Goood Monday everyone! Let’s start this week with a bunch of cool news about the past week in AR and VR!
But before starting, just a fast thing: at the end of this week, I’m going to attend Stereopsia to take part to an interesting panel about “XR in social interaction”, so if you will be in Bruxelles, just let me know, and hopefully we will be able to meet!
Top news of the week
Qualcomm announces XR2 chipset, paving the way for the future of XR
The best news of the week has not been the release of a new fantastic VR headset or AR glass, but of a technology that will make a new generation of XR headsets possible: I’m talking about the XR2 chipset by Qualcomm. Qualcomm is the company making almost all the chipsets and the reference designs upon which almost all XR headsets of nowadays are based upon. And it has just unveiled its new Snapdragon 865 processor and its XR2 variant, that is a chipset dedicated to high-end standalone AR/VR headsets. That is, the Quest 2 and the Vive Focus 2 may be based on this technology.
Why am I so excited? Well, with this new chip, headsets will:
- Have a resolution of 3K per eye;
- Have up to 7 cameras used simultaneously (12 in total for the device). This means that if you employ 4 for tracking, you can still use two for instance for eye-tracking and one for lips tracking;
- Be able to finally offer passthrough augmented reality with appropriate resolution and framerate. This means having AR and VR on the same device;
- Feature a 5G modem;
- Play 8K videos at 60fps;
- Have accelerated AI so that to be able to perform objects recognition and other cool stuff on the camera feed.
This is exactly what we all were dreaming of for the second generation of VR devices, and Qualcomm is giving this to us very soon. At the beginning of 2020, the American company will finalize its reference design based on this chipset, and in the second half of the year we will see the first headsets implementing this technology. I really can’t wait.
It is intriguing that many companies are already experimenting with this new chipset, and one of these partners is Niantic, that is thinking about going the AR hardware route after all its hard work on gelocalized AR games like Pokemon Go.
More info (Qualcomm XR2 on Road To VR)
More info (Qualcomm XR2 on Upload VR)
More info (CNET goes hands-one with the XR2 pre-reference design)
More info (Niantic working on AR glasses based on XR2)
More info (Snapdragon 865 offering live translation services)
More info (Mockup of an AR glass using XR2)
Other relevant news
Magic Leap may be in trouble, but its CEO remains confident
Some weeks ago, I’ve reported of rumors about Magic Leap being in big trouble and having assigned all its patents as collateral to bank JP Morgan, probably because it is looking for a loan or to raise a round E. This week, a new report by The Information seems to confirm that things are not going that well: notwithstanding the CEO Rony Abovitz being sure to sell 100,000 headsets the first year of launch (he thought about 1 million, but then executives made him lower the estimate), actually the company may have sold only 6,000. To put this into perspective, this is less than what the great Jeri Ellsworth has sold with her Tilt Five glasses Kickstarter campaign.
Some weeks ago, the CFO and the executive John Gaeta have left the company, and now we learn that in 2018 two high profile members like Sundar Pichai and Paul Jacobs have left its board as well. Magic Leap is working on a second iteration of the device with 5G support any many other cool stuff, but due to technological constraints, it won’t be able to release it before some years from now(laws of optics can’t be violated yet, as Karl Guttag underlines). It seems that soon it will release a refresh of the Magic Leap One, but we have to see if this will be enough.
While the ship seems to sink, its captain Rony Abovitz seems confident. He has tweeted “I’m very excited about our upcoming announcements next week, and all that we have planned for 2020–2024”. I’m very curious about what he will reveal this week… it is the time for Magic Leap to take the rabbit out of the hat, or the show is over.
More info (Report on Magic Leap)
More info (Rony Abovitz’s tweet)
Varjo launches its XR-1 headset
If you had 10,000$ to spend and you asked me how to spend them, I would probably give you two options: one is going to Las Vegas with me and have a crazy night of fun, and the other one is buying a Varjo XR-1, with the latter being the preferred choice.
Varjo has just launched this fantastic mixed reality headset, called XR-1, that is able to blend the real and the virtual in a way that you have never seen before. Apart from giving you the amazing visuals typical of Varjo, that remove completely the screen-door effect if you look forward, this headset features on the front two 12MP 90Hz cameras, that can let you see the environment around you with incredible clarity. This means that with this headset you can have AR and VR and everything in between, combining real and virtual elements as you prefer. Varjo has already shared incredible mixed reality videos made with its headset… and I really hope they will make something with diminished reality too, so that to make my friend Eddie Siman happy.
