The XR Week Peek (2020.05.25): new rumors on Apple Glasses, Oculus Quest anniversary, HP Reverb G2 and more!
This is the 150th Week Peek! OMG, it’s almost 3 years that I write these roundups… the first week peek was exclusive for my blog subscribers and it featured as best news the release of Google Blocks and in the other news something about Samsung Gear VR… how much time has passed since then! So many memories… who was there already in VR with me?
While I celebrate this great milestone, tell me what has been your most memorable moment of the last 3 years in VR answering this post!
And now… let’s get back to the news of the week!
Top news of the week
Apple Glasses may release in 2021 for $499
In the end, technologist Jon Prosser has revealed the main details he knows about the Apple Glasses. In a Youtube video, he revealed some juicy details, like:
- The cost of the glasses is $499 + prescription lenses;
- They are connected to the iPhone, that does all the heavy lifting;
- They were planned for a “one more thing” announcement for Q4 2020- Q1 2021, and for release one year later. Notice that the COVID-19 pandemic may have scrambled these dates;
- They feature wireless charge;
- There are no cameras, just a LiDAR sensor on the right temple. This could let the glasses perform some 6DOF tracking, and understand hands gestures, but without giving privacy concerns to the other people around (LiDAR is not a color camera, so you can’t use the glasses to spy people);
- There is a display in both lenses;
- The device is able to scan proprietary QR Codes.
Notice that these are all UNCONFIRMED LEAKS. It may turn out to be all false, but it is also true that in the last months, Jon has developed a history of correct leaks, so personally I think that he may be onto something.
You may wonder what are “proprietary QR codes”. Well, on another website, I’ve been able to find someone that reading some Apple’s documents has found pictures of strange colored circular tags that may act as QR Codes for Apple devices. They’re fancier than the standard QR codes, but they seem also harder to decode and track due to a missing calibration pattern. It is weird that Apple wants to create a new standard even there.
One last rumor is about a deluxe version of the Apple Glasses that should cost thousands of dollars and have the shape of the iconic round glasses worn by Steve Jobs. This would be pretty strange and I don’t know if I believe this, but who knows.
If you want to hear my 2 cents on the topic: it’s months (or years) that I hear rumors on Apple Glasses, and until now all the predictions that I’ve heard have been wrong. Apple is doing a great job of masking what it is actually doing. Jon has for sure some reliable source inside the company, so he may be right, but take what he has said with a box full of grains of salt. If he’s right, what surprises me the most is the $499 price tag. Considering the release date (and the technology that will be available in 2021), the price tag, and the sensors, this looks like a smartglass. It will show notifications and something more, and will use the sensors to track your hands with which you interact with it. This may be Apple’s strategy to make people wear something on their head while they wait for a more complex headset. We’ll see…
More info (Jon Prosser’s video)
More info (Apple’s proprietary QR Codes)
More info (Steve Jobs AR glasses)
Other relevant news
Oculus Quest becomes 1 year old, and Facebook makes many announcements
The Oculus Quest is now one year old. The standalone headset that is making strides has been celebrated by everyone in the XR community these days. And there have been countless interviews with Facebook executives (especially on the online magazine Protocol), and every one of them has shared very interesting pieces of information. There’s a lot to share, so I’ll try to keep it short and ordered, and then I invite you to use the links to go deeper in the topics you’re most interested in.
Facebook is rolling out runtime 17 of the Quest, and it will take new improvements to the device. For instance, you may hide the red dot while recording the screen, the Guardian may have different colors and will also notify you of static objects in your play area. But the greatest feature is that finally Oculus is accepting hands-tracked applications in the Oculus Store from the 28th of this month! The first apps supporting it will be Elixir (a tech demo also showcased at OC6), Waltz of the Wizards, and the Curious Tale Of Stolen Pet. I can’t wait for a showcase by Daniel Beauchamp…
Facebook is very happy of the sales of the Quest, but especially it is happy with the user retention. People are engaged in the device and this means that they buy games, making the Oculus Store a profitable platform for developers. In just one year of life, more than $100M have been spent on the Oculus Store, with 10 apps going further the $2M revenue mark. SuperHot has now more than 2M downloads on all platforms, and this is thanks to the Quest. These are great numbers for the VR market if compared to what we had before the Quest and before Alyx. Now some game studios can make a living with VR gaming thanks to the Quest and this is amazing news for the whole ecosystem.
To celebrate Quest’s birthday, Facebook has also made a sale on the Oculus Store, but as always, it is pretty depressing. There are some good sales (mostly on PC), and for the rest, it’s just some little discounts. I think Zuck should learn something from Lord Gaben on the topic.
The company has also showcased a tech demo to make us enthusiasts get hyped for the future of Facebook’s standalone devices. In this demo, you can see a person using a prototype headset that features high-resolution colored passthrough AR to let you have a virtual workspace at your desk. The idea is that you sit at your desk and then you use mouse, keyboard, and hands gestures to interact with virtual windows that you have in front of you. This is a concept for the office of the future that Abrash teased at OC6.
