The XR Week Peek (2022.01.31): Meta builds a new AI supercomputer, Magic Leap 2 details unveiled, and more!

Happy Chinese/Lunar new year! On this occasion, I wish every one of you a lot of happiness, joy, peace, good health, money. I hope this new lunar year is going to bring you the best possible outcomes!
 
 Tonight starts the year of the Tiger… which is going to be my year! According to the tradition, it should be a year that will be important for me, either in a good or a bad way, so it should be pretty exciting. I have already a red bracelet and I just bought some red socks that are considered a way to help me in having an amazing new year.

I just hope that the quality of the new year won’t be the same as the socks: I have bought some cheap ones on AliExpress, and the embroidery of the tigers seems made by some kid under the effects of Rohypnol. I hope the Chinese spirits will forgive me for this, and won’t give me a low-quality year. I’ll also eat some dumplings and fish, which should bring me money… a very needed thing for an indie developer like me. For now, they have just brought money to the supermarket where I’ve bought them, but I’ve still hope that they will have their effect in the next weeks (maybe you can help make this prediction come true by joining my Patreon account?). I’m ready for my upcoming super-new-year. Wish me luck!

Top news of the week

Meta announces its new supercomputer

Meta has just announced that it’s building a new supercomputer for performing training of AI and ML algorithms. It’s called AI Research SuperCluster (RSC) and it will be the fastest AI supercomputer in the world when it will be fully built out in mid-2022. It will feature 16,000 NVIDIA A100 GPUs. Just to give you an idea of the power of this system, every NVIDIA A100 card features 432 Tensor cores and 40GB or 80GB of ultra-fast VRAM, for a price of around $10,000. The system is capable of quintillions of operations per second and it is able to speed up the machine learning process from 3x to 20x with regard to the previous supercomputer cluster architecture in use by Meta.
 
 This solution will let Meta train its AI and ML systems in a much shorter time. Meta has a huge AI expertise, and it uses it for many tasks, including the tracking of XR headsets, objects recognition, video analysis, and AR tracking. It’s so obvious that this supercomputer will let Meta develop all the algorithms needed for living in our mixed reality future in a faster and better way.
 
 But Meta is not limiting itself to improving its hardware: always this week it has announced that it has invented a new self-supervised algorithm for machine learning training that can learn in the same way for speech, vision, and text. This is an innovative breakthrough for the company: this will let Meta’s system learn from the world around it in a way that is more similar to the one that humans perform. Speech, vision, and text are three main areas into which AR glasses should operate, so it’s clear how this research is meant to create a system to be installed on the glasses we wear every day so that it can constantly learn by analyzing our surroundings. Technically speaking, it is amazing. Privacy-wise… well…
 
 These big investments by Meta show how the company is committed to building our future technological platform, and how much money it is investing into it. It will be hard for competitors, especially the small ones, to catch up with these huge investments.

More info (Meta’s new supercomputer)
More info (Upload VR comments Meta’s new supercomputer)
More info (New Machine Learning training algorithm)

Other relevant news

Magic Leap 2 to feature dynamic dimming

At Photonics West, Magic Leap’s VP of Optical Engineering Kevin Curtis has revealed some new interesting details on the upcoming Magic Leap 2.
 
 First of all, it will be a very lightweight headset, weighing only 248 grams. This is possible also because the glasses have no computational power: the head of the headset is inside the compute pack, which will be improved and will be “more than twice as powerful” than its predecessor. It is also interesting to notice that this unit will now be powered by an AMD chip and not by an NVIDIA one anymore.
 
 The headset won’t come in two sizes, but in a single one, because the eye box of the lenses is big enough to accommodate for different positions of the eyes in the users. To be exact, the eye box is twice as large as the one in Magic Leap One.
 
 Continuing the streak of what is “twice than” the previous iteration, eye-tracking cameras are now two per eye, and the FOV area is twice as big as the one of ML1, being 75° diagonal (Upload VR estimates it is around 45° x 55°). What has been halved, instead, are the focal planes: Magic Leap 2 will feature only one focal plane, and I personally think that it is ok since the mechanism to switch between the two focal planes was far from being perfect.
 
 What is very new is instead the introduction of dynamic dimming: the headset is able to change the opacity of its lenses (even just some portions of them), which can so go from 22% of light transmission to 0.3%. This can have many beneficial effects: first of all, the headset could be used in very bright environments, like surgery rooms; then it could be able to render black colors, something that is quite impossible for see-through AR glasses, by just making the lenses more opaque in those regions of the lenses. It’s all very cool and innovative, but I have also to say that 22% as maximum light transmission feels very poor to me.
 
