I wish you’re having some nice vacations! Personally, I’m not in vacation… on the contrary, I’m working more now than two months ago! (and this is good from one side, but stressful on others… much thanks to air conditioning to make me survive in that oven that is Italy in these days!). BTW, if you need a consultancy in implementing an AR/VR solution, feel free to contact me and I will be happy to help you 😉
This week in VR has reserved us some interesting news, so why don’t you discover them with me?
Top news of the week
Valve is now shipping the Index immediately
Do you remember when the Valve Index was finally launched and some lucky people got it immediately while the other ones could only preorder it with an estimated shipping date of September 2019? Well, this is now history. Valve has managed to adjust its production and now the full kit is able to ship the Index in 4–8 business days. People that have preordered it are now seeing the headset arriving at their doors in no time! The other kits (e.g. controllers-only) still have longer waiting times, but the situation is changing from them as well. Shipping is still limited to US and EU, but Valve promises changes in this as well.
According to Valve, the initial demand was overwhelming, and so they had problems in keeping its pace. But now they have adjusted the production processes and so they can be more efficient.
Honestly, I don’t believe this fairytale. They could have imagined that there would have been lots of orders because there was much hype around the Index. So, most probably either they wanted to ship only a few headsets to see the problems that could come to light from a little subset of people before shipping to more people, or they weren’t able to produce enough headsets in their little industrial capacity.
Valve was partnering with Flex to produce its headsets in Illinois, but now a source of mine says that only the base stations result made in USA. He claims that the headsets and controllers have a “Made in China” tag, and this makes me think that Valve has now some Chinese partner that is actually manufacturing the most critical devices of the Index bundle, and this could easily explain their ability to ramp up the production…
Other relevant news
Oculus is updating its Rift S and Quest offering
This has been an interesting week of news and updates for Oculus’s flagship devices.
Oculus Quest is getting some cool features:
- It will be able to support soon Oculus Go emulation: before the end of the year, people will be able to run selected Oculus Go apps inside the Quest thanks to the Quest being able to “pretend” it is a Go;
- Oculus Venues will become compatible with Quest and so people will be able to see events together with lots of other people from all over the world using their most favorite VR standalone;
- The tracking of the controllers will be updated, and this means that controllers will be less prone to occlusions and to dead zones (e.g. when controllers will be close to the headset).
This is very nice… especially the Go emulation, that can bring high-quality Go content to the Quest (even if it is to be understood how Facebook will want to curate Go content on the Quest).
If you are a Unity/UE developer, you may have issues with Quest developing at this moment after the update, because when you build the app, you may see only one controller, or the controllers behaving in a weird way. This is because of the Go-emulation mode that is being triggered. To make your app work again, you have to add this line to the manifest
<uses-feature android:name=”android.hardware.vr.headtracking” android:required=”true” android:version=”1″ />
(Thanks Andrea Pantaloni for this fix!)
The Rift S has been upgraded as well, and the tracking of the controllers has been improved together with the one of the Quest. And finally, Oculus has deployed a new update to remove the annoying “Static Flash” bug that was taunting Rift S users.
Some users report some issues happening after the update: in this case, the solution, apart from rebooting, seems to disconnect and then reconnect the device again.
It’s cool to see that Oculus is continuously making its devices better…
More info (Oculus Go emulation on Quest)
More info (Oculus Venues on Quest)
More info (Controllers Tracking update on Quest)
More info (Controllers Tracking update on Rift S)
More info (Static Flash fix on Rift S)
More info (How to reboot your Rift S if it doesn’t work after the update)
More info (Oculus’s devices tracking may be influenced by Valve base stations)
Magic Leap has just rolled an important update
Oculus is not the only company caring about its devices. Magic Leap this week has rolled an important Update to LuminOS, adding important features:
- There is now full hands tracking, and the user can see the mesh of his/her hand. This also means that the hand is able to occlude the virtual holograms, for added realism. My friend Alex Coulombe has published a video of this feature, and while it seems still a bit rough, it is promising;
- There have been improvements to the UX, that is now based only on the Controller;
- There is a new way to change the background music in your experiences;
- Multiplayer functionalities will be available out-ot-the-box to experiences. This means local multiplayer functionalities, that is people that will be able to play together in the same room. And it is impressive, considering that the company claims that the play area “can span over several floors within a medium-sized space (1500 sq feet or so), or an app for 5–10 users, with 4–5 people in the same room and 10 people in other areas of the same building”. This is very important… since it enables the use of Magic Leap inside LBAR installations and in enterprise settings (collaborations of users in a factory, for instance). I want to see what developers will be able to create with it.
