The XR Week Peek (2023.07.03): Google shuts down Project Iris, Meta launches gaming subscription service, and more!
Welcome to a new episode of the XR Week Peek! Today there will be a new list of curated XR news, and I’m sure you will love some of them… and one of them will even make you say “what the fuuuuu…”! You read all this post and then write to me and let me know if my prediction was correct!
But before delving into the news, let me wish a wonderful 4th of July to all my friends from the US! A big hug to all of you!
Top news of the week
Google killed its AR glasses Project Iris
Do you remember the name Project Iris? Various reports indicated it as the internal codename in Google for a project meant to build augmented reality glasses. It was our hope for Google entering the AR race together with Meta and Apple. Well, it seems that our hope has died.
According to Business Insider, Google has shut down the project, which so enters officially the very crowded Google Graveyard. It seems that more than 300 people worked on the project, which was headed by Clay Bavor, the head of AR/VR efforts at Google. After an internal restructuring and the departure of Bavor a few months ago, the project was shut down. The report claims that it could be resurrected if needed because some teams working on it have not been disbanded.
The shutdown of its main XR hardware project makes us all think that Google will try to do in XR what it is already doing with smartphones: become the software platform that many hardware OEMs use. And in fact, the report claims that Google is working on an Android XR platform it could license to headset OEM partners and also a “Micro XR” platform for XR glasses.
If this report is confirmed, it means that Google plans to sit on the side and watch the hardware AR race happen between other companies, with it only offering the software platform. This can be a great idea, considering the fact that Google already successfully did it for mobile phones and that in VR we had a company, Valve, which did something similar for PCVR.
The question is if the XR hardware OEMs would like to use this new Google platform, and especially if they really want to leave Google all the revenues from the sales of the applications on the Play Store, which is where the real money is. We already saw this problem happening when HTC departed from the Steam platform to build its Viveport store because hardware sales were not enough to have an ambitious business.
Let’s see: Google is still working with Qualcomm and Samsung on a mixed-reality headset. I’m curious to see how this will turn out to be.
More info (Google killed Project Iris — Road To VR)
More info (Google killed Project Iris — Upload VR)
Other relevant news
Meta launches its gaming subscription service
We were expecting it for a long time, and in the end, it came. Meta has announced its gaming subscription service, called Meta Quest +.
Meta Quest+ is priced at $8 per month, or $60 annually, and gives you access to two handpicked games per month. The games that you get through the subscription service keep being part of your library until you pay. When you unsubscribe from Meta Quest+, you lose the right to play these games, but if you subscribe again, you regain access to them. All of this sounds very similar to PlayStation’s PS Plus service (including the name…).
The first two games for July are Cloudhead Games’ Pistol Whip and ARVORE’s Pixel Ripped 1995. For August they will be Walkabout Mini Golf and MOTHERGUNSHIP: FORGE. To attract the biggest number possible of users, Meta is offering the first month of July at only $1.
Remember also that if the games you get feature cross-buy, you also get the PC Rift version for free.
To me, it seems an interesting deal, especially if you don’t have already a big catalog of VR games in your Quest library. And it also shows that Meta is confident to have enough good content coming that it can give 2 games per month to subscribers and still have new cool content every month. That’s great news.
More info (Meta Quest+ gaming service)
More info (Cross-buy available for Meta Quest+ games)
Unity announces AI tools when Valve stops AI games
This week has been an emotional rollercoaster for games (VR and not) made with the support of artificial intelligence.
At first, we had good news: Unity finally revealed its first two AI tools:
- Muse, which lets you create assets (textures, animations, code) directly in the editor using textual queries. This is amazing because it offers AI tools completely integrated inside the editor, removing all the friction of using Generative AI on many external websites
- Sentis, which is a solution to run AI models locally on the game host machine on all platforms, from very powerful PCs to the Nintendo Switch.
Muse looks a lot like ChatGPT integrated inside Unity. In fact, when queried about what are the models that Unity is using for its AI technology, the only answer that journalists got was that Unity was using 3rd-party services for integrating its AI offerings. The problem is that this doesn’t clarify if the assets generated with Unity AI may violate some copyright of some artists.
The question becomes very relevant because this week we started having the first reports of games blocked by Steam because they use assets generated with generative AI. Valve’s review team objects that if a game studio is adding some AI-created assets to its game, it can’t guarantee to have the full IP on those assets, and so also on the whole game, which is one of the prerequisites for the publication on Steam.