We had many interviews with Facebook’s key figures like Jason Rubin, Andrew Bosworth, and Mark Zuckerberg. They are all very interesting to be read. Some key concepts from them are:
- Facebook believes that Cloud XR streaming is 5+ years away;
- There can’t be AAA games on standalone devices in the next years, because of the graphical limitations;
- Facebook will release deep and long games for the Quest in the next 12 months (so AAA-ish, if not for the mediocre graphics);
- Facebook is learning how to do hardware;
- The production for the Quest has finally ramped up, but so is the request because of the covid, so anyway Quests are selling too fast;
- Zuckerberg believes that in the next years, the remote workforce of Facebook will make up 50% of the total employees. This will be beneficial for Facebook to be able to attract talent from all parts of the world;
- The company is using its remote collaboration tools itself to test if they work well.
Happy birthday, Oculus Quest! And yes, also to you, little Lenovo headset!
More info (Oculus Quest made $100M with content)
More info (10 Quest apps grossed more than $2M)
More info (Superhot sold 2M copies)
More info (Guardian on Quest has new features)
More info (Recording Red Dot can be hidden in v17)
More info (Oculus Store now accepts hands-tracked apps)
More info (First hands-tracked apps available)
More info (Nathie playing Elixir)
More info (Oculus boring anniversary sale)
More info (Concept video of the office of the future)
More info (Facebook blog post on the future of the workspace)
More info (Interview to Jason Rubin)
More info (Interview to Andrew Bosworth)
More info (Interview to Mark Zuckerberg)
We may have a screenshot of Facebook Horizon
Someone on Reddit has found a Facebook group dedicated to Facebook Horizon that features as header image what seems a screenshot from the application, a screenshot that we have never seen. Another user has also found a video of someone having the Horizon alpha preview in his Oculus Library.
This confirms that an alpha test is going on. If you’re curious, the current preview image in the Store is the Facebook Horizon header image that has been shown when the social world has been announced.
What is more intriguing is the screenshot. From it, it is possible to see that the Horizon world appears much simpler than what it has been shown until now: everything seems texture-less and made with matte. We don’t know when this image has been shot (it may be of a very early build), not even the platform (someone made me notice that if the image is from the Quest version, it is normal that it appears simple), but what is sure is that it doesn’t look fantastic. It looks like Rec Room, maybe even a bit worse. Many comments on the pictures were disappointing ones.
I asked Facebook for feedback, and I only got a Facebook representative telling me she can’t share info on the topic. This looks like a confirmation that the picture is somewhat authentic (I mean, it can be from the past, but it is anyway Horizon), otherwise, she would have called it fake. But we don’t know how well it represents the current stage of the social world.
The metaverse from Ready Player One is still far away…
(Thanks Space Roach VR for having helped me in finding the related Facebook Group)
More info (Reddit post with the screenshot)
More info (Reddit post with Horizon in Oculus Home menu)
More info (Facebook Group having as header the Horizon menu icon)
More info (Facebook group of Horizon Creators having as header a screenshot of the app)
HP Reverb G2 leaked, will probably release on 28th
A leak by the famous leaker WalkingCat shows some pictures of the HP Reverb G2, which is the result of a collaboration between HP, Microsoft, and Valve.
It seems a fantastic headset, featuring:
- The high resolution that made the Reverb famous (it was 2K per eye);
- Some comfort choices that remind the ones of the Valve Index that is a very comfortable headset;
- Mechanical IPD adjustment;
- Speakers that may be like the ones of the Valve Index;
- 4 tracking cameras;
- More ergonomic controllers, that seem a mix between WMR ones and the Oculus Touch.
The premises are the ones of a fantastic enterprise headset, but let’s wait for an official announcement to discover all the specs and the price. There’s a speech at AWE held by Microsoft and HP on 28th, so this may be a good moment for the launch.
But there is more: some Youtubers teased that they are under NDA for a great headset to be released this week, that is not the Reverb. All the bets are on a new Samsung Odyssey, that follows the design leaked in the patents some months ago. This may indicate that this week there will be the announcement of a new WMR ecosystem, with higher quality devices by HP and Samsung. It would be very intriguing…
More info (Reverb G2 leaked — Road To VR)
More info (Reverb G2 leaked — UploadVR)
More info (A new headset coming next week)
Oculus For Business is finally available for all companies
After a long wait, finally Oculus has released Oculus For Business. With it, you will be able to buy Oculus Quest devices for commercial usage. The price of each headset is $1000 + $180/year for the enterprise services.
The advantage of Oculus For Business is that it offers to companies many facilities to manage multiple headsets together, and also enterprise-level assistance and warranty. The disadvantage is that it is expensive, and you are anyway in a locked ecosystem where you can’t resell the devices (it’s always Facebook selling them to your customers), install your launcher or even implement your colocation solution.
It’s very good news for anyone wanting to offer B2B VR services (like us of NTW).
