The XR Week Peek (2024.03.12): Apple aims at a $1500 Vision device, Plutosphere shuts down, and more
Today is a tough day for me. You can see why at this LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7172868991453970432/
And now let’s dig into the most interesting pieces of XR news of the week.
Top news of the week
Apple aims at a $1500 Vision device
Let me tell you what have been the main pieces of news about the Vision Pro I’ve found this week. First of all, Apple has updated the runtime VisionOS to version 1.1, bringing many quality-of-life improvements. Two very important updates that are worth a mention are: the added support for MDM (Mobile Device Management) systems, that enable the use of Apple Vision Pro in enterprise settings. And the improvement of Personas, which now have a face that represents better the real face of the user.
More info (VisionOS 1.1)
More info (Tyriel Wood shows his improved Persona)
Even if the device got an update, what happens around it are always the same things. A lot of articles are written on the Vision Pro about whatever thing and I’ve even found one showing you “how people see you when you vape while having a videocall from the Vision Pro”. I guess every one of you had this question, so… now you have the answer…
More info (Vaping in the Vision Pro)
People also keep reviewing it, and a Korean user has written on Reddit a review about the device that is long 79 PAGES. It’s basically a book. My long wall-of-text articles pale compared with it… my reviews are like Post-It notes compared to what the Korean guy was able to write. I’m impressed.
More info (Super long review of the Vision Pro)
And Zuck keeps being Zuck and writing everywhere that the Quest 3 is so much better than the Vision Pro in everything, except resolution. Sure Zuck, suuuuure…
More info (Zuck on Quest 3 vs Vision Pro)
The rumors about a future device also continue. According to a new report by The Elec, Apple wants to release a second-generation device that costs $1500 and the first cost entry to cut to arrive at that goal is the displays. Apple wants to reduce the price of the display by a 50% factor and is also trying to have other suppliers of displays beyond Sony (e.g. BOE or SeeYa) to increase production.
More info (Next Vision Pro rumors)
Other relevant news
Plutosphere shuts down
The very sad news of the week is that Plutosphere is shutting down. The service offered users the possibility of playing PCVR games on their Quest via cloud streaming, paying a price between $1 and $3 per hour. According to the first reviewers, the experience with it may have varied, but it was in general a pretty good one, having similar performances to a local streamed game with Virtual Desktop. It was a very futuristic service, because we are all bullish about cloud streaming for the future.
But Meta, which holds the biggest store for VR applications, is currently banning all the apps offering cloud rendering from its Main Store and also from App Lab. This means that Plutosphere was hard to find and hard to install for VR people. This led to a small number of users, which was not enough for the company to pay the bills of the cloud infrastructure. The company is now forced to close.
Many VR people commented harshly on the news on social media, highlighting how this proves that Meta is not the “open platform” that Zuckerberg claims to be everywhere. Meta is most probably banning cloud services because they offer a backdoor to access another store where people can play games without giving Meta the 30% cut that it gets from the Store. It is always a matter of money and I think this case makes no exception, especially because Meta subsidizes hardware costs with the Store sales. Meta itself is experimenting with its own cloud service, codenamed Avalanche, but there is no news about when this may come out.
I send a big hug to all the people from Plutosphere.
More info (Plutosphere shuts down)
More info (Kent Bye comments the news)
News worth a mention
Gorilla Tag reaches 100K reviews
Indie hit Gorilla Tag is now the first VR game to have surpassed 100K reviews on the Quest Store. This is an incredible win for this game, which last year also generated over $26 million in revenues. I’m always happy when an indie studio reaches big success and I compliment the devs for the obtained results!
Crowdfunding starts for TCL RayNeo X2
The TCL RayNeo X2, the first completely standalone smartglasses to employ MicroLED is now on Kickstarter priced at $700. These glasses are quite interesting and in fact the crowdfunding campaign is already well beyond its goal. Anyway, the goal was a ridiculous $9000, and considering the size of TCL, I guess it was made just to validate the product more than to actually collect money.
Researchers perform eye tracking with audio waves
The research project of the week has been for sure the one carried on at Cornell University, where the researchers have been able to perform eye tracking using sonar waves. Tiny emitters emit sound waves towards the eyes, and some receptors read how the waves bounce back. Depending on how the returning waves are, the system is able to detect where the eyes are looking at. This approach has many advantages, like reducing the cost and the power consumption of eye tracking, but for now leads to less accuracy.
