Steven Spielberg Tries The VOID: “Woah, that was a great adventure!”
Steve Spielberg headed into The VOID’s unique brand of free-roaming, mixed-reality VR experience at TED 2016, and it seems he was pleasantly surprised.
This is Why it’s Time for VR Audio to Shine
Les Borsai from Dysonics, specialists in spatial audio, ponders whether spatial, 3D audio’s time has finally come with the advent of consumer ready virtual reality and what more needs to be done to keep it evolving.
Leap Motion Launches Overhauled Hand Tracking Engine That’s Made for VR
Leap Motion formed prior to the VR craze, but it turns out that their goal of allowing you to use your own hands as a way to interact with computers jived quite nicely with virtual reality. In recent years the company has made a major pivot toward VR and it culminates today with ‘Orion’, an overhauled hand tracking engine built from the ground up for VR.
MindMaze Raises $100 Million with $1B Valuation for “Neural Virtual Reality Platform”
MindMaze today announced closing a $100 million seed investment led by Hinduja Group which company says values them in excess of $1 billion.
Harrison Ford Enters The VOID’s VR Experience at TED 2016
As we reported a little while back, The VOID team scored a spot at TED 2016 this week where they demo’d a special made-for-TED. Among the exclusive clientèle to experience the free-roaming, VR attraction was one, mildly famous, Harrison Ford.
Playful’s Paul Bettner on Defining the VR Platformer with Lucky’s Tale
Paul Bettner is anxiously waiting for the Oculus Rift to launch so that he can finally see how real people react to what he’s been pouring his heart into over the past three years. Playful Corp’s Lucky’s Tale is going to be bundled with every Oculus Rift, and he’s biting his nails waiting to see how it will be received. The early indications are that it’s going to be a beloved platformer game that people associate as one of their earliest VR gaming experiences, which is why a lot of people have been saying that it’s the The Super Mario Brothers of VR. It’s a surprisingly immersive, incredibly compelling, and just a super fun game to play, and helps to define the genre of a VR platformer, which is why Oculus wanted to bundle it for free to everyone who buys a Rift.
I had the chance to catch up with Paul during the Sundance Film Festival to talk about the finishing polish on Lucky’s Tale & tuning the sweet spot of VR, what they’re working on next with the $25 million dollars they’ve raised, reflections on this moment leading up to the launch of the Rift, how far they’ve come over the past 3.5 years, and how this journey of the VR revolution all started for him.
A Quick-Start Guide to Foveated Rendering
Foveated Rendering is one of the most discussed topics in Virtual Reality, promising to
power the headsets of the future. Here, Tom Sengelaub of SensoMotoric Instruments
gives his insight into the tech behind SMI’s latest project.
Preview: Explore and Plunder the Deep Sea with ‘Neptune Flux’
It’s only really a matter of time until humanity befalls some Malthusian calamity, bringing with it roving bands of cannibals, face-eating pathogens, etc. etc. Don’t panic! Because in Neptune Flux, a friendly dystopian corporation is recruiting submarine technicians for their deep sea base, and you’re just the type they’re looking for.
5 Ways Startups Can Survive the VR Winter
If you are part of a virtual reality startup, are you ready to survive the next 18 months?
New ‘Modbox’ Video Has Portals that Will Mess with Your Mind
We got our hands on Alien Trap’s HTC Vive multi-player sandbox physics title at Unity’s Vision VR/AR Summit last week and loved its playful encouragement to create and destroy. Now, this latest video shows the developer’s tests with mind-bending portals.
VR Video Transition Pioneered by News Channel is the Best We’ve Seen Yet
What do you get when you cross immersive video with a TV newscast? Belgian news channel VRT Nieuws today released a 360 video that could be the answer.
The VOID: Using VR Magic to Create Astonishment
The VOID started when Curtis Hickman brought on James Jensen to do some pre-visualization of the Evermore theme park that he was developing with Ken Bretschneider. When Curtis asked James if he had any other cool ideas, he shared his long-time vision of creating a virtual world that was overlaid on top of a physical world to create a mixed reality experience. They created an initial proof of concept that convinced them they were on to something really compelling, but they still had to solve a number of big problems in order to create their “Vision Of Infinite Dimensions” that The VOID set out to accomplish. So the VOID turned to ‘magic’ to solve them.
Hands On: Modbox on HTC Vive Indulges Your Creative & Destructive Urges
The human desire to create is strong, but our desire to destroy perhaps even stronger. Frank He takes Alien Trap’s new, motion control, made-for-VR title Modbox out for a spin and finds he’s all about the destruction.
Consumer Gear VR Teardown Reveals Easily Replaceable Lenses
Frank He lets his curiosity get the better of him as he tears apart his consumer Samsung Gear VR headset for your information and in the interests of science and for those perhaps interested in considering modifying their units.
Improved View-Master DLX Coming This Fall
A the 2016 Toy Fair conference in NYC this weekend, Mattel showed the first glimpse of the new and improved View-Master DLX.
