The XR Week Peek (2022.09.05): Apple headset to be called Reality, Fortnite may come to Quest, and more!
September has just arrived! It’s a month that I always find a bit sad because it marks the end of the summer (at least on my hemisphere), but on the tech side, this Autumn and this Winter are going to be pretty hot, so the techie that is in me is actually happy. I can’t wait to discover the Pico 4, the Quest Pro, and the Apple Reality headsets… and you?
Top news of the week
Apple headset may be called “Reality”
We have new rumors about the upcoming Apple headset. It seems that one of Apple’s shell companies has just registered the trademarks “Reality One”, “Reality Pro”, and “Reality Processor”.
According to the usual analysts, this means that the name of the upcoming headset will be Apple Reality. “One” and “Pro” may refer to two pricing tiers: for instance, the headset that may release next year could be the “Apple Reality Pro”, given its predicted price of $2000+. Around 2 years after, Apple may release the cheaper “Reality One”, with the objective of pushing its headset more into the mainstream. In the second part of the decade, it could finally release its AR glasses, which are the company’s end goal. “Reality Processor” may refer instead to the architecture of the chipsets, which uses an M2 chipset as the main processing unit, an ISP processor for image analysis, and a third chip that is meant to connect the two.
It seems that Apple was unsure between Apple Vision and Apple Reality and has chosen the second one in the end. I think that the name is fine, and it also pairs well with the other trademark of RealityOS. Now we have just to wait for the headset, which is coming “next year”… as we say every year.
More info (Bloomberg report about Apple Reality)
More info (Apple Reality — Road To VR)
More info (Apple Reality — Upload VR)
More info (Apple chose between Vision and Reality)
Other relevant news
There are hints about Fortnite coming to Quest
A Fortnite data miner has found references to Oculus stuff in the latest update of Fortnite, Update 21.50. The guy, which goes under the nickname of HYPEX, is known to be a reliable leaker for Fortnite, so it is quite sure that there are now references to Oculus in the Fortnite code.
What is less sure is what it does mean. It may just mean that Epic is experimenting with VR support in Fortnite, so that to be ready to release something in case Roblox goes on Quest, as a previous leak seemed to point to. Or it may be that a future VR release is actually in the works: Epic has already collaborated with Oculus/Meta for Robo Recall, so it wouldn’t be weird that the two companies are collaborating again. And this would also be totally in line with Epic’s recent vision of “building the metaverse”.
I totally hope this is happening. Fortnite is a huge game with millions of users, and if it comes to the Quest, it would be a great incentive for many Gen-Z to buy a VR headset. And if Roblox does that, too, well, I guess the sales of headsets are going to spike. Let’s wait and see…
Meta and Qualcomm start a long-term partnership
Meta and Qualcomm have just established a long-term partnership to build together the chipset for the XR headsets of the future.
This “multi-year broad strategic agreement” to work together on XR platform development has been announced during the IFA 2022 conference. Zuckerberg performed the announcement together with Qualcomm CEO, and he explained it by saying: “We’re working with Qualcomm Technologies on customized virtual reality chipsets — powered by Snapdragon XR platforms and technology — for our future roadmap of Quest products”.
The agreement is not exclusive, though: the technologies that Meta and Qualcomm will develop together could be used by other vendors using Qualcomm chipset. This is very good for the whole industry: if Meta can join forces with Qualcomm, for sure the development of chipsets for XR headsets will be faster, and all of the industry will benefit from it. On the other side, I find it hard to believe that Meta is not interested in having some kind of advantage out of it (like having the right to be the first one to use the chips developed together), and this is not beneficial for competition.
It is anyway sure why this is happening: it is clear also from the public info and my sources that Apple is far ahead of everyone for what concerns chip manufacturing. If the Apple Reality headset truly runs on top of an M2 chip, all the headsets running on a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 will seem like toys in comparison. For both Meta and Qualcomm, Apple is so a very dangerous competitor which risks disrupting the status quo which sees both companies as leaders in their respective fields, hence the need to partner to defeat it together.
I’m grabbing popcorns.
More info (Meta and Qualcomm partnership — Road To VR)
More info (Meta and Qualcomm partnership — Upload VR)
Project Cambria is probably Quest Pro
We have further evidence that the upcoming Meta headset, the one with the nickname Project Cambria, will actually be called Quest Pro.
The news was Tweeted by the co-founder of Zesty, a WebXR immersive ads provider. In the stats collected by Zesty about which headsets accessed the WebXR content with Zesty ads in the 24-hour period, there is the mention of the most common headsets, plus a new one called “Quest Pro”. Zesty computes these statistics using the User Agent and other related info collected by the page from the visiting browsers. Tt automatically collects info, it is not data added by the users: it sounds so pretty reliable. I think we can be almost sure of the name of the new device, then.