 Magic Leap 2 looks like a headset that has some interesting features, then. We’ll understand how much market potential it has when we’ll hear the info about its price and release date.

More info (Magic Leap 2 specifications — Road To VR)
More info (Magic Leap 2 specifications — Upload VR)

Meta abandons the Oculus name on Twitter

Some weeks ago, Meta announced that it was going to remove the name “Oculus” from almost all its products and services to substitute it with “Meta”. This week we had an important step in that direction, with the historical “Oculus” account on Twitter being rebranded to “MetaQuestVR”. The announcement was done on the same account using a very cringy meme.
 
 There has been of course a big backlash from the community, especially from the people that entered VR some years ago and that loved the Oculus brand. The name “Meta Quest”, honestly speaking, totally su**s, and Oculus sounds much better. But this name change is very strategic, so I don’t think that Meta will change this decision.

More info

Meta may have earned $3B from XR in 2021

In a few days, Mark Zuckerberg will speak in front of investors to tell them about the revenues of Meta from the last quarter of 2021. Considering that now Facebook and VR will be two different revenue streams, in this quarterly earning call we will be able to understand exactly how much money Meta is earning from its XR business. This will be important also to make better estimates on how many Quest 2 have been sold during the holidays.
 
 Analysts have already started to make some predictions, and they envision XR revenues to be close to $3 billion for 2021, up more than 50% from a year earlier. These would be great metrics, that would prove the success that Meta headsets are having. Remember anyway that Meta has probably invested $10 billion in the same period for its overall XR efforts, so immersive realities may have caused it a loss of $7 billion just for last year. This shows you the enormous investment that it is performing in this space to dominate the future market.
 
 According to the same analysts, Facebook/Meta could have sold $6.8M headsets last year, and if it is true, this would mean that we are not yet at the 10M mark for sold Quest 2 units. We are close, but still not there.
 
 Anyway, let’s wait for the official numbers to be revealed by Zuckerberg on Wednesday to see if all these assumptions are correct.
 
 (Thanks Edimo Pereira for the tip)

More info (Predictions on Meta’s XR revenues)
More info (Predictions on Meta’s XR revenues — No Paywall)

NVIDIA could be abandoning the deal with ARM

NVIDIA acquiring ARM has been one of the biggest and more important acquisitions in the history of chips. But it seems that probably the deal won’t be confirmed, according to a report by Bloomberg. NVIDIA is going under heavy scrutiny for this operation, not only because of its size but also because ARM designs are in use by almost all chip manufacturers in the world, including NVIDIA’s own competitors. There is scrutiny happening in all parts of the world: this time is not only the FTC but also the EU and Chinese antitrust entity that seems not favorable to the operation because they are not convinced by the reassurances provided by NVIDIA. It is so possible that NVIDIA will quietly abandon the deal, maybe even before getting an official rejection.

(Thanks Rob Cole for the tip)

More info

Zenith launch has been a huge success

Zenith, considered by many ones of the most promising VR MMOs, has been launched on all platforms. This game has been a huge success until now: while not perfect, it is getting very positive reviews, and many users went on Twitter to share the fact that the game had already hooked them.
 
 The game has become in the US the top seller game on Steam, and in the EU it reached the top 10 of the same classification. This is huge news because I’m not talking about a Steam VR classification, but a statistic about all games on Steam. Probably something like that was not happening since Half-Life: Alyx times, and this shows how Zenith can concretely help with the adoption and retention of VR headsets. It seems to be one of those killer apps that VR needs.
 
 The game is still under development, and the devs have already shared some upcoming cool features to make their users always more delighted.

More info (Zenith review by Upload VR)
More info (Zenith being the top seller game on Steam)
More info (Guide on how to get started with Zenith)
More info (Upcoming features of the game)

News worth a mention

Unity acquires Ziva Dynamics to build the avatars of the future

Unity has acquired Ziva Dynamics, a leader company in sophisticated simulation and deformation, machine learning, and real-time character creation. The acquisition is fundamental to implement inside Unity realistic avatars that can compete with Epic Metahumans. From the announcement videos, it is possible to see that Ziva’s avatars are astonishing, even if a bit more uncanny than Epic’s ones.

