Although the Samsung Galaxy S8 may not make its big entrance at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona next week, the company will however be presenting a few new VR/AR projects coming direct from their in-house incubator Creative Lab (C-Lab). Just recompense? Maybe not, but there’s at least two in the bunch that ought to raise an eyebrow—and all of them will undoubtedly explode your computer’s spellcheck.
Zappar, a London-based developer in the Augmented Reality space, is announcing the closing of its Series A funding round. The $3.75m investment will accelerate the development of several new products along with increased support for ZapWorks, their flagship content creation tool.
Everyone in the VR industry can envision a world in the next 10 years that’s radically changed by virtual reality. From healthcare, education, social, training, cinema, gaming, and more, VR has a lot of Killer Use-cases. But it seems most of the industry is in agreement that the Killer App—a single, platform-defining piece of software that compels buyers—has not yet arrived. Samsung’s Nick DiCarlo weighs in on how we might come to find it.
Prolific YouTuber Tom Scott recently visited the Mixed Reality Lab at the YouTube Space studio in New York in order to showcase mixed reality capture. The lab is using a technique involving a green screen and a tracked camera to combine real world footage with a virtual reality environment, and helpfully lays out the basic concepts of the technique.
Tilt Brush is Google’s first VR app to launch on the Oculus Rift, and I had a chance to catch up with Tilt Brush product manager Elisabeth Morant. We have a broad discussion about adapting Tilt Brush for the Touch controllers, the Tilt Brush Artist in Residency Program, the Tiltbrush Unity Toolkit, and some of the features coming in the future potentially including a layering system and more non-intuitive and unexpected features similar to audio reactive brushes. I also asked about privacy in VR, but Google has yet to disclose any information about what information they may or may not be capturing from VR users.
As evidenced by the decision to begin selling SteamVR Tracking base stations directly later this year, Valve aims to continue driving development of the technology. A look at the latest engineering sample of the next-generation base station model shows a new design approach that simplifies the device down to a single rotor and enhances tracking.
Everyone in the VR industry can envision a world in the next 10 years that’s radically changed by virtual reality. From healthcare, education, social, training, cinema, gaming, and more, VR has a lot of Killer Use-cases. But it seems most of the industry is in agreement that the Killer App—a single, platform-defining piece of software that compels buyers—has not yet arrived. Oculus’ Jason Rubin weighs in on how we might come to find it.
One of Gear VR’s most polished shooters is making the leap to the Oculus Rift with full support for Touch and a graphical overhaul.
Valve today announced plans to begin selling SteamVR Tracking base stations directly later this year; the first units on offer are expected to be the new single-rotor models the company recently teased. Valve is also making it easier to develop new tracked products and accessories with SteamVR Tracking by removing the requirement of a $3,000 introductory course.
Having launched initially with VR on the Oculus Rift in 2016, new DiRT Rally DLC adds PSVR support to the acclaimed racing game. The $13 DLC also brings a new ‘Co-Driver Mode’ that lets one player act as the navigator. A $43 Dirt Rally bundle for PS4 includes the base game, three mini DLC packs and the PSVR add-on together, making it a significant value over the $60 Oculus and Steam versions of the game.
After a long and somewhat awkward period of Google keeping all of their VR apps from Facebook’s VR platforms on desktop (with Rift) and mobile (with Gear VR), Tilt Brush is the first VR olive branch extended across the platform gap between these two major tech competitors.
Everyone in the VR industry can envision a world in the next 10 years that’s radically changed by virtual reality. From healthcare, education, social, training, cinema, gaming, and more, VR has a lot of Killer Use-cases. But it seems most of the industry is in agreement that the Killer App—a single, platform-defining piece of software that compels buyers—has not yet arrived. Sony’s Richard Marks weighs in on how we might come to find it.
During a recent media event, Valve revealed that only 30 VR apps have made over $250,000 so far on Steam. Now focusing his company heavily on VR development, Valve president Gabe Newell remains bullish on the future of VR, but isn’t shying away from sharing frank assessments of the still young industry.
Alvin Wang Graylin is the China President of Vive at HTC, and I had a chance to talk with him at CES this year about what’s happening in China. He provided me with a lot of cultural context, which includes support from the highest levels of Chinese Government to invest in companies working on emerging technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence. There were a flood of Chinese companies at CES showing VR headsets, peripherals, and 360 cameras. On average, the VR hardware from China tends to be no where near the quality of the major VR players of the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Sony PSVR, or Samsung GearVR, but there were some standout Chinese companies who are leading innovation in specific area. For example, some highlights from CES include TPCast’s wireless VR, Noitom’s hand-tracked gloves, and Insta360 with some of the cheapest 360 cameras with the best specs available right now.
Neo-noir action-thriller John Wick (2014) has come to the Vive in its new VR wave-based arcade shooter John Wick Chronicles. Recreating the look and feel of the film franchise while offering up a heavy slice of gun play and plenty of moving targets, the game can be an exciting trip into the John Wick universe at times, but ultimately ends before it even begins.
