The XR Week Peek (2020.06.01): HP Reverb G2 launched, Qualcomm goes bullish on 5G and Wi-fi 6 and more!
It’s a new month, we’ve reached level 6 of this Jumanji game that is 2020. What will happen next? I don’t know what the future will reserve us, but I know what has happened last week in XR and I’m going to tell you!
Top news of the week
HP launches Reverb G2 headset
As everyone was expecting, this week HP has launched its new PC VR headset, the Reverb G2, that is an evolution of the Reverb launched next year.
The Reverb was already a very good headset (as you can read in my hands-on impressions) with good comfort and an astonishing resolution, but it had some problems with the display (mura, red smearing) and with the controllers (classical mediocre WMR tracking). The Reverb G2 aims at solving exactly these issues for a no-compromises headset. Specifically:
- The display has been fixed, while keeping the same 2K*2K per eye resolution, which paired with a standard 114° diagonal FOV means a very high pixel density for an almost non-existent SDE. No smearing, reduced mura;
- The lenses have been upgraded, using the ones engineered by Valve for the Index;
- The audio is conveyed through off-the-ear speakers, like the ones of the Valve Index;
- Comfort has been improved;
- There is IPD adjustment;
- There are now 4 tracking cameras. They should guarantee better tracking both for the headset and the controllers;
- The controllers are smaller and seem a mix between the Oculus Touch and the WMR 1 controllers.
This is the full list of specs (courtesy of Road To VR):
- Platform: WMR (with SteamVR compatibility)
- Resolution: 2,160 × 2,160 LCD per-eye @ 90Hz
- Field-of-View: 114°
- Tracking: Inside-out, four cameras
- Weight: 1.21 pounds (0.55kg)
- Cable Length: 19.5 feet (6m)
- Connector: DisplayPort, USB-C, power adapter (optional) [DisplayPort to mini-DisplayPort adapter included]
- Controllers: Removable batteries, 2x AA (included)
The price is still $600 as the old Reverb. Preorders are open now in the US, and will open worldwide in June/July. Shipping is expected for fall 2020.
My opinion is that this headset may find success, especially in those prosumers and companies that are looking for a very crisp resolution. Keep in mind that this device has a pixel density far superior even to the one of the Valve Index, so it is perfect not only for gaming but also for prototyping, design and architecture. HP and Microsoft have a long track in offering enterprise hardware, so this headset may battle HTC on his own land (B2B). At $600, it is also the sweet spot for consumers wanting more than the Rift S, but not having the money to buy the Index. I don’t see this device stealing the scene from Oculus, since Oculus is cheaper, but I’m quite sure this new headset will be able to grab a good market share. There are only two obstacles to it:
- WMR brand has proven to be very unsexy for customers;
- The controllers tracking. We don’t know how it is and even reviewers haven’t been able to try the controllers. This is the biggest fear all potential customers have.
Anyway, the great reviewer Ben Lang has been able to try the headset and was very positively impressed, so keep an eye for the HP Reverb G2 this fall!
More info (HP Reverb G2 announcement)
More info (When preorders open worldwide)
More info (Ben Lang’s hands-on with the headset)
Other relevant news
Qualcomm shows the roadmap for the future of XR, between 5G and Wi-Fi 6
Qualcomm, one of the biggest chips manufacturers, has showcased the future roadmap for XR headsets. In particular, it envisions:
- XR headsets (especially AR ones) being tethered to the smartphone now;
- XR headsets wirelessly connected to the smartphone (via Wi-fi or similar technologies) in 1–4 years;
- Fully standalone lightweight XR headsets, connected via 5G, in 5–10 years.
The last step is the one we all dream about, of when we’ll have fashionable slim AR glasses, that will offload many of their computations to the cloud. In my opinion, it is more 10 years away than 5, but let’s keep hoping 🙂
Regarding what we have now, that is XR viewers tethered to the smartphone (like the Huawei glasses), Qualcomm clarifies that these devices can be both 3DOF and 6DOF. All the ones that have been announced are going to be released in the next 12 months. In particular, the ones by Panasonic that were so popular at CES 2020, are going to be released in 2021.
5G is a hot topic for XR glasses, and the new Snapdragon XR2 should let many upcoming standalone headsets connect to fast 5G networks. Qualcomm and Ericsson are already experimenting with it in their R&D centers.
