The XR Week Peek (2022.03.22): Quest to feature new parental control tools, Google acquires Raxium, and more!

I’m back in Italy, but I have left a piece of my heart in Austin, where I had an unforgettable experience both on the personal and professional side at SXSW (you can read more about my experience here). I thank everyone that made my days so awesome, and I hope to meet you again soon!
 
 This newsletter is happening one day after because on Sunday I was traveling, so I had to spend my Monday reading online articles for this roundup while I still was confused about the time of the day and the night. Luckily, we had not huge news about XR this week, so my work has been a little easier 🙂

Before I leave you to the big news of the week, don’t forget to register to NVIDIA GTC using my unique referral code: https://www.nvidia.com/gtc/?ncid=ref-crea-201724 ! If you are from the EMEA region, and you use my special link to register for the conference and then you watch one of the event sessions, you will participate in a raffle to win an amazing RTX3080 Ti graphics card! :O

Top news of the week

Meta to introduce new parental controls on Quest

After many pressures from the community and the media, Meta has finally decided to introduce new parental control tools in Quest 2. These tools include:

• The possibility for a parent to lock certain apps on the device for his/her children
• Automatic prevention of downloads of applications whose target audience age is higher than the age of the player (e.g. if the app is 18+ and the player is 15, the system won’t download it). The parents of the user can anyway decide to override the block case by case if they think the app is not dangerous
• Parents can also block access to Link and Air Link so that the young user can not access forbidden content on SteamVR
• Parents will be able to check the apps owned by the children, the time they play inside the headset, and their friends’ list.

All these measures are very welcome and they were strongly needed because during Christmas 2021 many kids received a Quest as a gift. Even if Meta still doesn’t admit that its headsets are used by a lot of small kids (these measures are marketed as tools parents can use with teenagers), these measures are targeted also at them. And I’m sure they will help in having a safer ecosystem for young users in VR.
 
 The news also puts a small smile on my face because I know I had a little part in all of this: at the end of December, I wrote an article about VR’s “kids issue”, and it fostered a lot of debates in the VR ecosystem. It was even featured on Google News. Many big magazines have talked about this problem, and all our efforts together made sure that Meta took action. I’m sure my contribution was very little because the influence that the bigger media like BBC have is much bigger than mine, but knowing that this is also my merit makes me happy and makes me realize once more how it is beautiful to be in a growing ecosystem in which any one of us can still make its relevant contribution to make VR grow in the best way possible.

More info (Quest 2 new parental controls — Road To VR)
More info (Quest 2 new parental controls — Upload VR)

Other relevant news

Google acquires micro-LED startup Raxium

This week Google has performed another strategic move towards the development of its future XR glasses. It has acquired the startup Raxium, whose expertise is manufacturing micro-LED for AR/VR devices. Micro-LEDs are an important technology, especially for building AR glasses.
 
 The news is relevant, especially for two reasons:

1. It confirms once more that Google is building an AR headset, which codename should be the leaked “Project Iris”. It’s a while that Google doesn’t build a disruptive product, but it’s still a major company in the industry, and the one owning the operating system for most mobile devices, so we should not underestimate its importance;
2. It shows that now all major manufacturers are running to acquire startups that have expertise in building displays for XR glasses since they are considered a strategic resource. I don’t know if this is good to foster healthy competition in the environment, but the antitrust authorities are sleeping, so the shopping can continue.

More info

News worth a mention

Qualcomm sets up $100M fund for XR content creation

Qualcomm has just set up a fund to support the creation of interesting AR/VR content. Dubbed “The Metaverse Fund”, it is a plan to invest up to $100 million in studios working on gaming, health, media, entertainment, education, and enterprise applications for headsets. The money will be provided in part via investments into the content creation startups, and in part as grants. Applications for consideration will open in June.
 
 On a separate note, Qualcomm has also partnered with Square Enix for the creation of interesting AR content with Square Enix IP using Snapdragon Spaces SDK.

More info (Qualcomm’s Metaverse Fund)
More info (Qualcomm partners with Square Enix)

Some posts about the metaverse

My collection of posts about the M-word is a bit weak this week, but I’ll share with you anyway.

• Heineken has entered the metaverse, too, with a campaign on Decentraland. But it did this in a funny way, by mocking its own campaign for the fact that of course, you can’t taste a beer virtually. I love how they are jumping on the hype with humor, more companies should do that
   (Thanks Tom Ffiske for this tip)
• Decentralized technologies are great, but be careful that are scams, bots, and hackers also operating in this world. The post I’ve found today thanks to a tweet by Philip Rosedale shows one of these stories about the dark world of Ethereum

More info (Heineken in Decentraland)
More info (Ethereum hack)

Microsoft IVAS program is not doing great

The special IVAS program that Microsoft is carrying on to develop a special version of HoloLens 2 for the US Army is not doing that well. The hardware is not making big progress, and it is expected to keep receiving negative feedback from the soldiers.
 
