Social VR
NBA League Pass Games Return to Quest in ‘Horizon Venues’ This Month
The NBA officially kicked off its 2021-22 regular season in mid-October after having last year's derailed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting this week, Meta (formerly Facebook) is welcoming Quest users back to Horizon Venues for some more courtside action.
You'll be able to...
Microsoft’s Metaverse Ambitions Grow as Teams Platform to Include 3D Avatars & Immersive XR Meetings
Microsoft is making a strong bid to bolster its version of the metaverse as it looks to roll out 3D avatars and immersive meetings for its Microsoft Teams communication platform.
You might define the metaverse as essentially an immersive internet where...
Quest’s Home Environment is Finally Getting Social Capabilities, Becomes ‘Horizon Home’
One of our longstanding critiques of Quest's social features is the lack of a simple, first-party place to meet up with friends. Finally that's set to change thanks to 'Horizon Home' which will enhance the existing Quest home environment...
Facebook Offers up $10 Million to Draw Creators to ‘Horizon’
Horizon, Facebook's social VR space built around user-generated content, was announced more than two years ago, but the company still isn't quite ready to send it out the door. Instead, Facebook this week announced it is rebranding the project...
‘Rec Room’ is Getting a Mario Kart-style Racer on September 29th, Trailer Here
Rec Room, arguably the most successful social VR platform, today announced at its annual Rec Con conference that it's getting a new go-kart racing mini-game that will let you duke it out against your friends and strangers in six-player online matches.
Called...
New Social VR Platform Debuts With an Immersive Muse Concert You Can Watch with Friends
Stageverse is a new social VR platform debuting this week with a two-hour immersive capture of the Muse: Simulation Theory concert. The platform allows multiple viewers to experience the concert together through 360° 3D footage captured from multiple angles...
27 VR Apps for Remote Work, Education, Training, Design Review, and More
One of VR's biggest strengths is the ability to make those at a distance feel like they're physically near each other. While this is great for visiting with friends remotely, there's a number of VR companies betting that virtual...
‘Rec Room’ Begins Early Rollout on Select Android Devices
We were expecting to see Rec Room make its way to Google Play sometime this fall. With little fanfare though, the popular social VR platform has quietly begun early rollout for its Android app on select devices.
Update (August 4th, 2021):...
Facebook Creates New Internal Organization to Build “the Metaverse”
Facebook Reality Labs, the company's AR/VR research and development team, announced the creation of a special product group focused on developing its future vision for "the Metaverse." Apparently Facebook is betting big on the idea too, as it hopes...
‘Rec Room’ Adds More Flexibility to Avatar System with New Full-body, Animated Costumes
Ever since the social VR platform Rec Room launched in 2016, its avatar system has notably lacked full-body inverse kinematics like you see in its contemporary VRChat, which essentially leaves users with a stylized appearance lacking arms and legs. Now...
‘VRChat’ Secures $80M Series D Funding to Create its Own Digital Economy
VRChat, the popular social VR platform, announced its secured a Series D funding round of $80 million, which brings to the startup more than five times its overall lifetime investment.
The round was led by Anthos Capital, alongside participating investors...
VR Education Platform ‘ENGAGE’ Raises $10.7M to Build ‘Oasis’ Metaverse for Business
VR Education Holdings, the company behind the social VR platform ENGAGE, announced it's raised €9 million (~$10.7 million) which will help it expand beyond the realm of immersive education & training and into a new product called ENGAGE Oasis....
Google’s Project Starline is a Light-field Display System for Immersive Video Calls
This week Google revealed Project Starline, a booth-sized experimental system for immersive video chatting, purportedly using a bevy of sensors, a light-field display, spatial audio, and novel compression to make the whole experience possible over the web.
This week during...
Social VR App ‘Rec Room’ Raises $100M Financing, Now at $1.25B Valuation
Rec Room, the social VR platform, announced it has secured a $100 million financing round, bringing the company's valuation to $1.25 billion. This makes it one of the most valuable VR companies outside of platform holders Facebook, Valve, and...
Facebook Gives Sneak Peek of New Avatar System for Quest, Watch It Here
At the all-digital version of SXSW 2021 today, Facebook's Mark Rabkin, VP of Oculus, showed off an upcoming new version of its avatar system on Quest.
In his chat with CNET's Scott Stein, called The Quest Effect: Inside VR's Next...


















