as an experiment to explore new technologies to make robots more physically capable, T-HR3 demonstrates a new “remote maneuvering system” that not only mirrors a user’s movements to the robot, but lets them see and interact with the world through the ‘eyes’ and arms of the robot using a robotic exoskeleton, an HTC Vive headset, and a pair of Vive Trackers.
Without explicitly announcing a new specific product, Samsung quietly implied that they may be developing a new standalone mobile VR HMD during a session during their developer conference last month. While there were no major VR announcements during the main keynote at SDC, in a session titled What’s on The Horizon: A Look at the Future of VR at Samsung, Tae Yong Kim, Samsung Electronics’ VP, Head of Graphics R&D, showed a graphic with a question mark in between a Gear VR mobile VR headset and a Samsung Odyssey Windows Mixed Reality HMD. Kim said that the Gear VR is “fully mobile, quickly attaches via a cell phone, and affordable” while the Odyssey offers a “premium experience coming from the positional tracking of the headset and the controllers, and the computing power of the PC.” He said, “The question is ‘How do we combine the benefits of those two technologies together for our next VR system?'”
Facebook Spaces, the company’s social VR platform available on Oculus Rift, has updated to include a new mini-game that aims to pave the way for more yet to come. Called Bait! Arctic Open, the game lets you ice fish while you shoot the breeze with your VR buddies.
In comparison to the various PC VR platforms and even mobile VR headsets like Samsung Gear VR, PlayStation VR has been at a bit of disadvantage when it comes to the depth and breadth of social VR spaces available. That’s changing soon though with Against Gravity’s Rec Room on PSVR, a landmark social VR experience that moves into open beta today.
Pixvana, a Seattle-based startup creating a cloud-based processing and delivery platform for VR video, today announced a $14 million Series A funding round led by Vulcan Capital with participation from Raine Ventures, Microsoft Ventures, Cisco Investments and Hearst Ventures, and existing investor Madrona Venture Group.
The company formerly known as AxonVR, which has raised more than $5 million in venture capital, is rebranding to HaptX, and revealing a feature prototype of a VR glove which uses micro-pneumatics for detailed haptics and force feedback to the fingers. After trying the prototype for myself, I came away impressed with the tech. The company’s next challenge is to turn the prototype into something sleeker, smaller, and far more practical.
Czech developer iNFINITE Production has released UVRF – a free, cross-platform template for hand presence in VR. The open-source demo offers a framework for use in any Unreal Engine project, as well as a ‘Playground’ scene containing an underground bunker and shooting range to showcase hand interactivity.
Black Friday is nearly here, and while the stores are soon to be jam-packed with people hoping to get a great deal on this year’s must-buys, online sales have already begun for the newest entries into the world of VR hardware. Microsoft’s Windows “Mixed Reality” headsets are now on sale for up to $100, bringing the cheapest among them to just $300.
Foundry10, a Seattle based philanthropic educational research organization, wanted to explore what happens when you bring VR into the classroom. Following a pilot project started in 2015, Foundry10 has now put VR in the hands of 40 schools and community centers around the world, and measured students attitudes toward the technology.
Benchmark specialists Futuremark are launching a new ‘room’ on November 22nd as a free update for VRMark Advanced & Professional Editions. Adding to the existing ‘Orange Room’ and ‘Blue Room’ benchmarks, ‘Cyan Room’ uses a pure DirectX 12 engine optimised for VR.
Palo Alto-based VR/AR startup GridRaster recently announced a nearly $2 million seed funding round to strengthen and develop their mobile VR/AR rendering infrastructure. GridRaster claims to deliver high-fidelity graphics at 10 times the performance compared to standalone mobile platforms, a feat accomplished by a method of cloud computing optimisation called ‘edge computing’.
Skyrim VR is the first to launch in a series of VR titles from legendary game-maker Bethesda (with Doom VR and Fallout 4 VR soon to follow). The title is effectively a port of the now six year-old open-world RPG Skyrim. The usual wisdom is that VR is so new and so different that it can’t be shoehorned into traditional titles. And while not without its flaws, Skyrim VR challenges that wisdom by bringing a heaping helping of a different sort of immersion.
The 2017 Golden Joystick Awards winners are in, revealed last night at the 35th annual ceremony that celebrated the best in gaming this year. Taking the Golden Joystick for ‘Best VR Game’ was Capcom’s horror-adventure Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017), a game that equally supports PSVR and traditional monitors.
