HAPPY 2023! I wish you all that your dream may come true in this new year.
And I know that one of your dreams was having a weekly roundup of the best XR news… so… here you are!
Top news of the week
HTC’s new headset may be called Vive XR Elite
Thanks to the support of the community member Inscothen, I have discovered that the Korean website of HTC may have leaked the info about the upcoming headset that the company should unveil at this CES.
The headset should be called Vive XR Elite. If the price reported on the listing is correct, it should be $1400. Anyway, take this info with a grain of salt: the listed price could also be a placeholder value. $1400 may seem a lot of money, but if this device is meant to compete with the Quest Pro, thanks to its RGB passthrough and its depth sensor, then it would make a lot of sense. It would even be -$100 less than the competition. The thing that would be sure, at this point, is that if the price is confirmed, this headset would have zero appeal for consumers.
The official launch of the headset is on January, 5th, so we just have to wait a little more to know everything about it. For now, the only info we have are from the analyst Brad Lynch, who talked about a standalone device featuring two 1,920×1,920 LCD screens clocked up to 120hz and a Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 with 8GB of RAM. It so looks like a good Quest Pro competitor… a bit less fancy and a bit more practical.
Let’s hope it’s a good headset!
Other relevant news
Meta bought Luxecel, Apple Limbak
The hiring spree of the major tech companies toward the manufacturers of lenses and AR displays has not finished yet. The news of the week is that Meta has bought Luxecel, a company that was able to produce complex glass lenses offering both prescriptions and hi-tech features. It is obvious that this product was ideal to build AR glasses.
Meta’s competitor Apple has instead acquired Limbak (even if the acquisition has not been officially confirmed). Limbak was manufacturing special lenses that with their compound optics were able to offer an alternative to pancake lenses. Limbak was (and still is) the company behind the special lenses of the Lynx R-1, for instance.
The AR wars are going on, and all the biggest tech companies are acquiring lenses and display manufacturers to be able to secure the components to build the AR glasses of the future. In all of this, the FTC sleeps, and doesn’t realize that if all the major companies acquire all the best manufacturers, it’s impossible for a new company to try to enter the market with a good AR device. But maybe for the FTC the acquisition of a fitness game is more interesting than the monopoly of the next technological platform…
More info (Meta acquires Luxecel)
More info (Limbak got acquired)
More info (Probably Apple acquired Limbak)
The Oculus Quest had a good Christmas
Here we are again. After the wonderful Christmas of the year 2021, also in 2022 the Quest had a growth of sales due to the Holiday season. And this is proven by the fact that the Meta Quest app (previously known as Oculus app) on the App Store has been at the first place as the most downloaded app on iOS for like two days after Christmas. This shows how many people got a Quest 2 as a gift and used the app to configure it.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure the spike in sales hasn’t been strong like last year. I saw no huge spike in downloads of my fitness game on App Lab. I haven’t seen my Twitter feed full of kids unwrapping their Quest 2 received as a gift. I haven’t felt big excitement in the communities. So Quest 2 had a good Holiday season, but it has not had a disruptive one. The Quest as a piece of hardware is not new, the pandemic is less relevant, and the economic conditions are not positive, so a decline in sales had to be expected. Let’s say that a “good holiday” season is enough given the current situation.
News worth a mention
Two interesting XR accessories announced from Japan
At CES it should be possible to find two interesting XR accessories coming directly from Japan. The first one is from company Dolami, who has created a face mask dubbed “X-Mask” aimed at providing very precise face tracking. Its expected launch price is around $90. Another company, AI Silk, is instead working on a glove that looks like the Powerglove and that offers finger tracking and hand haptics all via electrical stimuli. I can’t wait to have the first reviews on both of these devices.
More info (X-Mask)
More info (AI Silk glove)
Saudi Arabia fund gets control of Magic Leap
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, Public Investment Fund (PIF) has just taken a stake of more than 50 percent in Magic Leap. The fund was already the actor of an important investment a few years ago, and now is taking completely control of the company.
VR is not expected to have great growth in 2023
New articles from this week confirm what I was already able to read last week: the analysts don’t predict an amazing year for virtual reality in 2023. 2022 has been a so-so year for the tech after a great 2021, and 2023 is predicted to be a year of growth, but not of huge growth.