But we shouldn’t forget about Wi-fi 6E, a new Wi-fi standard that will make local connections faster, more reliable, and less prone to congestion. In this sense, Qualcomm has just announced the FastConnect 6900 and 6700, wireless chips that offer Wi-fi and Bluetooth connection to the Qualcomm SoC systems. These chips are revolutionary because they can offer 3+Gbps over Wi-fi 6E, and especially they just add 3ms of decoding overhead, making finally viable the possibility of Wi-fi VR rendering. If the Wi-fi 6E local network is fast, and the decoding of the chipset is fast (as Qualcomm promises), we can all forget the wire that connects our PC to our standalone headset. Oculus Link 2 could be tetherless. Fingers crossed that this is going to happen soon.
More info (Roadmap presented by Qualcomm)
More info (Qualcomm and Ericsson working on 5G)
More info (Qualcomm’s Wi-fi 6 chips — Road To VR)
More info (Qualcomm’s Wi-fi 6 chips — Upload VR)
Rony Abovitz steps down from Magic Leap CEO
In the end, it has happened. After having been the magician of the hype and the fundraising, Rony Abovitz had to step down from being the CEO of the craziest XR startup. He will temporarily remain in his current role while the company manages to find the new CEO. At that point, he will leave the crown, but will still remain in the board.
It is the end of an era: Abovitz has been the mastermind behind Magic Leap’s communication and vision. Under his guidance, the company got a lot of interest and fascinated everyone with his vision of an AR device that everyone could wear, something not for the techies, but for artists. This was a very good thing and attracted many people to Magic Leap. But at the same time, this violated the basic rules of the product-market fit: AR is too expensive and clunky to attract “everyone”, and a device priced at $2300 MUST be targeted at the enterprise.
We don’t know if he decided to go away alone, or (most probably) it has been the investors firing him. For sure the new Magic Leap, reduced in size and in ambitions, and with a new target at the enterprise market, can’t have a visionary CEO, but has to have a very practical one that aims at making money and conquering a niche of the market. This has been a very natural decision in the end. I hope that Magic Leap will benefit from it and will recover pretty soon.
More info (Abovitz stepping down)
More info (Editorial by Anshel Sag on the topic)
Pico Neo 2 and Neo Eye 2 are now on the market
Pico has finally released the Neo 2 and Neo Eye 2. These headsets had been presented at CES 2020, getting the attention of many journalists, that described them as solid competitors for the Oculus Quest in business settings.
The Neo 2 may not be sexy as the Quest, but it is more powerful (thanks to the Snapdragon 845), has a crisper resolution, and in the “Eye” version, it also features embedded eye tracking. And all of this is cheaper than the $1000 enterprise Oculus Quest: the Neo 2 costs $700 and the Neo 2 Eye costs $900.
Here you are the full list of specs (courtesy Road To VR):
- CPU — Qualcomm Snapdragon 845
- Display — 3,840 × 2,160 LCD (1,920 × 2,160 per lens)
- IPD Adjustment — in software, serving 55mm–71mm IPD
- Refresh Rate — 75Hz
- FOV — 101 degrees
- Storage — 128GB
- Headphones — built in to headband
- Controllers — 6DOF motion controllers, based on sensor fusion of electromagnetic (EM) and inertial measurement unit (IMU)
As you can see, on the paper this seems an easy win over the Quest in enterprise settings, also because Pico has had very reliable enterprise services for many years. But headsets can’t be judged on paper, and we have to try it to decide if this is actually better than Quest. Give me some time, and I will tell you, since I’m getting one to review pretty soon! :O
CR Deck Mk.1 headset is coming to Kickstarter
“CR Deck Mk.1” is not the new name of a son of Elon Musk, but it is the (questionable) name of a new opensource AR headset by Combine Reality, based on Leap Motion’s North Star reference design.
Reading the news on Upload, in many other cases, I would have just said “it is another crappy XR project on Kickstarter” and ignored it. But while playing the Youtube video, I’ve noticed that the CR-blabla is actually the North Star headset that that Genius of Noah Zerkin is manufacturing in Shenzhen. I’ve met Noah 2 times in China, and for two times I’ve been able to appreciate his amazing technical competence (he’s a genius, really) and his passion for XR. I’ve tried two of his prototypes (in Shenzhen and Nanchang), and I have to say that while the North Star has the shortcoming that it must be connected to a mini-PC that sits on your belt, it has an astonishingly wide field of view to be an AR headset, and the hands tracking offered by Leap Motion (now Ultraleap) is so great that natural interactions using the hands in AR are easily possible. The project is also opensource, and this can let more people enter AR and make community around it.
This is a FANTASTIC project, and I invite you to follow its developments on CombineReality’s website. And when the kickstarter will go live, get your wallets ready!
