The XR Week Peek (2020.01.20): Oculus Go price cut down to $150, Mojo Vision teases AR contact lenses and much more!
Are you ready to read some interesting AR and VR news from the week that has just finished?
Top news of the week
Oculus Go price cut down to $150
Facebook has permanently cut down the price of the Oculus Go to $150, the same price that made it sell incredibly well on Amazon during the Cyber Monday. In all supported regions, the price will so be permanently reduced to $150/€160/€220.
This is for sure a piece of good news because it means that many more people will buy the Go as a media consumption device and VR will become more widespread.
But at the same time, it is a piece of interesting news because in my opinion, it marks the beginning of the final phase of the life of the Oculus Go. As it has happened with the Rift CV1, usually a final price drop is used to increment the sales of a device during the last months of the lifecycle, also to sell all the units that are still in the warehouses. I believe that in 2020 the Go will finish its existence.
After that, it is unsure what will happen to it: I don’t believe in a Go 2 with the same design of the Go 1 (also because the team at Xiaomi dedicated to the Go has been laid off), more in a lightweight Quest used as a media consumption device. Let’s see…
More info (Oculus Go price cut)
More info (Xiaomi laying off the team dedicated to Go)
Other relevant news
Mojo Vision teases the future of AR contact lenses
One of the most interesting startups at CES has been one that wasn’t there on the show floor, but that was available for private meetings: Mojo Vision.
This is a startup that has just gone out from stealth, and that is working towards the creation of AR contact lenses. This lens features a 70,000-pixels microdisplay big like a grain of sand and that projects the images just inside the fovea of the eye of the user. The image is monochrome and with a resolution that just allows for simple textual info and no 3D imagery. Imagine it as a smart-glass like the North Focals, but that stays inside a pair of contact lenses. Together with the display, in the lens, there is also an antenna, a battery, an ARM-based processor and an image sensor. It is impressive that all these electronics can stay inside a so little piece of hardware.
At CES, the company has just provided some very simple demos. No one, outside from the employees of the company, is allowed to wear these lenses (since they have not been approved by the FDA yet), so the various journalists have just been able to test some simple prototypes. In one, it was possible to look inside the contact lens mounted on a handle, so that it was possible to see what the display of the lens could project even without wearing it. In another one, a Vive Pro showed how can be the interface offered by this kind of smart contact lenses, that for instance can inform you of the weather, or of notifications from your phone.
Mojo Vision thinks that in 2–3 years it can be able to deliver its first device. It would be used to help people with vision impairments, for instance by projecting sensible information about the environment in a way that the damaged eye can see. This would be very helpful for people that are not able to see well. After that, the plan is the one of starting targeting professionals (e.g. militaries), and then average consumers with time.
I have to warn you all that this is a project that will require a lot of time to deliver. We have difficulties in creating an AR glass that is truly compelling for users, and probably, according to Abrash, we will need at least 5 years to be able to create it… you can imagine how it is even more difficult to create such a contact lens, and how its engineering requires even more time. And apart from the technical problems, there are also the safety ones: such a device must be placed in direct contact with the eyes, so it should guarantee to not damage the eye in case of malfunctionings (even just overheating). In fact, Mojo Vision is working on a difficult FDA approval. So, no need to hype now for this company.
But I know various smart people that have tried Mojo Vision contact lenses and all came out impressed by this company. And Mojo Vision has a long term plan, that should take these devices to become the contact lenses we all dream about, and can even be more powerful than AR glasses, according to the company.
So, this is a company to keep an eye on (pun intended)…
More info (Mojo Vision report by Fast Company)
More info (Mojo Vision hands-on by CNET)
More info (Robert Scoble tweeting about Mojo having some aces up their sleeves)
Microsoft admits display problems on HoloLens 2
Some weeks ago, I told you about the community signalingHoloLens 2 having coloring issues in its displays. Microsoft negated the issue, but now, after continuous reporting from users, it has been forced to admit it. The company clarified that the problem is not as strong as it seems from some pictures that circulate online, but it is true that there are some color consistency problems along the whole FOV of the display.