The headset is very expensive and costs 10,000: this is a reasonable cost considering that it is custom technology produced in little volumes by a startup. The target is enterprise companies. If your company is big enough, and it needs super-high-quality mixed reality (e.g. for prototyping or architecture), I advise you to give a look to the XR-1.
More info (Varjo XR-1 launch)
More info (Varjo XR-1 official website)
Oculus products have gone pretty well during the Black Weekend
Past weekend has been the weekend of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday and the company that has dominated the sales of VR hardware has been of course Oculus, thanks to the discounts on Rift S and Go and the great reputation of the Oculus Quest. The Quest has dominated the searches on Google and it has gone sold out quite soon, and people that really wanted to buy it had to buy it from some online resellers that offered it at higher prices. The only headset that has been able to somewhat tie the interest towards the Quest has been PSVR, that is currently the king of tethered devices.
But surprisingly, the Quest has not been the most sold device: the winner has been the Oculus Go. Thanks to a flash sale, that put it at the ridiculous price of $150, the Go has sold more than all other devices, and has even been #3 most sold device on all Amazon videogames category. VR purists may find this disconcerting, but I think it is not. $150 for a high-quality VR device with which people can play minigames, and enjoy Netflix in full privacy is not bad at all. I agree with Palmer that “free is not enough” for VR headsets, but lowering the prices can help a lot, and Oculus knows that well.
More info (Oculus Go being best-seller on Amazon)
More info (Oculus Quest sold out)
More info (Oculus Quest vs PSVR Google search stats)
Adobe acquires Oculus Medium
In a surprise move, Adobe has bought Oculus Medium from Facebook. We don’t have any details on this acquisition: we don’t know the price, we don’t know what Adobe thinks about doing with it, and we don’t know what will happen to the team working on it.
For sure this is a piece of good news, since it signals that the most important company working on creative tools is seeing the value of a virtual reality modeling tool and will probably offer it inside its popular Adobe suite. If there is a company that can transform Medium in a professional tool for 3D creatives, that one is Adobe: it offers products that have become standards in the workflow of many creatives like Photoshop, Premiere, XD. It for sure knows how to take Medium to the next level.
But on the other side, it is a piece of negative news because most probably the next versions of Medium won’t be free anymore and will come with a subscription price (and maybe mandatory login to Adobe Creative Cloud). I’m afraid that many passionate people will lose the ability of using this tool for free.
More info (Adobe acquires Medium — Road To VR)
More info (Adobe acquires Medium — Upload VR)
HoloLens 2 may have some display problems
This week, in an episode of the TV Show The Resident, there has been a (probably sponsored) 5-minutes scene where a surgeon used the HoloLens to perform a surgery. This is for sure great for giving people awareness of what AR is good at, and Microsoft can be happy about it. But at Redmond, people have not been able to smile completely since display expert Karl Guttag has spread the world about some possible problems with the displays of HoloLens 2.
It seems that the technology chosen by Microsoft can’t offer perfect visuals, and there are some evident problems, like text that is difficult to be read, aliasing and artifacts in images with sharp edges, not to mention color inconsistencies in the visuals. I tried asking my friends online if it is true, and many of them have confirmed that these problems are real.
This is nothing dramatic: AR is still in the very early days, and no headset is still perfect. Furthermore, the HoloLens 2 is proving to be very useful for enterprise usage notwithstanding these problems. But it is better that you know about them if you’re thinking to buy this device for $3500.
More info (HoloLens 2 in The Resident)
More info (HoloLens 2 issues)
More info (Matt Fedorovich confirming the problems)
More info (Tony Rogers confirming the problems)
News worth a mention
Pimax has new delays
Pimax is having new delays for its most innovative headsets, that is the Pimax 8K+ and Pimax 8K X, plus many related accessories. The 8K X, that should have rendered 4K per eye in native resolution at 75/90Hz, and that should have been shipped in May 2018 according to the Kickstarter campaign is now slated to arrive in April 2020. Delays are not new for Pimax, and while I appreciate a lot this startup for trying to innovate VR offering cheap products with high specs, I think they should have promised something they could handle in their crowdfunding campaign.