The IVAS project is still alive
A few weeks ago, I described to you how the project of modified HoloLens to be used by the US Army (IVAS) was on hold, with serious risks of being canceled. The news was reported everywhere, but it seems we declared this project dead too soon.
After further tests on the device, the Army has begun accepting the first 5000 units that Microsoft should manufacture. The units have still to be improved, but it seems that the Army keeps seeing potential in this project, which is aiming to give ground troops a HUD that can help them in their work, something which the plane pilots already have. “The Army remains confident that the program will succeed” has been an official declaration that shows how the Army is interested in carrying this project on.
The real problem, according to Charlie Fink, is not the Army, but the Congress, which has to approve the $424.2 million the Army proposed to spend on the program for the fiscal year starting October. In such a complicated economic moment and with the US spending many millions to send weapons to Ukraine, this program may not be considered a priority by politicians. The House and Senate appropriations panels proposed deep cuts to the Army’s request pending the test results.
Let’s see how this is going to work out. For now, the good news is that one of the biggest XR contracts of the latest years has not been canceled yet, and this is good for the reputation of the whole immersive ecosystem.
More info (IVAS project is still alive)
More info (Charlie Fink comments this news)
News worth a mention
Snap to perform huge layoffs
I have already talked to you about the problems Snap was having because of the difficult economic situation and the ads revenues plummeting because of the new privacy policies by Apple. But only this week we had the opportunity to understand how bad the situation is. Snap is going to lay off 20% of its staff, shut down some projects not bringing immediate revenues, like the just-launched Pixy drone, and slow down investments in long-term projects, like Spectacles. The company says it’s narrowing its investment scope in Spectacles to focus on “highly differentiated long-term research and development efforts” (whatever it means).
Snap is still highly committed to AR and will dedicate its AR short-term future to 3 macro-areas: Lens Studio, Lens Cloud, and Spectacles. While the commitment is positive news, the layoff of 1,300 people is not. We are living in harsh times and we must prepare for a slowdown in long-term projects in all the major companies. This may mean delays in the development of future AR glasses.
More info (Snap laying off 20% of its staff — Road To VR)
More info (Snap laying off 20% of its staff — Upload VR)
Meta acquires haptic company Lofelt
Meta has just completed the acquisition of Lofelt, a German startup dedicated to haptics. This acquisition may help Meta in developing haptic gloves, but it is very interesting to notice that Lofelt was also working on a haptic wristband. Meta is building its own BCI wristband aimed at being the interface for natural interactions in XR, and if it can integrate haptics, the interaction it provides may feel even more realistic.
On a separate note, the FTC has asked Meta to be warned about all its possible future acquisitions, so that they can be vetted before being carried on.
More info (Meta acquires Lofelt)
More info (FTC wants Meta to inform it about all the possible future acquisitions)
More info (Zuckerberg removed from FTC’s lawsuit on Meta’s acquisition of Within)
Meta continues its process of removal of the Oculus brand
Meta is slowly carrying out the process of removing references to Oculus and Facebook from the places where they are still present. This week, the Oculus app on iOS has been rebranded as “Meta Quest” and this change is going to happen on Android, soon, too. It has also removed the requirement for a special Facebook account on Horizon Workrooms: the business application will just require a Meta account.
More info (Oculus mobile app being rebranded)
More info (Meta accounts in Horizon Workrooms)
Lenovo and Ajnalens get ready to launch new glasses
At IFA, Lenovo has announced its new upcoming product. Dubbed Lenovo Glasses T1, they are smartglasses to be connected to a phone or a PC that give you external big displays where you can watch a movie on. They feature two 1080p micro-OLED displays with a 60Hz refresh rate. If you are thinking that they are a clone of Nreal Air glasses, well… you are not that wrong. The glasses will be released at the end of 2022 in China for an undisclosed price.
Indian brand Ajnalens has instead teased an upcoming mixed-reality headset featuring pancake lenses. If you are thinking that this is a clone of the upcoming Quest Pro, well… you are not that wrong.
More info (Lenovo Glasses T1)
More info (Ajnalens mixed reality headset)
Some news on the metaverse
These are a few interesting articles I have found about the M-word this week:
- Zero10 and Crosby Studios have partnered to open in New York a physical pop-up store, where internally you can buy only digital clothes. It is a very original approach, and I liked that they refined the idea very well: for instance, to try the digital clothes with your phone, you have to go to a physical dressing room;
- The municipality of Beijing, like many Chinese provinces, has announced a big plan to invest in the metaverse;
- An interesting article by Louis Rosenberg questions who can be defined as “the artist” of an image created by a generative AI. Are we all the artists because our images contributed to training the system?