The company is also teasing Undersea, a very interesting project that should transform your room in an underwater setting, with fishes and corals. The preview teaser is very intriguing: you know that I don’t love the fluff of ML, but I appreciate its creative heart, and this project that it is going to be showcased at SIGGRAPH seems cool.
In the meanwhile, Puzzlar, the first indie game developed with the dev grants of Magic Leap, has been released. It’s not bad, but I wonder why it has won a grant, since it doesn’t seem a mind-blowing game to me.
More info (Magic Leap One updates)
More info (Magic Leap One updates)
More info (Video of hand occlusion)
More info (Undersea)
More info (Puzzlar)
Amazon Prime Video comes to Oculus mobile devices
Amazon streaming services come to VR.
Its app Prime Video is going to be released on Oculus Go, Oculus Quest and Gear VR and offer streaming of both 2D, 3D and VR content. Amazon has selected some cool VR experiences like “Invasion!” by Baobab Studios and it is going to offer them in its VR App, promising that new ones will come in the future.
Another cool feature of this application is that it will be powered not only by the controllers, but also by voice control.
If you’re new to VR, you may wonder why Amazon should release a library of mostly 2D videos on VR devices. Actually, on Gear VR and Go, the most used apps are not VR games, but are streaming services like Hulu or Netflix. People like laying on the bed and see the videos that they like on a big screen at night, in full privacy. This means that there is a big market, and of course, Amazon doesn’t want to be left behind.
News worth a mention
VR streaming of concerts is a thing… maybe
One piece of news has become pretty popular at the beginning of this week: “Twice as people have followed the Wireless Festival in VR than the ones that have attended it in real life”. The news went on underlining how 130,000 people were attending the event, while 250,000 was watching it in VR thanks to music streaming app Melody VR. Reading the news, everyone started rejoicing, talking about how VR is taking foot.
Actually, I was a bit surprised by the number “250,000” considering the current sales of the headsets. And in fact, later on (thanks to Tom Ffiske), I discovered that in that amount it is included also the people that have followed the festival via Facebook Live 360 streaming. That is, VR users were far less than initially claimed.
That said, for sure many people have followed the event in VR, and in the future we are all sure that VR attendees will be more than real ones. But not now.
More info (News on attendees)
More info (Detail on Facebook streaming)
Some new opportunities for funding for you
These are some opportunities for funding of your VR project that have come out in these days:
- Oculus has launched its Launch Pad program for this year, to help people from all the diverse backgrounds to make their voice heard in VR;
- Knight Foundation has finally launched its call for ideas for artistic VR installations and experiences;
- Fable Studio has started a grant for virtual characters creation;
- The WXR Fund is in its last days to receive applications from female entrepreneurs in VR (like the awesome Suzanne Borders).
More info (Oculus Launch Pad)
More info (Knight Foundation)
More info (Virtual beings grant)
More info (WXR Fund)
PSVR Summer Sale is amazing
If you want to buy some games for your PSVR, this is the right moment to do it. The Summer Sale is live on EU and US and you can buy game at discounted prices! One examples for all: Blood&Truth at £19.99/$31.99!