We have a new research project about taste in VR
This week I want to cast a spotlight on an interesting research project about taste in virtual reality. It is called the Norimaki Synthesizer, and it is a device with 5 cylinders of gels having the five tastes that our tongue can feel (umami, sweet, sour, acid, salty). Using a simple electrical circuit, the system can dose how much of the taste of each cylinder you can feel, so giving a different taste on your tongue.
This is a rather new concept since all the previous research projects involved using electricity and heat on the tongue, while this one seems less dangerous 🙂 . I always remember everyone that VR is not only sight, and I’m very happy that there is ongoing research also on smell and taste!
News worth a mention
HoloLens 2 released in new markets, possible 5G integration coming
At the Microsoft Mixed Reality Dev Days there hasn’t been any great announcement, but we had some little news about HoloLens 2. The successful AR headset has been released in 15 new markets and customers can now use a USB Ethernet dongle with wiring to an LTE/5G portable device to enable connectivity anywhere needed.
Mozilla has also released Firefox Reality for HoloLens, and it features hands tracking in WebXR experiences.
It’s all very cool.
More info (HoloLens 2 news)
More info (Firefox Reality releases on HoloLens)
Magic Leap raises other $350M
I honestly don’t even know how to report this piece of news: Magic Leap has raised other money, to be exact $350M, and it seems that a healthcare company is involved. This means that there won’t be new layoffs in June, and this is a great thing for its employees.
Honestly, I would like to have the fundraising talent of Rony Abovitz, probably one day I should ask a consultancy to him… teach me master.
Visbit unlocks 6K 60FPS videos for standalone headsets
Chinese company Visbit has released two amazing pieces of software for standalone headsets (including Oculus Quest):
- Visbit Lite, including an encoder and a player, is a free toolset designed for local encoding and playback of up to 6K stereo 60FPS VR videos;
- Visbit DeepSmooth lets you convert 30FPS 360 videos in 60 FPS ones, thanks to a deep neural network trained for the purpose. This means that you can shoot 30FPS videos and then have fluid ones as output!
Participate in a VR eye-tracking apps contest!
My friends at 7Invensun and HTC have organized a contest to develop VR applications featuring eye tracking. The winners get free hardware and also cash prizes. If you have an HTC device, you can ask Cory Corvus (from HTC US) a Droolon F1 eye-tracking device to participate in the contest. It’s a great opportunity to experiment with a technology from the future and maybe win some cash!
More info (Page of the contest)
More info (Tweet from Cory Corvus)
HTC announces Vive Pro Secure
HTC has announced another package of its hardware (it’s like the 34597th), and this one is called Vive Pro Secure. It is a Vive Pro whose runtime follows very strict secure protocols, can’t be accessed from the outside via wireless, and can work completely offline. It seems a product studied for some military and government agencies… very little but profitable niches.
High Fidelity pivots to audio social VR
Philip Rosedale is a cockroach. This may seem an insult to most of you, but if you are an entrepreneur, you know it is an enormous compliment. Notwithstanding the little success of High Fidelity, he’s keeping pushing towards his vision, and the latest pivot is to audio. Since positional audio in High Fidelity was top notch, the company has stripped away all the rest, and now you can have a social VR world, all in audio, that supports more than one hundred people together. It seems a fun project and I wish him luck.
More info (Article on the new High Fidelity) More info (High Fidelity website)
You can develop for Oculus Quest using Godot
A tweet caught my attention: a guy created with Godot Engine an application for Oculus Quest showing to his daughter how her drawings take life in VR. It is very cute.
There is a new interesting deal for PSVR in UK and EU
A new deal called PSVR Mega Pack, including the headset, the camera to track it and then five big PSVR games to play will be sold at partipating retailers for £229.99 (or €229.99 in Europe). It only misses the controllers, but a new bundle featuring Iron Man VR and the two controllers is coming for £85. So provided that you have a PS4, you can have all the PSVR set, plus 6 amazing games for little more than £300!
Iron Man VR demo has been released!
Iron Man VR is one of the most awaited VR games of the year. It will come on July, 3rd, but while we wait for it, Sony has released a free demo of the game, that many players are already loving.
More info (Iron Man VR demo announcement)
More info (UploadVR’s hands-on impressions on the demo)
Some news on content
- Beat Saber has released 20 free new maps;
- Spaceteam VR is out, and it seems fun.
More info (Beat Saber)
More info (Spaceteam VR)
News from partners (and friends)
The queen of HP Joanna Popper (the P in “HP” comes from her surname) is on the board of directors for Femme Futures Grant which awards a monthly cash prize to the best XR project currently in development by a female artist. It is a great initiative that fosters inclusion in VR, so I’m happy to spread the voice about it. If you are a female content creator, give it a look!
Some XR fun
Saying that VR is dead is a new sport.
Buy Rift S and Quest as soon as they are in stock!
Oculus Store discounts are always the best. Don’t miss them!
Celebrate with me this 150th roundup!
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(Header image by Oculus)
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