More info (Clothes pop-up store)
More info (Beijing invests in the metaverse)
More info (Generative art)
Blackpink wins “best metaverse experience” at MTV VMA
K-pop group Blackpink has just won the MTV MVA award for “best metaverse experience” for their show inside PUBG. The fact that MTV created an award dedicated to the metaverse is for sure positive news for us all, it means that virtual performances have entered the mainstream. The bad news is anyway that Blackpink has won: with much respect to them, I was pretty disappointed by their performance. It is mostly a standard concert inside a gaming world, with some 3D effects. A “metaverse experience” should be much more than that: it should add more interactivity, more social engagement, and propose something impossible in real life. I think some performance in Fortnite should have won the award, and this shows how the mainstream audience has not understood the true potential of virtual worlds yet.
More info (Blackpink winning a VMA award)
More info (Video of the performance)
Bugatti develops its car in just 9 months thanks to VR
Sometimes we need a reminder of why VR is so useful in the enterprise sector. This week I have found a beautiful example in this sense: luxury brand Bugatti claims that it has designed its latest car, the Bugatti Mistral, in just 9 months thanks to the opportunity of prototyping and designing it in VR. This is very cool. Don’t expect this to make the car cheaper, though: to get it you still have to spend $5M.
AMD teases its upcoming graphics cards
There’s not only NVIDIA. At its latest event where it unveiled its latest CPUs, AMD teased its upcoming new generation of graphics cards. According to The Verge, “The AMD Radeon RX 7000 series will be based on a 5nm process node and the flagship model will supposedly feature the Navi 31 GPU with 12288 stream processors and up to 24 GB of GDDR6 memory”. This is great for those who need to build their VR rigs.
Some news on content
- Vinci Games has launched its Kickstarter campaign for Blacktop Hoops, a very promising basketball game for VR. It is targeting an initial funding goal of $50,000;
- Survival shooter Into the Radius is arriving on Quest 2 on September 8th;
- Road To VR has published an article all focused on VR Mods, specifying which are the coolest ones that are being developed. If you like PCVR, give it a look!
- Action-adventure game Mixture is slated to release on Quest 2 and PSVR 2;
- Mash Me Up by Holonautic brings fun 1 vs 1 minigames on Quest. It was in Open Beta this weekend;
- Breachers is an upcoming 5v5 tactical VR FPS that has a very cool trailer;
- Silhouette lets you interact with puzzles using shadows created by your hand. It is coming for Quest in 2023;
- ForeVR releases the first VR cornhole game for Quest for $14,99
More info (Blacktop Hoops)
More info (Into The Radius)
More info (VR Mods)
More info (Mixture)
More info (Mash Me Up)
More info (Breachers)
More info (Silhouette)
More info (ForeVR Cornhole)
Other news
NVIDIA explains why it sees USD as the HTTP of the metaverse
Look at this cool experiment letting you see different clothes generated by the AI in AR on top of a person
Meta promotes an initiative to support XR in Africa
Huawei has started experimentation with 6G using satellites
News from partners (and friends)
Try Party Pie
Party Pie is a new VR game developed by some Chinese indie developers. This is how they described it to me: “In this game, players control a floppy little man, who can only move with both arms, climbing or jumping in an awkward position, to challenge difficult levels. Of course, this is a party game, your friends or teammates will make your goal harder to achieve and more fun. In addition, you can also customize the skin or levels.”
You can play it both on Steam and Sidequest. Check it out using the links here below!
Learn more (Youtube Video)
Learn more (Steam page)
Learn more (Sidequest page)
Try Zong
Always from the East comes another game: Zong. The game is available on App Lab with the following description: “In the vast universe, there is a dimension called Zong. Zong is where the supreme beings live. You, as the VR player, will be teleported into Zong being your real self on Earth and embark a journey to become a human messenger.” What impressed me of the pitch of the game is that Zong is an original game written by the producer Yingran Zhao, who has spent five years writing the script and the gameplay!
Some XR fun
Who of you owns an Other headset?
Funny link
The dog hero we need but we don’t deserve.
Funny link
This is what happens when The Matrix doesn’t use Easy Anti Cheat.
Funny link
Donate for good
Like last week, also this week in this final paragraph 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:
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And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
(Header image by Epic Games)
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