Quebec Planetarium is offering an AR experience
It is very interesting to discover that the Planetarium of Quebec is offering an augmented reality experience. But it is not offered through ARCore or ARKit, but thanks to the Cardboard of Augmented Reality: Aryzon. This cheap AR viewer is able to offer an affordable but compelling experience and has the potential of becoming popular as the VR Cardboard.
The Void arrives in the malls of the world
The Void is probably the most famous and most high-quality LBVR franchise. If you thought it served only inside its warehouses, you have to change your mind. Thanks to a strategic partnership, now The Void installations will be delivered inside 25 malls all over the world.
Shopping centers are now in decline, and need to offer to the visitors a complete experience, that offers much more than simple shopping. The Void is able to offer something unique and fun, so it is a perfect fit for them.
Have you ever seen a CAVE for rats?
Some weeks ago, I detailed you the experiment that discovered how the brain of rats behaves differently when exploring an environment in VR vs exploring it in real life. Because of the sensory mismatch (between the vision and other senses), the hippocampus and other areas of the brain go crazy. Researchers are wondering if this happens to humans as well.
In a recent video about this experiment published by Nature, it is possible to see the VR set used by rats, that is like a CAVE system where they walk on a rolling ball. It is pretty cute.
The lineup for Venice VR has been revealed
La Biennale del Cinema di Venezia (Venice Film Festival) is going to start in a month, and will feature a lot of VR storytelling experiences. The lineup has been finally revealed and it includes very high quality productions.
VR shows its potential for cinema
Jon Favreau has detailed once more how using VR while shooting the remake of the Lion King has helped a lot in having a high-quality production in a shorter time. This shows how VR has a huge potential for film making, in indie and Hollywood productions.
At the same time, there is also a lot of work in creating virtual beings that could be able to offer a new kind of storytelling experiences, that are not scripted but evolve live in front of the user. The spectator could develop a strong bond with them, whom being powered by AI, would be similar to human beings.
It has been surprising to me to discover that the young Will Smith in Gemini has been created from scratch in CGI. Maybe in the future, actors will just be scanned and then an AI will do the rest…
More info (Lion King filmmaking)
More info (Deep Dive on virtual beings)
More info (Young Will Smith)
VR is fundamental for automotives prototyping, but…
Virtual Reality is becoming pretty important in the automotive industry and all the companies are using it, especially for prototyping. BUT, physical clay models are still a thing and this will continue for a while.
VR is great to test the look-and-feel of cars in all conditions (e.g. day and night), and it is fantastic to try different solutions quickly. It is a great tool for prototyping fast and this is making car makers spare a lot of time and money.
But it is not fully ready to substitute the clay models: sometimes the VR visuals may be jittery, there is still the screen-door-effect (you see the pixels), you can’t get the precision up to a millimeter and especially, you don’t have a great sense of haptics yet. The clay model is there, in front of you, as if it were the real car, and you can touch it and feel it completely.
VR will get there (and companies like Dexta Robotics are making a great work on VR haptics), but will need time. Until that moment, clay prototypes will still be a thing for the final refinements of the prototypes.
Thanks to Matias Nassi for the tip!
Microsoft has released an OpenXR demo
Microsoft has released an OpenXR demo that works for both HoloLens and WMR headsets. Interesting devs can dig into it.
Nreal has released the beta of its SDK
The interesting AR company nReal (read here my review on its glasses) has finally released a beta of its SDK and is accepting preorders for the devkits that will ship in September.
Some XR fun
If you want to have an immersive video that remembers you how you did sex when you were young, you can do that for 15K$!
Best VR arcades are in China
Become a Patron!
This newsletter requires me a lot of work and effort… so, if you’ve found it useful, please support me on Patreon to keep it alive! Even a short amount of money matters to me.
Today’s edition has been possible thanks to the financial and personal support of my fantastic Patrons (I love you all):
- Ilias Kapouranis
- Ivan Varko
- Jennifer Granger
- Jason Moore
- Matias Nassi
- Caroline
Enter this club you too by clicking the link below! Thanks!