More info (New delays of Pimax)
More info (Some irony from the web)
HTC won’t announce anything big at CES
For the first time after 3 years, HTC won’t host a press conference at CES 2020. This means that the Taiwanese company won’t announce a new product, and will focus on showcasing the Vive Cosmos and all its other products. I hope they will announce a new faceplate for the Cosmos, though.
A new research says that VR is not harmful to kids
A new interesting scientific paper (shared by Tipatat Chennavasin) highlights how VR should not be harmful to kids below 13 years. The experiment regarded 50 children, that have been made test VR for two sessions of 30 minutes each, and then have been checked up for possible problems in the eye or in postural stability. The experiment showed no changes in the physical parameters of the eye, so VR can be retained safe for kids. And that’s great!
But, personally, I would take this with a huge grain of salt. First of all, 50 kids are not a big enough sample. Then the research evaluated only the short term effect of VR, not the prolonged use for months or years. It didn’t even evaluate the psychological effect of what the children have seen. And anyway, some kids, during the experiment, felt a bit of sim sickness.
Anyway, at least this showed that if you make your kid try a VR headset for some minutes, that won’t have any harm on him/her (unless you show him/her Gorn, of course :D)
The status of location-based virtual reality
Forbes author Charlie Fink has written an amazing round-up of all the LBVR companies and products available on the market after having visited IAAPA 2019. If you are into LBVR, or you want to dig into it, I sincerely advise you to have a read to this awesome series of articles.
More info (Status of LBVR — part 1)
More info (Status of LBVR — part 2)
More info (Status of LBVR — part 3)
Is it possible to work in a fully-VR office?
One crazy guy has tried to create a virtual reality office where all the people working remotely of his startup could work together in VR. He made various experiments and hacked a Vive Pro with Leap Motion to make interactions more realistic. It’s a very interesting story, that I suggest you all to read.
Superdata releases a new report about AR
Market analysis company Superdata has just released a brief report about augmented reality. From it, you can read that AR is mostly used by millennials and gen-Zers, and that for 3 out of 5 people, AR means selfies with filters. The report also highlights that now is the moment to exploit AR in marketing, since more than half of the people have still not seen many AR ads.
KLM releases high-quality 360 tours of its planes
Thanks to the awesome work of Chris Koomen, VR specialist at KLM’s Digital Studio, now it is possible to visit all the areas of all the planes of KLM’s fleet without the need of moving from home. On KLM website you can find the 360 tours that let you navigate all the planes. All the environments have been scanned with the technology offered by Matterport, so they look incredibly good: finally, we can feel how it is being in business class!
PlayStation Store is offering huge offers for the end of the year
If you have a PSVR headset, you had better check out the PlayStation Store! The “End of The Year Sale” is offering great discounts on 29 great PSVR games.
Twin Peaks is coming to VR
Twin Peaks VR is coming. Before the end of the year, the experience from Collider Games in collaboration with Showtime and David Lynch will let you explore all the most iconic places of the series and discover hidden secrets. If you’re a fan of the series, you had better checking it out!
As my friend and VR director Gianluigi Perrone says, Twin Peaks is a very famous series and its audience is the kind of people that may be intrigued by using VR, so this experience may help VR in being discovered by more people. I really hope so.
Some news on XR content
Do you want more news on AR/VR content? Well, here you are!
- Lonn is a cyberpunk game that looks incredibly cool;
- We have a review of PSVR’s Stardust Odyssey;
- The Climb for Oculus Quest has finally been released and its graphics are very cool;
- Arizona Sunshine has been launched on Oculus Quest;
- Dreams is going to launch for PlayStation, but PSVR support will only come later on;
- Upload VR has reviewed Death Lap;
- Jesse Damiani talks us about HoloVista, a very visually original AR mobile game;
- Hello Kitty AR Kawaii World is the Hello Kitty-themed Pokemon Go. OMG.
More info (Lonn)
More info (Stardust Odyssey)
More info (The Climb on Quest)
More info (Dreams and PSVR)
More info (Arizona Sunshine on Quest)
More info (Death Lap review)
More info (HoloVista)
More info (Hello Kitty AR: Kawaii World)
Some XR fun
New one-handed mod for Beat Saber
VR is all that we need in the morning
Distortions of VR headsets are different in Scotland
I WANT this car sticker!
Support these round-ups!
Writing these posts requires a lot of time and effort, so please support my writing of them by donating (even a little amount of money!) to me on Patreon.
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I want to send a huge thank you to all of them. If you want to support me as well, please click the link below!
(Header image by Qualcomm)