If the biggest PC games store is going to block AI-generated assets, this may be a big problem for the use of generative AI in development, and would represent the failure of AI’s promise of democratizing the production of content, facilitating the work of small indie studios. For now, more than the work, it has just facilitated the block 😐
More info (Unity AI announcement)
More info (Unity AI official website)
More info (Unity doesn’t reveal details of its AI services)
More info (Steam is blocking games with AI-generated assets)
News worth a mention
Caviar to offer a Vision Pro worth $39,000
The Apple Vision Pro at $3500 was probably not enough, so luxury company Caviar is preparing to sell a version covered with gold at $39,000. It’s your time to buy it and show the other AR peasants who is the king: but you have to be fast because only 24 units will be produced and put on sale in 2024.
Some poor people objected that the gold on the front of the headset is going to make it front heavy and uncomfortable, but they don’t know that you are so rich that you can afford a full team of chiropractors that can fix every problem of your neck in seconds.
I have a question, asking for a friend: do you know where I can sell both of my kidneys?
Meta is sending Elite Straps for free
Some people owning a Meta Quest 2 are receiving an email from Meta giving them an Elite Strap for free. Probably with the Quest 3 incoming, Meta wants to get rid of some stocks and has decided to do it in a way that also makes is customers happy.
A new full body tracking technique
Some researchers working with Meta have developed a new technology to reconstruct the pose of the full body of the user using only the tracking information coming from the headset and the controllers. It is not the first time that a similar project is carried on, but what is interesting about this new version is that the algorithm can take into count the objects that are present in the room. It so works well also when the user is sitting on a couch, or stepping on a box.
More info (Full body tracking algorithm)
More info (Full body tracking algorithm — some explanations about the project)
Sony Mocopi launches in the United States
Finally, we have some more news about Mocopi, the small body tracking kit that Sony has created for vTubers. The product is now coming to the US on July, 14, to be sold for $450. It can be used also together with VRChat, but if you want to use it together with your Quest, you need to go through your phone (the small trackers send the data to your phone, which sends the data to VRChat). I’m very curious to read the first reviews about it!
More info (Mocopi to be launched in the US — Upload VR)
More info (Mocopi to be launched in the US — Road To VR)
Apple is not interested in controllers for the Vision Pro
Apple strongly believes in eye and hand tracking as the main source of input for the Apple Vision Pro. Regarding all the rumors about the use of tracked controllers, Mark Gurman stated this in his latest report: “ I’m told that Apple isn’t planning its own Vision Pro game controller, nor is it actively planning support for third-party VR accessories”. I think for now the situation is clear.
iVRy connected PSVR 2 to PC… sort of
The iVRy team has had its first win in its battle in trying to make people use the PSVR 2 as a SteamVR headset. The result of this hard work was the successful use of PSVR 2 inside the game Half-Life: Alyx. This is an amazing achievement. Anyway, there are a lot of caveats to know about: first of all the headset did not have positional tracking, and then the connection required a special mini-computer between the headset and the host computer. Still, I’m impressed.
Niantic performs layoffs and closes projects
It is not the brightest day at Niantic: the company has just laid off 230 people and at the same time shut down the games Marvel: World of Heroes and NBA All-World. The first part of the news hurts me, and I’m sorry for the people laid off. Honestly, the second part instead doesn’t surprise me: every few months I remark how Niantic is trying to replicate the success of Pokemon Go with clone games that have no appeal and then get shut down. This is just the pattern repeating again and again.
On the good side, Niantic is trying to do business also in new creative ways. It has just released the new Rewarded AR ads format which is a new way of offering an ad through a dedicated AR mini experience inside an AR game that should create engagement with the user and maybe also offer rewards to him in a nearby place (e.g. you play the ad game about Starbucks and then you get a Latte cup for free in a nearby Starbucks shop). The first tests with it have been pretty successful.
More info (Niantic laying off people)
More info (Niantic’s new ad format)
More info (Niantic’s new ad format — Official blog post)
Emteq Ocosense reads your emotions
Emteq, one of the leading companies regarding brain-computer interfaces, has just announced Emteq Ocosense, a pair of glasses to track all the subtle facial movements of the user. This data can be used raw or the client could get some data reconstructed from these raw data like the levels of attention, engagement, valence, and facial expressivity, as well as body activities such as walking, sitting, standing, etc.