That’s a great win for the XR community, also because after having acknowledged the issue, Microsoft will have to work in actively solving it.
In the meantime, new batches of HoloLens 2 are getting delayed, and some people are seeing the delivery dates slipping into May. It is also possible that Microsoft is suspending the shipping of the device until this problem gets solved.
More info (Report on Road To VR)
More info (Report on Upload VR)
Lenovo is going to launch a new standalone VR headset
It seems that Lenovo has a new hobby and it is the one of continuously launching a lot of XR headsets on the market. The latest report talks about the Chinese company launching a new 3DOF Viewer, that looks like a direct competitor of the Pico G2 4K and also of the Oculus Go.
The headset, dubbed “VR Classroom 2” should feature:
- Snapdragon 835 reference design
- 4K total resolution
- 75Hz framerate
- 64GB onboard storage + SD Card slot
From the specs, it seems a good VR viewer. And given that name, it is legit to think that the device is tailored to be distributed in educational settings (schools, etc…). There’s no mention to the possibility of it being distributed amongst consumers, not even of the price.
I still would like to have one question answered: if this is the “VR Classroom 2”, what was the “VR ClassRoom 1”??
More info (Rumor of a new standalone headset by Lenovo)
More info (Info on the VR Classroom 2)
New leaks on Half-Life: Alyx, and the end of the rumors on Left4Dead VR
Valve News Network has published new screenshots/concepts about Half-Life: Alyx, that confirm that the game has a very high quality, and incredible visuals (that sometimes look scary).
At the same time, Valve Corporation, after many weeks of rumors spread by ValveNN regarding Left4Dead 3 being released in the future as a VR game, has officially negated that it is working on Left4Dead 3. It has stated that they experimented on it, but then they abandoned the project. The statement has been very on point, so I think that it is true. What a pity, L4D3 could have been another title able to hype VR!
In the meantime, all this news on Half-Life and Left4Dead have hyped so much the Index that the device is sold out worldwide. Valve hopes to get it back in stores for the launch of Alyx, though. We all hope so!
More info (New screenshots on Half-Life: Alyx)
More info (Valve is not working on Left4Dead)
More info (Index sold out)
News worth a mention
Magic Leap and nReal are trying to find an agreement
The trade secrets lawsuit between Magic Leap and nReal is entering a new phase, where the two companies will start a mediation to try to find a settlement. In case they won’t be able to find an agreement, Judge Lucy Koh has already set a jury trial date of October 2021.
The lawsuit is very interesting also for the different situations of both companies: nReal is close to launching its product after a very successful showcase at CES, while Magic Leap is struggling and is looking for money and a better strategy. Who knows how this lawsuit can influence the business of both companies.
In case they won’t be able to find an agreement, in 2021 the trial will start with an AR landscape that will probably be very different, with Apple, Samsung and Facebook closer to enter the market with an AR glass of their own.
How big is the FOV of the Valve Index?
A redditor has made some interesting calculations of the FOV of the various headsets and the results are pretty interesting. The Valve Index has a maximum horizontal FOV of around 114°, that is just 6° more than the one of the Vive/Vive Pro.
So, why does it seem much bigger? Because it has been designed to let you enjoy the maximum of that FOV, while the original Vive, without the eye relief knob and with its thick facemask doesn’t exploit all the rendered FOV.
Misapplied Sciences shows a display with multiple views
Startup Misapplied Sciences has presented a new kind of display that can show a different image to different users depending on their position in space. This technology may have different uses, like for instance show you in airport data customized for you on the various screens showing the flight information. The solution is still a bit rough, but it looks very intriguing.
Someone found a hack to customize your Oculus Quest home
Tyler Hurd has found a way to let you change your home screen background inside the Oculus Quest. He has released on Reddit a package to let you put the Death Star background, and he’s going to publish today a tutorial to teach people how to create such packages. It’s cool that someone has found a way to make the Quest home more personal!
New troubles for Oculus Rift users
New Oculus PC runtime (v12) is still creating issues for many Rift CV1 and Rift S users, causing stuttering and other issues. After a month, Oculus has still not fixed the issue, and this clearly shows how the company is now completely focusing on Quest.