(PS As a new name for this device, can I propose C-Magik? Please help me convince Noah about this :D)
More info (Post on this AR headset on UploadVR)
More info (Combine Reality’s website)
News worth a mention
3 Headsets come from China with love
This week we had the announcement of 3 headsets from China.
First of all, Peter Chou, ex founder of HTC, has launched his startup XrSpace, with his first VR headset Mova (that you can see in the header image of this post), together with its social XR platform Manova. Mova will be a 6DOF headset with 2 tracking cameras, working natively only with hands tracking (there is a controller for fallback, though). There will also be 5G connectivity. Here you are the specs:
- CPU — Snapdragon 845
- RAM — 6GB
- Connectivity — 5G, LTE, WiFi
- Weight — 470g
- Battery — 4600 mAh
- DPI — 702dpi
- Refresh rate — 90Hz
The accompanying social platform is teased as a full metaverse that will be at start exclusive for the Mova headset and that will let people interact in XR like in real life and attend meetings and events.
This headset created a good hype, but personally, I’m not that excited. Controllers are fundamental for interactions in most VR experiences and hands tracking is only good for watching videos, go on social XR worlds, and play simple games. Doing hands tracking well is also very difficult, and if even Facebook is having trouble doing that, I wonder how a little startup can do it better. To not talk about the Manova social world, whose teaser video is mostly fluff and which goes to compete in a very crowded space with many other competitors. Good luck to Xrspace, but unless this headset pairs to an existing ecosystem like Viveport, I find it hard that this headset may succeed.
iQiyi, the Chinese Netflix clone has instead launched the iQUT 2Pro, a 6DOF headset with 4K display resolution. It seems a clone of the Vive Focus Plus, and this is because actually it is based on a reference design provided by HTC. HTC already has its own software platform (Viveport) and SDK (Wave) that shares with other manufacturers in China, and now also shares hardware designs. This puts it in a position similar to the one that Valve has for PCVR, but for standalones and in China. It will be interesting to see if it will manage to dominate the space in the upcoming years.
DPVR has instead teased The Matrix, a 3DOF headset that looks very cool and trendy. We don’t know much about it, if not that itcan be compatible with Android, IOS, and other host devices, working plug and play. The weight is only 150g. The Matrix Pro will also feature a front camera that will let people alternate between vision of the real and virtual world.
More info (Mova and Manova)
More info (iQUT 2Pro)
More info (DPVR The Matrix — Picture 1)
More info (DPVR The Matrix — Picture 2)
The 8th Wall introduces Face Effects
Some years ago, the king Charlie Fink forecasted that The 8th Wall would have been one of the most interesting AR startups on the market, and the more the time passes by, the more I think he was right. The 8th Wall is revolutionizing WebAR, and after having added image targets, and free-roam tracking, now it is also adding facial effects (like Instagram filters) that run completely on the web. This means that you can add them directly to your website, and let people try AR effects on their face without having to install any application.
With this addition, The 8th Wall becomes a very complete AR framework, fundamental if you want to do enterprise AR websites.
Half-Life: Alyx 1.4 adds liquid animations, teases Lua scripting
A video become viral this week shows how now you can enter the Half-Life: Alyx world and play with Vodka bottles, seeing the liquid that there is within realistically wobbling following gravity. It is astonishing, especially if you consider that it is not a real fluid simulation, but just a very complicated shader. As a developer, I’m amazed.
But the most important feature in the new update is in my opinion the fact that Valve has added to the engine of the game the core to support Lua scripting in the future. This is great because it means that in some weeks, modders will be able to use Lua (a popular scripting language) to develop new mechanics for their mods, expanding the original functionalities of HLA as they wish. Exciting times are coming for the Half-Life community.
Zappar launches Universal AR SDK
AR company Zappar has just launched Universal AR, a set of software development kits and application programming interfaces designed to allow developers to create compelling AR experiences for mobile app and web environments. Developers can develop AR experiences with Zappar using the tool they like the most: Unity, native Javascript, A-frame, C++.
Pokemon Go adds AR occlusion and scanning features
Niantic is adding occlusion to its popular Pokemon Go game: the Pokemons that you will find in the environment around you will be occluded by the real elements of the environment that will be in front of them. This adds realism to the AR experience and will be a welcome upgrade.
But in my opinion, the most important feature will be Pokestop Scanning: Level 40 Trainers will be able to contribute to 3D maps of PokéStops and Gyms by walking around and uploading images of those places with their phones. These maps will also be used to improve the behavior of Pokemon in these environments thanks to contextual awareness.
