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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
With Apple’s increasing interest in VR on Mac, the company is adding essential features to its new Metal 2 graphics API to support high performance VR on MacOS.
According to a recent entry on the Google Developers Blog, the company has begun experimenting with advertising formats suitable for placement inside of virtual reality experiences. Focusing on mobile VR platforms, the first idea they’ve shared for a native VR ad is a floating cube that can be optionally engaged with via a tap or gaze.
There was an amazing projection-mapped, immersive theater piece at Sundance this year by Heartcorps called Riders of the Storyboard. Trained street performers interacted with virtual projection-mapped 2D objects, and through the sleight of hand magic broke these flat objects into the third as glowing 3D props.
