In a curious move, HTC has revealed a new mobile VR headset called Link that is not part of the company’s Vive brand. The move comes just a week after the company announced a mobile standalone Vive headset in partnership with Google.
Haptic feedback is one of the toughest challenges for general-purpose VR input, but for the driving simulation genre, dedicated controllers have been addressing the problem for over two decades. Now that ‘cockpit view’ makes so much sense for VR racing, many newcomers feel the pull to ditch their gamepads and invest in more realistic input devices for driving. Here’s where to start.
Mozilla’s mission statement is to ensure that the Internet remains a global public resource, open and accessible to all, and they’ve been helping to bring VR to the web for the past three years. A-Frame is an open source framework for creating WebVR content that has gained a lot of momentum over the last year with more participants on the A-Frame Slack channel than the official WebVR Slack.
Valve’s The Lab is home to a number of fun mini-games, all of which feel like great blueprints for a full VR game. Developer Clear Ink Studios has stepped up to the plate to flesh out Valve’s unique VR ‘bullet-hell’ mini-game, Xortex, into a standalone experience dubbed Galaxis Wars.
Announced at Samsung’s Unpacked event earlier this year was a new version of the Gear 360, the company’s 360 camera. The event, which saw official announcement of the Galaxy S8/S8 plus and pricing info of the new Gear VR headset, revealed that the new Gear 360 is capable of capturing 360 video in 4K (4096 x 2160) at 24 fps, and livestreaming 2K to Facebook and YouTube. The camera is now due to launch in the US tomorrow (Thursday, May 25th) with an attractive new price of $229.
In a recent interview with Glixel, Dr. Richard Marks, head of Sony’s Magic Lab R&D team, talked about PSVR’s development history, social VR, and a possible holodeck-style future. He thinks voice input has unrealised potential, and could become the way users launch into different VR experiences in the future, customising them in real-time thanks to procedural generation.
Having founded Oculus in 2012 and been an important face for the company throughout its growth from fledgling startup to $2 billion acquisition by Facebook and beyond, it was a shock to see Palmer Luckey leave the company just two months ago. Having shied away from the public eye since September 2016 after the ousting of a polarizing political position, Luckey has gone on record in an interview for the first time since leaving the company.
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information, and so they’ve been long-time advocates for the open web. At Google I/O last week, the company announced that they’ll soon be shipping Google Chrome for Android with WebVR, and that they’re going to start experimental builds for WebAR. During the WebVR talk at I/O, Google showed how to write a progressive web application with three.js that could be viewed on a desktop computer, mobile phone or tablet, or Google Cardboard or Daydream virtual reality headset. Google is pushing the hardest for platform-agnostic WebVR applications on the web as mental presence is their core strength.
Oculus recently published the first installment of their ‘Developer Perspectives’ video playlists, detailed on the developer blog. Crytek’s VR movement research is presented by Julius Carter, Game Designer at the studio behind award-winning VR games
SUPERHOT VR is surely one of the best pieces of VR content available today, but has remained exclusive to Oculus since launch. The developers have teased that the game is coming to the HTC Vive this Thursday, May 25th, but you can already play it today thanks to a free and easy to install hack.
Google has released a Daydream VR app called Audio Factory, a polished and even entertaining demonstrating their Spatial Audio Engine for VR. Described as “VR’s second sense”, spatial audio is a key aspect of maintaining a high level of immersion, and all major VR platform providers offer their own solutions as part of their SDKs, including Google.
Fidget spinners—little spinning hand toys—are one of the latest fads to see explosive growth, rising rapidly in popularity faster than the most hopeful startup. With a seemingly endless number of spinners available to purchase, developer Vladimir Storm decided to make a virtual reality fidget spinner because… you know… why not?
20th Century Fox’s Interactive Entertainment and theme park arm FoxNext is building a 2000 sq. ft free-roaming multiplayer VR experience set in the world of the Alien movie franchise.
Said to be the world’s first VR sim racing helmet, the HelmetVR is perhaps the ultimate in VR sim racing excess, combining a real Arai racing helmet with an Oculus Rift headset. The custom headset comes from FormulaVR, a Netherlands-based, high-end sim rig manufacturer.
Valve’s new SteamVR Home Beta just launched and it represents a vast improvement on what has gone before with fully 3D, customisable environments, a glut of new social features and a fully featured Steam interface. Will you ever want to leave VR?