 It seems that the funds for the program are being cut, and someone fears that the army could also walk away from the contract. Not a big news for Microsoft, and also for the whole ecosystem: the $22B contract about HoloLens was used by most of us as proof of the success of XR technologies. It is also true, anyway, that we all know that AR is still in the beginnings, so it may just be that it is too early for a device of this kind.

More info (Ethereum hack)

VR is proving useful also against eating disorders

In London, a hospital is experimenting with the use of virtual reality to treat eating disorders. It is something like exposure therapy, but for anorexia: the user eats food in VR, knowing that since the food is virtual, can’t make him/her get fat. But doing this, he/she reduces the anxiety about the food itself, because it brakes the connection between the food and the fear of getting fat. This way it is easier that he/she starts eating again those types of food. This is proving to be an efficient therapy.

More info

Exit Games finally announces Photon Fusion

On the occasion of GDC, Exit Games has finally announced the first version of Photon Fusion, its latest multiplayer library. Fusion is amazing because it allows up to 200 players in the same instance. This means that a social VR application based on it could allow much more users than the usual 40-ish that are possible now in ecosystems like VRChat. More crowded virtual worlds are one of the needed features for the m**averse, so this new networking library is more than welcome.

More info

An interesting research on VR for education

A new study from the University of Stanford analyzes the potentialities of the use of VR for the education of kids. The results confirm that virtual reality can increase the engagement of kids towards educational content, but the lessons are only useful if together with the XR content the kid is provided with other kinds of more traditional learning material. The study also highlights how the educational content for headsets is now too sparse, and that VR ecosystems are still male-oriented.

More info

Moss 2 release date revealed

One of the most awaited games of 2022, Moss 2, has finally a release date: March, 31st. The game will be released for PSVR, with the other platforms probably coming later on. Polyarc has released a new gameplay trailer about it, and Upload has been able to go hands-on with a preview of the game. The initial impressions are positive, and the game seems not to be just a re-proposition of the first episode.

More info (Moss 2 release date)
More info (Moss 2 preview)

Some news on content

• Population One releases its biggest map ever, Metropolis
• CD Projekt Red confirms a new Witcher game is in development, and we are here again hoping for VR support
• Upload has finalized its review of Virtual Virtual Reality, but the bugs still haunt this game
• Upload has reviewed HitchHiker
• Early impressions of Outlier by JoyWay are pretty positive
• Firmament is the second confirmed game for the upcoming PSVR 2
• Both Vermillion and Tentacular release on Quest on March, 24th
• The studio behind Zenith VR has just raised $35M to continue the development of the very successful VR game

More info (Population One)
More info (CD Projekt Red)
More info (Virtual Virtual Reality 2)
More info (Hitchhiker)
More info (Outlier)
More info (Firmament)
More info (Vermillion)
More info (Tentacular)
More info (Zenith VR)

Other news

According to Microsoft, around 50% of Gen Z and Millenials are ready to work remotely in XR

Learn more

Russian ban of Facebook and Instagram will likely affect Russian Quest users

Learn more

New covid outbreak in China is causing new manufacturing issues for electronic components

Learn more

Accenture writes its vision for the metaverse and how it can be implemented by businesses

Learn more

News from partners (and friends)

Moon VR Player is back

Moon VR Player was one of the leading players for VR videos some years ago, then it basically disappeared from our radars. Now the team is back, and is also adding an interesting passthrough mode for its player.
Learn more

Discover the best interaction system for your VR project

XR Bootcamp has created an interesting table with the comparison of all the most popular interaction SDKs for VR in Unity. If you are a developer of XR experiences, for sure you will find this resource useful.
Learn more

Play Galactic Bar Fight 2

Fast-paced Arcade Action VR shooter Galactic Bar Fight 2 is now available on App Lab. Discover it and have fun playing it!
Learn more

Some XR fun

Well, this is fun
Funny link

I think I will never accept the name Meta Quest…
Funny link

Donate for good

Like last week, also this week I won’t ask you to donate for my blog, but to the poor people that are facing the consequences of the war. Please donate to the Red Cross to handle the current humanitarian situation in Ukraine. I will leave you the link to do that below.
 
 Let me take a moment before to thank anyway all my Patreon donors for the support they give to me:

• DeoVR
• Raghu Bathina
• GenVR
• Eduardo Siman
• Jonn Fredericks
• Jean-Marc Duyckaerts
• Reynaldo T Zabala
• Richard Penny
• Terry xR. Schussler
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• Bob Fine
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• Marco “BeyondTheCastle” Arena
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• Sb
• Enrico Poli
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• Caroline
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• Hillary Charnas
• Wil Stevens
• Brian Peiris
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• Francesco Salizzoni
• Alan Smithson
• Steve R
• Brentwahn
• Simplex
• Matias Nassi

And now here you are the link to donate:

Support The Red Cross in Ukraine