The XR Week Peek (2022.11.29): Meta’s spending mostly on AR glasses, Black Friday XR deals, and more!
I hope all of you that are from the US have spent a great Thanksgiving! And to you non-American friends, that you did great shopping for this Black Friday and Cyber Monday 🙂
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 Here you are the news of the week, in a condensed format.
Top news of the week
Meta’s XR spending is mostly for AR glasses
It’s a common saying these days that Meta is spending “$10B/year for Horizon” or that “Meta’s goal is to close everyone inside its cringy VR world”. But these statements are very different from reality (pun intended).
According to a report by Reuters, Mark Zuckerberg has performed a rundown of the company’s spending and from this, we can get very interesting data. For instance, we now know that 20% of Meta’s total budget is going to Reality Labs, the company’s AR/VR division. Of this money, 50% of the spending is going to the research & development of AR glasses, around 40% to virtual reality, and around 10% to first-party content such as Horizon.
As you can clearly see, most of the money is spent on the development of augmented reality glasses, which according to Zuck, are coming “later in the decade”. So all the companies, like Apple and Niantic, which claim to be so cool because they are “not like Meta” and they are interested in “AR and not the metaverse”, are actually doing exactly like Meta. Because the Metaverse IS also AR… and probably, in the long run, IS MOSTLY AR.
Zuck wants to dominate the next technological platform, which is augmented reality, and is spending more than $5/year for this. It sounds a bit scary.
Other relevant news
DPVR announces new headset aimed at PC VR gamers
DPVR, which is one of the leading VR companies (especially thanks to its sales in China) has announced its E4 headset, which is devoted to PC VR gamers. The company has historically worked as a B2B company, but now is trying this consumer foray, exploiting the fact that it’s been a while since the release of the last good PCVR device.
We don’t have many specs about it, because they will be actually announced at a dedicated event in China next month. For now, we only know that the screen is 4K, that it weighs 280g, and that it features a flip-up design. And we have a few pictures that show its design and which you can see here above.
At least we know the price, though. The official price of DPVR E4 is $549, with early bird pricing available at $499 for the first 2,000 units purchased between Nov 30-December 31. Devices will begin shipping before Jan 15, 2023.
Enjoy some Black Friday discounts!
Black Friday and Cyber Monday have just passed by, but some deals are still valid until the end of the month or of the week. So enjoy a collection of the best deals of Black Friday, and try to see if you can still seize some of these opportunities!
More info (Best XR deals for this Black Friday)
More info (Best 180/360 camera deals for this Black Friday)
More info (HP Reverb G2 still at $299)
More info (Star Wars Squadron free on the Epic Store)
Next Snapdragon XR2 chip could offer more than double the power of the current one
According to some leaked benchmarks, the upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2’s GPU is able to provide about 2.5x the frame rate of the 865’s GPU. Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is rumored to be the chipset over which will be based the new upcoming XR-related chipset, that is the XR2 Gen 2; and 865 is the chipset over which the original XR2 has been based, and that powers headsets like the Quest 2.
This means that if the rumors are true, the next generation of Qualcomm-based XR headsets could offer 2.5x the graphical power of the current ones. This would be a huge jump forward for the performances of standalone XR headsets, which would help a lot in letting them offer better graphics than the cartoonish ones that can provide now. This would be great.
Notice anyway that even this big jump wouldn’t be enough to reach the performances of the M2 chip that is rumored to power the Apple Reality One…
News worth a mention
Decagear’s company is no more
XR analyst Brad Lynch has unveiled that MegaDodo, the company behind the DecaGear, has no offices anymore. This means that most probably all the project is probably no more, too. This is something that doesn’t surprise me, like, at all.
Quest 2 will be back on sale in Germany
After the change of the login system of the Quest from a Facebook account to a Meta account, the Quest could be back on sale in Germany. Meta, which has suspended the sales of the device because the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) was to initiate abuse proceedings, is now aiming to put the device back on German shelves before the end of this year (I guess they hope to launch it in time for the Holidays).
The race to MicroLED continues
MicroLEDs are seen as the most promising technology for the next generation of XR displays because they can offer high brightness and resolution in a very power-efficient way. So news about them are intensifying in this period.
This week we got to know that Meta is in talks with LG and Samsung to talk about microLED supplies. And ITRI has announced a new type of MicroLED display able to deliver 20,000 nits and 2,000 PPI while consuming less than 1 Watt. This is impressive.
More info (Meta talking with LG and Samsung)
More info (ITRI Display)
The research you didn’t know you needed
A recent study has analyzed the effect of VR adult content on the sperm that men ejaculate. Yes, you read it well. And they didn’t even ask me to help them with this interesting research…
It seems that the total number of motile spermatozoa in the sperm caused by the vision of VR porn is higher than the one caused by traditional means. Anyway, this holds true only if the person watching it had an abstinence period inferior to 58 h.
Jokes apart, this means that VR headsets could be ideal to be used in sperm donation facilities or in hospitals where you need to perform a sperm analysis. Now I get all the attention of the community in the accessibility feature of having the experiences work using only one hand…
Camouflaj’s next title will be Batman VR
In the recent trial in which Meta is trying to defend its acquisition of Supernatural’s studio Within, we were able to discover interesting things. One has been that Meta has thought about transforming Beat Saber into a fitness game. And the other one is that Camouflaj is currently working on a VR title involving Batman. We don’t know further info about it, but it sounds very cool!
More info (Beat Saber for Fitness)
More info (Camouflaj working on Batman VR)
You can use your phones as your controllers
A Redditor showed the interesting work is carrying on about transforming smartphones into VR controllers. Using ARCore, he’s able to get the position and rotation of the phone and so use it as a controller for VR content running on Cardboard. I think the idea is very cool… even if it comes now that Cardboards are dead.
Some news on content
- I’ve reviewed the indie game Beers and Boomerangs and found it very cute and fun!
- I’ve reviewed also “What The Bat?” and I think it’s one of the most interesting indie VR titles of the year
- Peaky Blinders VR is coming next year for Pico and Quest. Upload went hands-on with it, and found that the game delivers well the mood of the series
- Half-Life Levitation mod is now available on Steam, bringing 3–4 hours of fresh content to the game
- Demeo’s next campaign, Reign of Madness, arrives on December, 15th
- Upload VR has reviewed the sword game Broken Edge, highlighting the pros and cons
- Superbright has announced Season 6 of InDeath: Unchained, which is one of my favorite games
- A game that makes you simulate the job of a Flight Attendant is coming. Flight Attendant Simulator is not what I was expecting, but I was expecting nothing, so…
More info (Beers And Boomerangs)
More info (What The Bat?)
More info (Peaky Blinders VR)
More info (Half Life Alyx Levitation)
More info (Demeo)
More info (Broken Edge)
More info (InDeath: Unchained)
More info (Flight Attendant Simulator)
Other news
Google adds the possibility to see sneakers in 360° to Google Images
Tilt Five launches The Lab, a place where you can find the applications for Tilt Five glasses made by the community
Someone made a VR treadmill that when folded looks like a Taco
The viral video of the week is this 3D billboard ad created by Meta. The video seems made in CGI to me, though
Charlie Fink wrote a good editorial about the current status of virtual reality
News from partners (and friends)
HitMotion needs you!
Please download our fitness XR game HitMotion: Reloaded from App Lab and give it a good review! We need the support of the community now more than ever! Thank you 🙂
Learn more
Some XR fun
I heard you like Dilbert…
Funny link
Donate for good
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(Header image by Qualcomm)
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