XR Industry News
The latest news on the XR industry. Covering AR, VR, MR, spatial computing, and the most important companies and platforms in the field.
Oculus Founder: “Should I try to save AltspaceVR?”
Following this week's news that AltspaceVR, one of the first social VR platforms, is shutting down, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, who is no longer with the company, queried the community to ask if he should seek to save AtlspaceVR...
AltspaceVR, One of the First Social VR Platforms, Is Shutting Down Next Week
This evening AltspaceVR has announced it will be closing its doors for good on August 3rd. Founded in 2013, the social VR platform was one of the first to come online and connected tens of thousands of users monthly...
New York City Invests in AR/VR Incubator to Bolster City’s Jobs, Tech Talent
New York City’s Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development, Alicia Glen, recently announced the selection of NYU Tandon School of Engineering to “develop and operate” the “first government-funded” VR/AR hub for education, training, research, investment and business creation...
Rift Sale Eases Buyer’s #1 Concern, But All-in Cost Still Hinders Mainstream Traction
The six week Oculus Rift sale has made tangible waves within the VR community with its 'best-yet' $400 price point. And while the new price is bringing more early adopters into the fold, mainstream adoption is still hindered in...
WaveOptics Raises $16M to Create Optics For Small Form-Factor AR Headsets
WaveOptics, a UK-based firm involved in designing and engineering optics for augmented reality, has today announced a successful series B funding round amounting to £12.0m ($15.7m). Investors include Touchstone Innovations, Robert Bosch Venture Capital GMBH, Octopus Investments, and Gobi...
nDreams Raises £2.7M to Further Develop VR Games, Signs Deal to Bring Exclusive Content to VR...
nDreams, creators of The Assembly and publishers of the upcoming brawler Bloody Zombies, have completed an additional £2 million investment with Mercia Technologies, and £700,000 from private investors to create more VR games. In addition, nDreams has signed a deal to bring exclusive new...
Unity’s Main Branch Now Supports NVIDIA VRWorks for Enhanced Rendering Features
The latest release of Unity, version 2017.1 now officially supports NVIDIA's VRWorks rendering tech. VRWorks contains a number of rendering features unique to the company's GPUs which are designed to improve performance in VR applications.
Update (7/13/17): After several months...
‘Mage’s Tale’ Studio inXile Entertainment Raises $4.5M Investment, Open World VR RPG on Horizon
inXile Entertainment, the studio behind The Bard's Tale franchise including VR dungeon crawler The Mage's Tale (2017), today announced they've raised a combined investment of $4.5M intended for equity in the company and as funds to develop an unannounced open world survival RPG VR game.
Investment...
Video Gives Us a Peek Into the Future of How AR and VR Will Work Together
We're all waiting for the day when you can put on a singular, tether-free headset and experience all the 'R's that VR/AR/MR have to offer—and NormalVR, a "small but focused" group of passionate immersive media creators just gave us a peek...
‘Lone Echo’s’ Virtual Hands Are an Unexpected VR Innovation
Oculus had talked much about 'Hand Presence' with the launch of their Touch VR controllers last year, but few games have implemented the controllers in such a way that truly deliver on that promise. Combined with Touch, Lone Echo's impressive...
Nokia and Xiaomi Announce a Long-term Partnership to “Explore” AR and VR
The Finnish and Chinese companies today signed a cross-licensing patent deal ‘focused around the data center’, according to a CNBC report. This will allow Nokia and Xiaomi to develop new products, as they look to collaborate further in areas...
Diversity in VR: Lessons from the Oculus Launchpad Initiative
In March 2016, Oculus announced their Oculus Launchpad program with the idea that in order for VR to be successful, then there needs to be a diverse range of content created from diverse set of creators who are informed...
AR Headset Startup CastAR is Reportedly Shutting Down
According to a report from Polygon, augmented reality company CastAR is heading for a shutdown, laying off staff from the Palo Alto headquarters and its internal AR software development studio in Salt Lake City. CastAR’s consumer hardware was due...
AxonVR is Building a Generalized Haptic Display
AxonVR was awarded US Patent No. 9,652,037 of a "whole-body human-computer interface" on May 16th, which includes an external exoskeleton as well as a generalized haptic display made out of microfluidic technology. I had a chance to demo AxonVR's...
VR Developers Are Increasingly Prioritizing VR Arcades for Content Distribution
The virtual reality industry is poised for a transformative five years. While consumer VR equipment is still cost prohibitive for many, location-based 'VR arcade' businesses offer a chance for consumers to experience high-end VR equipment without a big up-front...



















