Road to VR

State of VR with the Venture Reality Fund & Why They’re Continuing to Invest

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Jul 6, 2017

Virtual Reality Headsets have not sold as many units as some of the more optimistic analysts have predicted, and VR Fund’s Tipatat Chennavasin says that the relatively quick adoption of smartphone technologies have spoiled a lot of people within the investment community. But despite the adoption being slower than some had hoped, Chennavasin still sees a lot of optimistic indicators for the long-term investment of companies that are driving the evolution of the medium in different industry verticals.

Apple Developers Join WebVR Community Group Shaping the Future of VR on the Web

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Jul 6, 2017

Image courtesy Apple

WebVR is an in-development open standard that aims to define how browsers should communicate with VR hardware, allowing developers to create VR experiences that are served directly from the web. With Apple’s newly public interest in VR, developers from the company have join the W3C WebVR Community Group to have a say in the development of the WebVR standard.

‘Noda’ is a Mind Mapping Tool for Spatial Thinking in VR

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Jul 5, 2017

Gaming in VR is great, but there’s huge potential for the tech to be used for productivity too. One early stab at that is Noda, a mind mapping tool for the Vive and Rift.

Nokia and Xiaomi Announce a Long-term Partnership to “Explore” AR and VR

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Dominic Brennan

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Jul 5, 2017

The Finnish and Chinese companies today signed a cross-licensing patent deal ‘focused around the data center’, according to a CNBC report. This will allow Nokia and Xiaomi to develop new products, as they look to collaborate further in areas such as the Internet of Things, augmented and virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.

Hands-on: ‘Augmented Empire’ is an Engaging, Story-Driven Tactical RPG for Gear VR

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Jul 5, 2017

augmented empire (3) — image courtesy Coatsink Software

At this year’s E3, we got a chance to go hands-on with Augmented Empire, a narrative-driven tactical RPG coming exclusively to Gear VR on July 13th. Created by Coatsink, the studio known for the Esper series and helping Boneloaf develop Gang Beasts (2016), the action plays out on a tiled game board displayed as an augmented reality diorama.

New ‘Warehouse-Scale’ VR Arcade Offering Simultaneous 8-Person Multiplayer

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Jul 5, 2017

When laser tag came into arcades and theme parks around the world in the 80s and 90s, a new industry of custom, commercial-grade laser tag hardware was born—coincidentally the same point in time when VR experienced its first massive hype cycle and went back into proverbial hibernation. Now that VR is back, location-based entertainment (LBE) facilities are eyeing virtual reality as ‘the next laser tag’, a place where a group of friends could go and experience something unique together. Enter VRstudios.

‘Strange Beasts’ is a Sci-fi Short About Augmented Reality in the Vein of ‘Black Mirror’

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Jul 5, 2017

strange-beasts-ar — image captured by Road to VR

Truth is oftentimes stranger than fiction, but because wide-spread, photorealistic augmented reality is still in the realm of science fiction rather than science fact, we usually defer to the storytellers and visual effects gurus to explore the possibilities. In one such sci-fi short called Strange Beasts, augmented reality is capable of delivering a realistic Tamagotchi game superimposed onto the physical world.

This Startup Aims to Deliver a VR Headset with ‘Human Eye Level’ Resolution

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Jul 5, 2017

varjo-20-20-headset-prototype-featured — Varjo's "20/20" prototype hiding inside of an Oculus Rift, image courtesy The Verge

Varjo Technologies, a Helsinki-based startup now out of stealth, recently demonstrated what it calls the world’s first human eye-resolution headmounted display. Intended for its own swath of Varjo-branded headsets, the new display configuration promises “unprecedented resolution of VR and AR content limited only by the perception of the human eye itself.”

Samsung Mobile VR Reference Headset Revealed With Eye-tracking

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Jul 4, 2017

samsung-exynos-3-headset-2 — Photo courtesy Rappler

Not to be left out of the reference design fun (with Intel, Qualcomm, and more already offering headset blueprints for others to build upon), Samsung has revealed its VR headset reference design.

Diversity in VR: Lessons from the Oculus Launchpad Initiative

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Jul 4, 2017

In March 2016, Oculus announced their Oculus Launchpad program with the idea that in order for VR to be successful, then there needs to be a diverse range of content created from diverse set of creators who are informed by different ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, and gender identities. Oculus brought together over 100 diverse content creators for a one-day training, and awarded scholarships to 11 projects from the dozens of prototypes submitted at the end of the program. Oculus Launchpad participant Dale Henry wrote up a detailed critique of the Launchpad program that provided a lot of constructive criticism for improvements that he’d like to see.

Ultra-violent Battle Sim ‘Gorn’ to Hit Steam Early Access July 10th

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Jul 4, 2017

Gorn, the blood-soaked battle simulator from the makers of weird and wild games Broforce (2015) and Genital Jousting (2016), is officially coming to Steam Early Access on July 10th.

Oculus Brings Mixed Reality Capture Support to Rift

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Jul 4, 2017

Photo by Road to VR

Trying to capture what someone is experiencing when they’re head-first in a VR game has been an interesting problem to crack. By matching up live video and a digital environment with the help of a green screen setup though, you can essentially create a video that places you straight in the action—one that better communicates the immersion of a VR game than a simple first-person screen capture. Oculus recently revealed in a blog post that in the past months they’ve been working on bringing native mixed reality capture support to Oculus Rift, and it’s available today for developers to start creating mixed reality videos.

GunnAR Live Fire Test Shows How AR Can Revolutionize Decades-old Combat Procedures

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Jul 4, 2017

The GunnAR system uses augmented reality helmets to visually relay targeting and firing commands to gunners aboard Navy vessels, replacing decades-old methods of giving audible commands by radio which can be hard to hear over the sounds of firing machine guns and through required ear protection.

Apple’s Job Listings Seek ‘VR File Format Engineer’, ‘VR Pipeline Engineer’, & More

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Jul 3, 2017

Based on an image courtesy Apple

Now that Apple is being open about their interest in VR the company is publicly listing new job postings for a number of roles seeking candidates with VR expertise. Two of the latest listings suggest the company is exploring VR video codecs and file formats.

Developer Videos Show Valve’s Knuckles Controllers in Action

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Dominic Brennan

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Jul 3, 2017

New footage of Valve’s new ‘Knuckles’ controllers has emerged over the past few days, as developers begin to test out the new device. The ‘next-gen’ SteamVR controller prototypes represent a major advancement over the current Vive motion controllers, with five finger tracking and an ‘open hand’ grip.

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