More info

OpenAR is meant to make you build AR glasses for less than €20

OpenAR is a project from a Finnish professor to let you build at home your AR glasses for less than €20 using some cheap components and 3D printed parts. While the price claim seems a bit too extreme for me, especially because 3D printing services are quite expensive, the project is amazing because it teaches you how to build yourself very affordable glasses. This could be also useful as an educational tool for very low-budget schools.

More info (OpenAR announcement blog post)
More info (OpenAR official website)

Discover opensource WebAR tools

Nicolò Carpignoli, the head behind the amazing open-source AR library AR.js, has written an interesting post detailing what are the best opensource WebAR solutions out there. You can evaluate using them for your next AR application if you have not the money to buy a commercial license from The 8th Wall.

More info

Some interesting articles on the metaverse

This week I have found some interesting articles about the M-word that I think are worth sharing with you:

• Goldman Sachs estimates that the metaverse is an 8 trillion dollars opportunity. The last time I heard an estimate, it was 1 trillion dollars… I wonder who is going to offer more in the future;
• An article on VentureBeat talks about the theme of identity and authentication in the metaverse, and why the blockchain may be important for it;
• South-Korean Naver Z, the company behind Zepeto, is launching a $100M fund for content creators on its platform. You see if this may interest you;
• Talking about absurdity and speculations, it has become popular news that now it is possible to start a mortgage to be able to buy land inside virtual worlds. I wonder how many people will waste all their savings in this absurd gold mine; (Thanks Quentin Auger for the tip on this article)
• Philip Rosedale has been interviewed on Wired and he talked about his vision about a healthy metaverse, without ads, and without land speculation. He also questions if we really need the blockchain. A very interesting read;
• Ars Technica has instead interviewed a philosopher that questions the whole sense of reality. He asks while we consider VR a minor reality: physical reality is made of atoms, while virtual reality is made of bits and pixels… this doesn’t mean that one is the real reality and the other is not… they are both realities. It is a quite mind-bending article.

More info (Goldman Sachs and the metaverse)
More info (Identity and authentication in the metaverse)
More info (Naver Z’s 100M fund)
More info (Mortgages to buy virtual land)
More info (Interview to Philip Rosedale)
More info (Interview with a philosopher about reality)

Some interesting articles about the Chinese metaverse

You know that I always keep an eye on China, so let’s talk about the “Chinese metaverse”. China has not had a company like Meta that made the Metaverse hype explode, but seeing what is happening abroad, companies inside the country have started to explore the 元宇宙 (Yuán yǔzhòu, the M-word in Chinese), too. Many local governments are started to integrate this word in their upcoming projects or local 5-years plans: Shanghai, Beijing, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Wuhan, are all cities that are starting to explore this new concept. Private companies like Baidu and Alibaba have started to work in the field, too.
 
 The central government has not taken action to guide all this surging interest, and everyone is waiting for some policy and support from the ministries. For now, the government is actually working in killing the hype to avoid speculations, and thousands of metaverse-related trademarks have just been rejected.
 
 Many analysts are started to think about how a Chinese metaverse could be: for sure it would be regulated by the central government, with a strong control on the content published there.

More info (Chinese public entities are exploring the metaverse)
More info (China rejects metaverse-related trademarks)
More info (Analysts think about a possible Chinese metaverse)

The Brooklyn Nets wants to have their matches reconstructed in 3D

The Brooklyn Nets are working to install many cameras inside their basket court so that it is possible to reconstruct a volumetric video of their matches. The technology is already known in the field and is provided by Canon, but this may be the first time a team is committed to having a 3D version of all their matches. This could be amazing to replay them in AR or VR.

More info (Sample volumetric video of Brooklyn Nets)
More info (Article about the plan for the Nets with volumetric videos)

GDC state of the dev industry is not positive for XR

GDC has just published its usual yearly report about the state of the game developer industry, and it doesn’t bring exciting news for XR and related technologies. From the report, it is possible to see scarce interest towards the metaverse and NFTs, and even the number of developers working on VR projects is lower than the one of the previous year. This is very weird considering the success stories of VR games we had throughout 2020 and 2021.

More info (GDC state of the dev industry report)
More info (Summary of the report)

Hideo Kojima may be working on a VR game

According to some rumors, Hideo Kojima may be working on a small VR experience together with award-winning XR creator Celine Tricart. These rumors have not a very solid basis but are circulating and I thought it was worth sharing them with you. I honestly hope they are true, though.

More info

The Walking Dead: Saint and Sinners is getting a new chapter

Skydance Interactive has announced a new chapter for The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. It is called Chapter 2: Retribution and it will be a standalone experience, that should be able to be played also by people that have not tried the first chapter.
 