This is very interesting, but of course it is not for consumer use, but more for research or healthcare centers. In fact, the glasses cost £20,000. And they are not even covered in gold.
More info (Emteq unveils Ocosense)
More info (Emteq Ocosense official page)
Research project solves problems of haptic VR simulation of falling down a cliff
Thanks to Ivan Aguilar, I got to know about a research project involving VR haptics, and it is one of that kind of crazy things that I usually love. The study is about the proper simulation of hand haptics for when in a game we are falling down a cliff and we are trying to stop the fall. The simulation consists of a specific Arduino-driven hardware and something that resembles a retractile knife to be used on that hardware. When you fall down the cliff in the VR simulator, you can so stick the real “knife” onto the Arduino machine, to simulate you trying to stick a knife into the rocks of the cliff when you are falling down.
Because this is what always happens in my life: when I fall down a cliff (which happens frequently) and I have a knife in my pocket (I always keep a knife in the pocket exactly for these moments), I can try to stick the knife in the rocks of the cliff to stop my fall. It’s basically the same physics realism that I saw in Looney Toones’ Cartoons when I was a kid. Makes total sense. A knife entering into rocks when you are accelerating fast because of gravity. Is this the “metaverse” everyone is talking about?
I can’t wait that this solution goes mainstream. I think this is the iPhone moment of VR. Or maybe the knife moment of VR.
Rockstar may be working on an unannounced VR games
Some people are speculating that Rockstar may be working on an announced VR game because actor Michael Ursu, which worked as the voice of many games, stated in his resume that he worked on an “unannounced game” from Rockstar. It seems to be a bit a flimsy speculation, but let’s see.
Some discounts on games
- Iron Man VR is getting a permanent price cut on Quest, and it is now available for only $29.99
- Steam Summer Sale 2023 is offering amazing discounts on popular VR games like Ultrawings, Half-Life Alyx, After The Fall, and many more!
- ForeVR Cornhole is now free to play for everyone! (The game features in-app-purchases, though)
More info (Iron Man VR)
More info (Steam Summer Sale 2023)
More info (ForeVR Cornhole)
Some news about content
- Road To VR has published one of its amazing deep dives on games graphics and design. This time the article is about Horizon: Call Of The Mountain
- Darksword: Battle Eternity, a dark fantasy action RPG in VR, has been released for Quest
- SPACE BALL is a game mixing Gorilla Tag movement with Rocket League action. It is now out on Quest for free, and it is coming soon to PC VR
- Mindset is a new game by Carbon Studio about cube-shaped puzzles. Mindset is now available on the Quest Store, priced at $10.
More info (Horizon: Call Of The Mountain)
More info (Darksword: Battle Eternity)
More info (SPACE BALL)
More info (Mindset)
Some reviews of content
Both Upload VR and Road To VR have reviewed Synapse, the new game by nDreams, and praised its graphics and its telekinetic mechanic which is very satisfying (you can use your telekinetic powers to draw enemies into hot lava!). The problem is that the game is a bit monotonous and repetitive.
More info (Synapse review — Road To VR)
More info (Synapse review — Upload VR)
Other news
CNET’s Scott Stein went hands-on with the interesting Digilens Argo AR glasses
Second Life is now 20 years old! Happy birthday to the first metaverse platform which entered the mainstream
China Mobile launched a Chinese metaverse industry alliance, starting with 24 members
Lenovo announces new AR glasses in China called Lenovo Morningstar G2
Unreal 5’s Nanite and Lumen can already work with VR giving amazing visuals, but terrible framerate
News from partners (and friends)
VRTO is back!
VRTO, one of the leading virtual reality events, is back. This year marks the 8th year for the annual Conference, taking place July 19th and 20th, 2023, in partnership with OCAD University, at their beautiful waterfront campus. Among the speakers there are the legend Tom Furness and people from Meta and Blockade Labs. The amazing Alex Coulombe from Agile Lens will also demo a variety of cutting-edge VR experiences that include lifelike performative MetaHumans. You can’t miss it!
Some XR fun
Someone reshared on Reddit an old meme of mine about VR and it got a lot of upvotes! :O
Funny link
Who likes the term Spatial Computing?
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 in Ukraine are facing the consequences of the war and the ones that in Italy have been victims of the flood. I will leave you the link to donate for these two causes 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
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- Alan Smithson
- Steve R
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- Gregory F Gorsuch
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And now here you are the links to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
Support the populations affected by the flood in Italy
(Header image by Caviar)
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