In the meanwhile, it is interesting that the people of the VR community say that more than new hardware, they want great content for this new year. The hardware is already ok now, but we need compelling content for different kinds of people.
More info (2022 has been a so-so year for VR)
More info (Headset sales not doing great in 2022)
More info (Reddit communities want content for 2023)
A research project about creating the VR version of Twitch
An interesting research project shows what a proper Twitch of VR could look like. The spectators could join the VR player in the 3D space, which would be reconstructed by the system from what the player sees by rotating the head in the various frames. I think this system could also benefit from a future integration of NeRFs. For sure this is much more immersive than just seeing a player play a VR game on a 2D flat video.
(Thanks Ivan Aguilar for the tip)
A classification of all hand interaction types
We have the “Locomotion Vault”, an archive that collects all the possible locomotion mechanics in VR. It seems that the University of Potsdam is now doing the same for hand interactions with objects. If you are into UX in VR, this archive of interaction types may be of interest to you.
(Thanks again to Ivan Aguilar for this tip)
Trickshot can reconstruct a goal action in 3D
Trickshot is a cool startup that is able to reconstruct a football action in 3D. If a stadium is equipped to collect the images of what happens in the field, the Trickshot system is able to fully reconstruct in 3D every highlight of the match. This would be amazing to have replays of those moments in AR or VR, and I guess that football fans would pay a lot to be able to enter into the actions of their idols. The startup has currently a working demo, but it is looking for funds and partners to improve its system.
More info (Trickshot sample)
More info (Official website)
Discover Steam and Meta sales
There are lots of VR titles on sale both on Steam and on the Meta Quest Store. What are you waiting for? Go buy some games!
More info (Steam Winter Sale)
More info (Quest New Year Sale)
Hideo Kojima’s VR project may have been suspended
There was a lot of excitement in the VR communities when a rumor talked about Hideo Kojima, the genius behind Death Stranding, working on a VR project. But now it seems that Kojima mentioned that the project is “on hold” notwithstanding the fact he still believes in the potential of the technology.
Some news on content
- Davigo is an interesting game that makes a VR player play like a giant that has to fight against many small players controlled by PC. It is currently in Alpha;
- The Blu, one of the most popular VR demos of the early days, has just got an unexpected overhaul, and the base version of the application has been set as free to play.
More info (Davigo)
More info (The Blu)
Other news
Tencent has been awarded a patent for a varifocal headset
This GIF about a retrogaming emulator in VR got viral this week on Twitter
McKinsey published a guide to suggest business owners how to exploit metaverse technologies
A list of all the known uses of eye tracking by the upcoming PSVR2 games
News from partners (and friends)
Play HitMotion: Reloaded
We need some good reviews on our fitness game HitMotion: Reloaded.. so if you have some time, please download it, and if you like it, leave a positive review. Thank you!
Get the game
Some XR fun
The era of the metaverse experts is over, now everyone is an AI expert!
Funny link
This is a sick AI burn.
Funny link
This is what the face tracking mask reminds me
Funny link
Thanks thanks thanks
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:
- Alex Gonzalez VR
- DeoVR
- GenVR
- Eduardo Siman
- Jonn Fredericks
- Jean-Marc Duyckaerts
- Reynaldo T Zabala
- Richard Penny
- Terry xR. Schussler
- Ilias Kapouranis
- Paolo Leoncini
- Immersive.international
- Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
- Jake Rubin
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- Yacine Achiakh
- Jennifer Granger
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- Jan Schroeder
- Kai Curtis
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- Juan Sotelo
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- Chris Madsen
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- Andrew Deutsch
- Fabien Benetou
- Tatiana Kartashova
- Marco “BeyondTheCastle” Arena
- Eloi Gerard
- Adam Boyd
- Jeremy Dalton
- Joel Ward
- Alex P
- Lynn Eades
- Donald P
- Casie Lane
- Catherine Henry
- Qcreator
- Ristband (Anne McKinnon & Roman Rappak)
- Stephen Robnett
- Sb
- Enrico Poli
- Vooiage Technologies
- Caroline
- Liam James O’Malley
- Hillary Charnas
- Wil Stevens
- Brian Peiris
- Francesco Salizzoni
- Dimo Pepelyashev
- Alan Smithson
- Steve R
- Brentwahn
- Pieter Siekerman
- Simplex
- Matias Nassi
And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
(Header image by Brad Lynch)