What puts the ‘E’ in E-sports? VR may have something to say about the notion that ‘electronic’ sports can’t be physical, and could even further legitimize the growing field.
Artificial Intelligence has the potential to disrupt so many different dimensions of our society that the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy recently announced a series of four public workshops to look at some of the possible impacts of AI. The first of these workshops happened at the University of Washington on Tuesday, May 24th, and I was there to cover how some of these discussions may impact the virtual reality community.
Google’s ambitious Daydream VR platform for Android hinges on a combination of hardware and software to enable a high quality VR experience. To ensure the desired level of performance, Google will certify phones of a certain minimum specification as ‘Daydream Ready’. But the company says that even today’s top phones are unlikely to qualify for the title.
Microsoft may be preparing a new, much more powerful version of their Xbox One games console codenamed ‘Scorpio’ to power the Oculus Rift some reports are suggesting.
A new early prototype game for the HTC Vive is aiming to bring your time-shifting, lightsaber wielding dreams to life with Project Ghost, a new game, early in production, which mashes together so many individually cool ideas, some of them have to work!
Modbox, the physics sandbox title where you’re free to create whatever insane contraptions you like, alongside a friend, has expanded its scope. The team are to deliver a big update in June that expands ability for users to mod the title, with the first example a neat looking dungeon construction system.
The imposing Buzludzha Monument in central Bulgaria once invoked infallible power, a power that once rested with the nation’s Communist Party. The brutalist megastructure, opened to the public in 1981 and later abandoned after the lifting of the iron curtain, now lies in ruins, with the grand mosaics of the dear leaders chipped from their walls, and the domed ceiling reduced to little else than a metal framework. But what if the Bulgarian government revived the building? What then?
Didn’t get the memo that the critically acclaimed comedian/beatboxer/musical magician Reggie Watts is coming to VR? There’s still time to sign up for the AltspaceVR event, which is being billed as “the largest attended event in VR ever.”
AltspaceVR has today announced FrontRow, a new feature of the social VR platform which opens the door for mass-attended events in virtual reality.
Netflix engineers working on ways to bring their video streaming service into the immersive realm have released this video of their prototype room-scale virtual reality reality experience modelled on an 80’s VHS video rental store. Yes, it is as odd as it sounds.
Nathan Martz is a product manager for Google’s Daydream SDK, and I had a chance to catch up with him to talk about what developers need to know in order to get started in developing for Daydream, which will be released in the Fall. Road to VR has a great article covering some of what’s needed to build the DIY Dev kit, which Nathan refers to as the “Build Your Own Dev Kit” (BYODK). Or you can follow along the instructions here. I talk to Nathan about the 3DOF Daydream controllers, SDK features, AndroidVR, as well some of the other of the other tips for getting started in developing for Daydream.
Revive is an application that allows select VR games exclusive to the Oculus Home platform to be played on a rival SteamVR-powered HTC Vive headset. A recent update to Oculus Home crippled Revive, an act that has caused outrage in the VR community. What does Revive actually do under the hood? Who’s behind it? And are Oculus really doing anything wrong anyway? We take a look at the story so far and speak to Revive‘s author LibreVR to dig a little deeper.
In surprise news, it seems that the British company behind the excellent 3DCeption spatial audio pipeline Two Big Ears, has been acquired by Oculus’ parent company Facebook in a move set to see their technology included alongside Oculus’ to deliver what the Two Big Ears call “best in class VR audio”.
Oculus is coming to the UK in a significant way it seems, as they prepare to open a dedicated base in London with a team that’s apparently gearing up to build some “really cool stuff” for virtual reality.
In a revealing statement on Reddit, Alan Yates, a Valve employee who works closely on the company’s Lighthouse tracking system, claims that the Oculus Rift headset is largely derived from Valve’s research.
