On April 12th, Oculus Medium received the 1.1 ‘Large’ update, which added several highly-requested features, including the ability to import reference images. Medium is Oculus’ flagship creative tool for the Touch motion controllers, recognised for its intuitive sculpting and modelling features.
Mark Pesce is a VR pioneer who has been thinking about networked virtual and augmented reality for over 20 years now. He developed the Ono-Sendai Sega VR helmet prototype, co-created VRML, and presented his Cyberspace Protocol spec at the first Web conference in 1994. This CP spec evolved into the Mixed Reality Services spec, which aims to be a distributed system that would grant geospatial permissions for mixed reality applications.
Developer Lucas Rizzotto has created CyberSnake, a free game for Microsoft HoloLens. As explained in the game’s launch video (above), the game is inspired by the 2D Snake arcade game, moved into a mixed reality environment, and played in first person.
Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality (2017) is finally here, launching today on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. And yes, it’s all the wonderful weirdness of the show mixed in with some seriously fun object interaction courtesy of the game’s spiritual predecessor, Job Simulator (2016).
You’re dying for season 3 of Rick and Morty (2013) to come out, and the release of episode 1 on April Fool’s Day isn’t helping. You’ve got a fever that only the drunken ramblings of the genius Rick Sanchez and his level-headed, albeit hopelessly outmatched grandson Morty Smith can cure. The good news: Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality (2017) is here to fill the void in your meaningless existence. The less good news: it’s basically Job Simulator (2016) expertly grafted to an episode of Rick and Morty. And you know what? Th-th-th*ugghhb*at’s just fine by me, Jack. Don’t know why I’m calling you Jack all of a sudden. Let’s just get on with the review.
A novel use of a single Vive Tracker is to stick it to a rotating platform in order to create a virtual potter’s wheel. Patrick Hackett, co-creator of Tilt Brush, tweeted a short clip of the tracker in action as experimented with by an intern.
Back in 2015, Neuroscientist David Eagleman gave a TED talk about the potential to expand and create new senses. He showed off a haptic vest prototype that could translate audio input into an array of 32 vibrating motors that could be fed directly into your body. The signals would reach the brain and create a neural input that is indistinguishable from what the cochlea would produce, meaning that it’s possible to turn the torso into an ear. The principle of sensory substitution shows that the brain doesn’t care where the data comes from as long as it’s structured in the right format and correlated to feedback within the environment.
Michael Abrash, Chief Scientist at Oculus, as-ever delivered an inspiring presentation at today’s F8 conference, this time on the topic of Augmented Reality. AR has received top billing at this year’s event, with Facebook introducing a camera-based platform to develop today’s technology; Abrash’s talk looked further ahead to glasses-based AR which he says will transform how we work and play.
Regina Dugan, VP of Engineering at Facebook’s Building 8 skunkworks and former head of DARPA, took the stage today at F8, the company’s annual developer conference, to highlight some of the research into brain-computer interfaces going on at the world’s most far-reaching social network. While it’s still early days, Facebook wants to start solving some of the AR input problem today by using tech that will essentially read your mind.
Facebook has officially launched React VR, an open-source JavaScript library that lets developers create cross-platform WebVR experiences.
Facebook F8, the company’s annual developer conference, is currently in full swing on its second and final day. Today’s big VR announce from the social platform giant? Facebook is releasing the 360 Capture SDK tool that developers can integrate into VR apps so that you can capture and share your VR experiences through 360 photos and videos. The SDK can be integrated into Unity and Unreal Engines titles, and across NVIDIA and AMD GPUs and is headset agnostic. The 360 Capture SDK is available today on GitHub.
Facebook today announced two new additions to the Surround360 hardware initiative that are poised to make 360 video more immersive. Unveiled at the company’s yearly developer conference, F8, the so-called x24 and x6 cameras are said to capture 360 video with depth information, giving captured video six degrees of freedom (6DoF). This means you can not only move your vantage point up/down, left/right like before, but now forwards/backwards, pitch, yaw and roll are possible while in a 360 video.
At Sundance this year, I had a chance to catch up with a couple of representatives from Google to talk about what’s happening on the YouTube VR platform with 360 videos. I talked with Jamie Byrne, YouTube’s Director of Global Creator & Enterprise Partnerships as well as Julia Hamilton Trost, Google VR’s Business Development & Content Partnerships.
We talked about the YouTube VR application, what they’re doing to do to empower content creators, how they see 360 video as a gateway into higher-end VR, and some of the potential future to add more volumetric and interactive elements to the YouTube platform in the future.
Announced today via the official Vive blog, HTC now has three VR bundles available with 6, 12, and 24-month financing plans in an effort to help customers afford the high upfront cost of the system and the required hardware. Bundles now include the option of a graphics card, laptop, or desktop PC to compliment the Vive system. This adds to the existing financing options for the Vive itself, which can bring the cost down to $40 per month for the $800 hardware.