 A sequel was to be expected given the huge success of the game: apart from the many won awards, the game has amassed more than $60M in revenues across all platforms. A great success story of a VR product.

More info (TWD: Saint And Sinners Chapter 2 — Road To VR)
More info (TWD: Saint And Sinners Chapter 2 — Upload VR)
More info (TWD: Saint And Sinners has made $60M in revenues)

Wanderer is a great game from this week

Wanderer is, together with Zenith, the game everyone is talking about this week. It features very polished graphics, good interactions, and interesting puzzles. It has some bugs that need to be ironed out, but it is truly a great game according to all the reviewers.

More info (Wanderer review — Road To VR)
More info (Wanderer review — Upload VR)

Some news on content

• Beat Games has detailed more the Sliders, that is the new blocks incoming for Beat Saber. They will make you slice a block with a long full tail with a full arm movement
• The upload has reviewed Avicii Invector VR but was not amazed by the experience
• Ultrawings 2 is releasing on Quest on February, 3rd
• Anshar 2 Hyperdrive seems a cool game according to reviews
• Best Forklift Operator’s adds VR Support. This is the killer app we all in the community were waiting for. Or maybe not
• Schell Games’s Lost Recipes is a relaxing experience that truly teaches you how to cook traditional dishes. Upload’s review about it is very positive
• A new experience on SideQuest exploits passthrough to let you use virtual lines to guide you in your real drawings. It’s quite cool

More info (New blocks for Beat Saber)
More info (Avicii Invector VR review)
More info (Ultrawings 2 release date)
More info (Anshar 2 Hyperdrive review)
More info (Best Forklift Operator VR)
More info (Lost Recipes review)
More info (App showing lines in passthrough)

News from partners (and friends)

My friend XR professional Georgy Molodtsov has curated a very interesting article where he details all the dates and the websites to submit your storytelling VR experiences to the most important worldwide festivals. If you are a content creator, you absolutely should give this article a look!
Learn more

Some XR fun

Someone fixed the meme about Oculus being rebranded to Meta Quest.
Funny link

Palmer about Oculus being rebranded to Meta Quest. Ouch.
Funny link

Buy land on the metaverse they said, you will become rich they said.
Funny link

Introverts in social VR worlds
Funny link

If you have ever had to ship a product, you know this is true
Funny link

Kevin James talking about the Oculus Quest 2.
Funny link

The best guide you can find around on how to implement NFT inside your XR games.
Funny link

It is the year of the Tiger…

… and I will eat plenty of fish. So according to the tradition, I should get a lot of money. Please help this tradition come true by making a donation on Patreon to my blog! The more the money, the more the New Year’s spirits will be happy… and the better I can inform the XR community about what is happening in the space.
 
 Let me thank the amazing people and companies that are supporting me now…

• DeoVR
• Raghu Bathina
• GenVR
• Jonn Fredericks
• Jean-Marc Duyckaerts
• Reynaldo T Zabala
• Richard Penny
• Terry xR. Schussler
• Ilias Kapouranis
• Michael Bruce
• Paolo Leoncini
• Immersive.international
• Bob Fine
• Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
• Jake Rubin
• Alexis Huille
• Jennifer Granger
• Jason Moore
• Steve Biggs
• Niels Bogerd
• Julio Cesar Bolivar
• Jan Schroeder
• Kai Curtis
• Francesco Strada
• Sikaar Keita
• Ramin Assadollahi
• Jeff Dawson
• Juan Sotelo
• Andrew Sheldon
• Chris Madsen
• Tracey Wong
• Matthew Allen Fisher
• Horacio Torrendell
• Andrew Deutsch
• Fabien Benetou
• Tatiana Kartashova
• Marco “BeyondTheCastle” Arena
• Eloi Gerard
• Adam Boyd
• Jeremy Dalton
• Siciliana Trevino
• Joel Ward
• Alex P
• Marguerite Espin de la Vega
• Lynn Eades
• Donald P
• Sb
• Enrico Poli
• Vooiage Technologies
• Caroline
• Liam James O’Malley
• Paul Reynolds
• Hillary Charnas
• Wil Stevens
• Brian Peiris
• Rhys Coombes
• Steve R
• Simplex
• Matias Nassi

… and let me also thank you because you will probably click the link here below to support me on Patreon! 😉

Wish me a great year on Patreon

(Image by Magic Leap)