V2EC: Eye-tracking accessory for Vive Focus 3 and Vive Virtual Character announced!

Yesterday, like all of you, I followed Vivecon with all its announcements of the Vive Focus 3 BE and the Vive Pro 2, but I missed the usual inspiring speech by Mister President. So I also followed the V2EC, the Vive Ecosystem Conference that happened on ENGAGE, and that represented the Chinese counterpart of Vivecon. Yes, it was at 3 am in my city, but I couldn’t resist attending the VEC conference in which I have always participated in the last 3 years. And I have to say I wasn’t disappointed because I was able to discover some interesting pieces of news that I want to briefly share with you.

Mr. President’s speech

Finally, I had my yearly dose of Mister President, but he was speaking in Chinese, and while I was able to grasp the general sense of what he was saying, of course, a lot has been lost in translation. I have to say that this year he has been a bit more practical and a bit less inspirational than his usual. There are some slides that he shared that I’ve found interesting, and I want to paste them here below for you.

In the first one, you can read what are the features that people (both general consumers and enterprises) that HTC interviewed were asking for in a VR headset: HTC has used these data to design its new headset and accompanying software ecosystem so that to fulfill these requests. The only true feature missing in the headsets among the ones asked by the users is 5G streaming. I asked HTC about the lack of 5G support, and an executive told me that 5G has not been added because it would have added complexity to the hardware, and especially an additional high cost (and these new headsets are already expensive enough). Not to consider the fact that at the moment the server infrastructure to provide cloud streaming is not ready yet, so the cloud VR streaming feature wouldn’t be available to the general public anyway even if the headsets were 5G-ready.

In the second one, he showed the number of investments in AR and VR in recent years. In the graph, you can clearly see the hype for XR rising, then falling down, and then starting to go up again thanks to the Quest. It is interesting that now we are reaching the same levels of investments in XR that we had in 2016, that is during the peak of the hype for the technology. This is amazing news for all the startups in the field.

Vive Pro 2 and Vive Focus 3 launched in China

I already described in full detail the Vive Pro 2 and Vive Focus 3 in yesterday’s dedicated article. Here I just want to say that the price of the headsets for the Chinese market is RMB 6888 for the Vive Pro 2 and RMB 9888 for the Vive Focus 3.

It’s interesting that the Chinese press release also talks about a certified Vive Streaming Cable to use the Focus 3 together with your PC (something in the likes of Oculus Link official cable) that will be available for RMB 699 / $79. Remember that in China the Vive Focus 3 is also for the prosumer segment, and not only strictly for the enterprise.

7Invensun announced Droolon F2 eye-tracking accessory for Vive devices

Yesterday I predicted it, and today it has happened: Chinese company 7Invensun, a worldwide excellence in eye-tracking technologies, has just announced the Droolon F2 eye-tracking accessory for Vive Pro 2 and Vive Focus 3. The same company already made an “F1” eye-tracking device for previous Vive headsets, and this new model is smaller, lighter, and provides greater accuracy.

The Droolon F2 fixes the only feature missing in the Vive Focus 3, that is eye-tracking capabilities. An HTC executive told in an interview that they have not embedded face and eye tracking in their devices because not all their customers require them, so HTC prefers offering these features as separate accessories.

One interesting feature is that when the Focus 3 is used together with a PC (via streaming), eye tracking data from Droolon F2 get sent to the PC as well, so that the data can be analyzed and also used for foveated rendering. This is very interesting.

7Invensun, which is a company in Vive X accelerator, will be shipping its Droolon F2 eye-tracking accessory worldwide in Q3 for $299.

vSpatial and Vive Focus 3

During the conference, the VIVE Focus 3 was shown to deliver a personal virtual workspace supporting a physical keyboard and mouse via a custom version of vSpatial. It basically means that HTC is trying to offer something similar to what Facebook is doing with Infinite Office. And it has sense, given the enterprise focus of the VR company: productivity suites is what its customers may be interested in.

VRVCA partners with Vive X

Vive X accelerator has just partnered with VRVCA (VR Venture Capital Alliance) investment group:

In order to attract more entrepreneurs, investors and partners to build the XR ecosystem together, VIVE X Accelerator will join the Virtual Reality Venture Capital Alliance (VRVCA) to host a Virtual Roadshow. In this roadshow, participants will have the opportunity to connect with the best XR startups around the world and key leads & partners from top VSs and funds. Qualified startups can apply for a spot to pitch at: http://vivexshenzhen.mikecrm.com/lxUCvwo

The funny thing is that Vive China President Alvin Wang Graylin is both president of VRVCA and co-head of Vive X, so this is how I imagine the meeting where this partnership has taken place:

Vee virtual character

While Mr. Graylin was speaking inside the virtual stage, at a certain point, we heard knocking. I thought that it was one of those usual embarrassing moments during Zoom calls when you’re having a meeting and your mom enters the room asking about where to put your underpants, and instead, it was a staged moment to introduce Vee, HTC Vive’s new virtual human character. She was a cute girl and helped Alvin in introducing the Vive Focus 3. I found this choice pretty interesting: there was no virtual idol in the Western presentation, and this is a clear lesson to me on the fact that a presentation should be adapted to the audience of the particular country it has to be done to.

I admit I have understood almost nothing when Vee was speaking: her voice sounded a bit distorted, she was speaking in Chinese, and for me it was 3.30 am. But luckily, the press release about her is in English, so I can report you who she is:

At this conference, HTC Vive also unveiled its virtual human character, Vee, who was animated using VIVE Tracker motion capture, face tracking and other XR technologies. According to her backstory, Vee is a virtual space traveler who comes from the future VIVE Reality. In an accident, she teleported back into the current day virtual world. Vee, who has witnessed the future “metaverse”, is determined to stay in the present and help us build a more complete virtual world to improve all people’s lives.

“I’m quite excited about today’s unveiling of Vive’s own virtual character, Vee.  She was fully developed by the Vive China team and her character is intended to represent the raw energy of a new generation of users whose lives will become as intertwined with XR devices in the near future, as we are with mobile devices today,” said Alvin Wang Graylin, “We look forward to sharing more about her with everyone in future virtual activities”

Virtual Beings is one of the big trends of the moment (think about Lil Miquela, Hatsune Miku… or even Lucy from Fable Studio), and I think that HTC China had a good idea in trying to explore the introduction of a potential “idol” in its marketing mix. I also think that creating a 3D model of a character is easy, transforming her into a believable virtual being is a completely different matter that requires time, talent, and dedication, so I hope that HTC China will have the willing to try to push this character for a long time to give it the potential of succeeding.

Partnership with Accenture

Accenture has announced a partnership with HTC: Accenture is a very big international consultancy company and they committed to bring VR solutions to their customers to improve their production processes, using HTC Vive hardware (e.g. Vive Focus 3) and software (e.g. HTC Vive Suite). This is a very strategic partnership for HTC: Accenture has many big customers, and with this partnership, HTC could sell many of its new headsets to them. It is also interesting for companies in the HTC ISV program, that so can sell their enterprise-oriented XR experiences to Accenture customers as well.

And that’s it: these have been in my opinion the most interesting news from the V2EC! What are the ones you are the most interesting in? Let me know in the comments or on my social media feed!

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UPDATE 2021.05.12: The article has been updated with new multimedia elements and information provided by Vive

(Header image by HTC Vive)