Considering that Niantic has just acquired 6d.ai, this to me means that Niantic wants to use Pokemon Go to build the AR Cloud: with many users walking around and scanning environments for free, the company will be able to reconstruct the mesh of the world without the effort of hiring someone to tour the cities.
Cyber-XR releases its standards for inclusion and accessibility
We all work towards making XR experiences that are always more immersive and advanced, but few of us work towards improving the ethical aspect of what we are going to build. To help us, The Cyber-XR Coalition has written a long set of guidelines to guarantee inclusion and accessibility in the VR and AR applications that we’re building. Following these guidelines, we can create experiences that everyone can play and appreciate.
Let’s all remember Morton Heilig
One of the stepping stones of the history of VR is the invention of the Sensorama, a machine that was able to showcase you a movie featuring immersive visuals, audio, and scents, developed in 1957. The genius behind that machine, that was probably 70 years ahead of his time, was Morton Heilig, a person that despite his great mind, just made a big amount of debts, that his family is still paying now (Yikes!). Let’s pay a tribute to this person that contributed so much to the history of XR.
Unity launches MARS tools
After many months of teasing them, Unity has finally launched the MARS tools, a suite of tools to build easily Augmented Reality experiences in Unity without knowing how to code. They are an enterprise tool useful for companies to build solutions without having to hire a programmer.
Johnny Sins endorses the Oculus Quest
Johnny Sins, actor, doctor, firefighter, dentist, manager, is a guy that makes many jobs, and in all of them manages to have fun. He’s an absolute idol of all men worldwide, and in a recent video on TikTok he showed himself receiving an Oculus Quest and playing with it, having lots of fun. This is another great publicity for virtual reality, whose awareness is spreading always more outside the tech scene.
Who knows if in his next performance he will be a VR developer?
Watch a guy code an AR AI assistant
In this funny but informative Video, Matthew Hallberg creates with Unity an AI assistant that you can see in AR from your phone. It is very cool, and I invite you to give it a look.
Tower Tag launches on Steam!
Multiplayer shooter game Tower Tag has been launched on Steam. The news here is that this game was actually a game for VR arcades, but since the COVID has ruined the LBVR business, now the devs have launched it on Steam to let people at home play it. And the genius is that they have created 3D printed guns that you can use at home to have an experience as close as possible to the one of the arcade: you download the 3D model of the gun, you print it, you play. Cool, isn’t it?
More info (Tower Tag launched on Steam)
More info (Latest update on printable guns)
More info (How to get a free copy of Tower Tag)
Some news on content
- “Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge” is the new VR experience by ILMxLAB in the Star Wars ecosystem. Most probably it will be another Oculus exclusive. It has just been teased and we know very few details;
- Qubefall is a very nice 3D Tetris that you can find on Sidequest;
- Pistol Whip publishes its last update;
- Premium Bowling arrives on Oculus Quest, to let you relax playing bowling in VR;
- The Line is a beautiful storytelling experience that you can now play on Oculus Quest using just your hands.
More info (Star Wars)
More info (Qubefall)
More info (Pistol Whip)
More info (Premium Bowling)
More info (The Line)
News from partners (and friends)
I’ve established a friendship with a company here in Italy that distributes HoloLens 2, preferably in Italy but also worldwide. In case you can’t buy one from your local reseller, contact me and I’ll try to help you in getting one.
The (Lion) King of Virtual Reality Charlie Fink has just published his new book, and this time the topic is virtual events and meetings. Charlie always writes very intriguing and detailed books, and I’m sure his book will be able to help everyone that is trying to understand what virtual tool to use during the lockdown.
VR satire website VRDizzy has just re-opened his online store featuring beautiful T-shirts inspired by virtual reality games. I think they’re cool so be sure to check them out!
Some XR fun
Dads when you play VR
Sneak peek of the true Apple Glasses, courtesy of Chris Koomen
How the real experience of virtual museums should look like
A VR game with an interesting gameplay
!Sknaht
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:elpoep gnizama eseht tuoba gniklat yllacificeps m’I
- DeoVR
- Michael Bruce
- Ilias Kapouranis
- Paolo Leoncini
- John Fredericks
- Immersive.international
- Jennifer Granger
- Jason Moore
- Steve Biggs
- Niels Bogerd
- Julio Cesar Bolivar
- Kai Curtis
- Francesco Strada
- Sb
- Vooiage Technologies
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- Matias Nassi
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noertaP no slwoH tsohG ehT troppuS
(Header image by XRSpace)
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