There will be no Oscars for VR this year
A very sad piece of news for all the VR storytellers out there: at the Academy Awards this year, no VR movie will get an Oscar. After the prize for Carne Y Arena last year, we hoped in something more for this year…
Get Merry Snowballs for free!
A free game is always a free game, so go on Steam and download Merry Snowballs for free before January, 31st!
Some cool stuff to see
This week, I’ve divided the news on content in three parts because there are too many things to talk about.
In this first section, I want to show you some cool stuff that I’ve seen this week:
- An epic guy called Greg has reconstructed his home in VR and then has walked in it in real life while also walking inside it in VR, with the two worlds being perfectly matched. The video is so cool, that I advise you to see it;
- My friend Francis Chen has shared a beautiful video of the Chinese city of Chongqing completely augmented in AR;
- Snapchat has released a Scavengers Hunt experience, and the cool stuff is that it is able to recognize various objects around you (chairs, watches, etc…) and add on them a happy face. This shows how can be the future of AR applications, that will be able to analyze and understand the world around us.
More info (House in VR)
More info (House in VR — how he did it)
More info (ChongQing in AR)
More info (Snapchat’s Scavengers Hunt)
Some news on content
Some news on content:
- Disney is going to showcase a VR experience associated with Frozen 2 at Sundance Festival;
- Ironlights is an interesting sword-fighting game that is going to be launched on Kickstarter (support it!);
- Pixel Ripped 1995 is going to launch in Spring 2020;
- Much awaited Iron Man VR has been delayed to May 15, 2020. Probably the developers don’t want to compete with Half-Life: Alyx… 😀
More info (Frozen 2 VR)
More info (Ironlights)
More info (Pixel Ripped 1995)
More info (Iron Man VR)
Some interesting content, on unexpected platforms
Some pieces of content have surprised me for the platforms they have been launched in:
- Moon Rider is a WebVR game by Diego Marcos (one of the maintainers of A-Frame) that is having 2–3,000 daily users. These are astonishing numbers for a VR game running on a platform like WebVR that is not usually employed for gaming;
- Bullet Time Agent is a game completely developed in VRChat. If you have ever developed something for VRChat, you surely know how the world creation tools have limited features, so the fact that someone has been able to create a nice game with them is surely an interesting piece of news;
- Crisis VRigade is a game for Oculus Quest that has passed the 50,000 downloads mark. This wouldn’t be news given the success of the Quest platform, if not for the fact that the game is only available on SideQuest because Oculus has rejected it. This shows that games can also be successful in unofficial stores for Quest, and that Oculus’s screening process sometimes take wrong decisions.
More info (Moon Rider)
More info (Bullet Time Agent)
More info (Crisis VRigade)
News from partners (and friends)
On Friday, 24th, I’m going to moderate a very interesting Webinar organized by XR Intelligence!
The speakers will all be amazing people:
- Bob Fine, Executive Director, IVRHA (International Virtual Reality and Healthcare Association)
- Gregory Hough, Digital Projects Manager, GSK
- Craig Piper, Learning Delivery Manager, Lloyds Banking Group
- Asha Easton, Knowledge Transfer Network Manager, Knowledge Transfer Network
… and then yes, among all these giants, there will also be me!
Join us to follow an interesting discussion about AR and VR 🙂 The topics will be:
- Ensure repeat use by striking the ideal balance of session length, choice of device and content
- Understand your user through focus testing and surveys
- Identify what to avoid when introducing XR for the first time
VRrOOm has just announced a Social XR Hub of its to let people enjoy storytelling content, artistic installations, and movies from inside XR, in a full-social environment. The ecosystem will be based on VRChat, and should kickstart very soon, with a big launch in March.
I think it is a very interesting idea, also because the developer helping Louis of VRrOOm has been… me! Read about what Louis and I have created by reading this article!
Some XR fun
When a Snapchat AR filter works really well…
The best AR technology you will see today
Best dad ever talks about The Matrix with his son
Valve, don’t you dare delaying Half-Life: Alyx…
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(Header image by Mojo Vision, via CNET)
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