At a school in the Czech Republic on October 20th, a groundbreaking experiment took place. Instead of pens and paper, students sat down with specially adapted VR headsets (Oculus Rift DK2s) that dropped them into a fascinating, immersive, educational experience that allowed them to interact naturally using natural hand gestures. This is the World of Comenius.
Zero Point is the first 3D 360 degree documentary film to be released for the Oculus Rift VR headset. The film is not only shot for virtual reality, it’s also about virtual reality. Academy Award nominated director Danfung Dennis talks with virtual reality pioneers about the medium as he uses VR itself to bring viewers closer than ever to the subjects.
Next month, Samsung Developer Conference 2014 will include a virtual reality track for the first time. The track will see eight, 50 minute sessions dedicated to VR. Among them, two sessions hosted by Oculus, including ‘Getting Started with the Oculus Mobile SDK’ which will be of particular interest to developers hoping to work with Samsung’s new Gear VR headset.
About Face, an ergonomic liner for the Oculus Rift DK1 and DK2, was enthusiastically received when it launched on Kickstarter at the end of September. The campaign passed its funding goal of $12,000 in less than 24 hours. Now, having more than doubled its goal, the crowdfunding campaign has 37 hours remaining. About Face founder Eric Greenbaum talks post-Kickstarter plans and the future of About Face as a company.
At next month’s annual Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco, California, Road to VR’s Ben Lang and Cymatic Bruce will moderate the conference’s two panels on virtual reality. 2014 will be the first year that Samsung, who announced their Gear VR headset back in September, will have a track focused specifically on virtual reality at SDC.
From the producer of Final Destination, the writer of Pumpkinhead, and the costume creator of Jeeper Creepers comes the first horror franchise shot specifically for the Oculus Rift headset. The campaign for the series has been released on Indiegogo and looks to raise $100,000 for the production of the films.
Dexta Robotics today launched a Kickstarter campaign for their VR input device known as Dexmo, a mechanical exoskeleton glove designed for VR input and which offers users force feedback.
Oculus just fired an email to developers notifying them of their latest SDK release, 0.4.3 Beta. The latest version seems like a significant release with numerous feature additions and stability / performance improvements.
The Kickstarter funded Oculus Rift game Xing: The Land Beyond has continually showed promising progress since it successfully reached it’s target way back in April of last year. What’s more, the development team have been eager to share their experiences on the road to releasing the game. Their latest dev blog update is one that’ll likely inspire jealousy in VR enthusiasts everywhere.
Tron, a franchise whose style influenced the look and feel of many early VR depictions, is also the birthplace of the famous Light Cycle. Now an Oculus Rift developer has created a demo to put users on the awesome futuristic bikes.
Time Rifters is a single player co-op shooter created by Proton Studio that has been cooking in development since the early days of the Oculus Rift. The game has finally been released on Steam with a 10% off discount for the launch.
In this episode of the Rev VR Podcast, Guy Godin, developer of the Virtual Desktop, joins me in a fun discussion about his amazing app. After doing a bit of personal tech support, Guy was able to help me get it up and running on my system, and I have to say it is a great way to view your Windows environment in VR. Browsing the web and watching movies, and even coding in my Oculus Rift DK2 is wonderful experience.
These last few weeks have been the best ever for VR racing fans, with updates to Assetto Corsa and Grid: Autosport both bringing Oculus Rift DK2 support. Now, iRacing, the biggest sim racer out there, has gone live with their latest season update – now also with support for Oculus’s second generation VR headset.
While most may know him from his popular, (mostly) weekly live VR streams, Road to VR’s “Cymatic” Bruce Wooden is also head of developer and community relations at AltspaceVR, a venture-backed company in Silicon Valley with plans to bring the web experience into a social virtual reality environment. I recently sat down with Bruce at the company’s Redwood City, California headquarters to chat about AltspaceVR and explore this new world first-hand.
According to a press release revealed today, Magic Leap has closed a $524 million Series B funding round led by Google; the deal had been rumored as of last week. Magic Leap, which has been in stealth since its inception, is being a bit more wordy now that the deal has closed (but hardly less vague). The company is now soliciting developers on its website and says that “under the appropriate non-disclosures, we’d love to talk possibilities.”