More info (Eye tracking with sonar)
More info (Official research article)
Apple terminated and reinstantiated Epic’s account
Epic Games intended to open its own Epic Store on iOS after the DMA has forced Apple to open up its ecosystem to external stores. Apple has so terminated Epic’s developer account, but after pressures from EU, it has restored it. This is a good signal of the fact that the European Commission will actively work to force companies to respect the Digital Markets Act and fight against tech monopolies.
Dreamscape becomes Dreamscape Immersive
Dreamscape has pivoted. The once LBVRE (Location-Based VR Entertainment) company has closed its venues in Los Angeles to focus on its VR educative program built together with Arizona State University. To underline the pivot it has also changed its name to Dreamscape Immersive. I’m happy they found a way to carry on their business.
The price of Quest 3 drops in Poland
Meta has already reduced the price of Quest 3 in Poland, giving people a temporary discount of €100. The headset is so now priced at €450, which is quite a good price. It’s not clear why there is this discount… I guess that either they are testing in Poland how the market reacts to a price reduction, or the device was performing really badly in the country and so Meta decided to reduce its price.
Philip Rosedale shows its VR pod
Philip Rosedale has described on his blog an interesting project he’s carrying on about making people stay fully still on a bed and having visual and haptic stimuli that give them the sensation they are moving in a virtual world. For instance, in this pod, when you try to rotate your head, the head stays still, but the visuals in front of you rotate, giving you the impression you truly rotated your head. He claims that this approach also removes motion sickness. I find his idea very fascinating, but at the same time, I’m puzzled about his claims on motion sickness, and so are other VR experts.
More info (Philip Rosedale’s project)
More info (Comments on Reddit are skeptical)
Warner Bros may delist Rick&Morty VR
Warner Bros. is delisting Cartoon Network/Adult Swim games from digital storefronts, including Steam. It is not clear why it is doing that, but this affects also VR games like Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality. In some cases, the developer can also re-publish the game, but this means losing all the history of the Steam page, like the ratings, the comments, the achievements, and so on.
Meta Quest 3 has got interesting updates
Meta is keeping updating its Quest at an impressive pace. For instance, in the new runtime, they made it easier to use 2D Android apps. They also made modding more difficult, but after the protest of some devs, it seems they have reverted this decision (a good win for the community!). Lying down mode has also been added to let people watch movies while lying on the bed. I find it also super interesting that Meta is adding “Quest Cash”, so that people can pre-buy money for the Quest Store, and can also gift it to other users so that they can buy games.
The PCVR Meta ecosystem got an update too: Meta has changed the name of the Oculus PC app into Meta Quest Link app (I will miss Oculus from here, too) and has improved a lot the performance and battery consumption of the Quest Link. At least Meta has not totally forgotten its PCVR users…
More info (2D Android apps improvement)
More info (Meta reverted its decision on modding)
More info (Meta Quest update v63 — Road To VR)
More info (Meta Quest update v63 — Upload VR)
More info (Meta Quest Link updates)
Some news on content
- The very promising VR platformer Max Mustard is launching on Quest on March 21st, priced at $30
- Headspace XR, an experience that combines social VR connection and several mindfulness techniques, has been released on Quest Store for $30
- The Pirate Queen: A Forgotten Legend, a VR story about pirates and female empowerment, has been released on Steam and Quest Store for $17
- The Daft Punk DLC for Beat Saber has been released. For the first time, there are also live songs on Beat Saber
- Live action VR series ‘The Faceless Lady’ is debuting in Horizon Worlds next month
- Dungeon Full Dive, a VR tabletop RPG toolkit through which you can play Dungeons & Dragons in VR, will soon adopt a very interesting pricing model: it will be free for all players, but Game Masters will have to pay $50
- The Oniri Forest is a tech demo showing quasi-realistic graphics on standalone Quest. But it is mostly a static experience
- MLB Home Run Derby VR is bringing baseball to the main Quest Store on March 28
- Meteora: The Race Against Space Time lets you be a meteor that races against the other meteors in the outer space. The game is aiming to release on PSVR 2
- Thief Simulator VR gets a free prologue episode on Quest
- Tiny Archers has released a new update that lets it work together with the 52-inch Wonder Fitter Artemis smart bow peripheral
More info (Max Mustard)
More info (Headspace)
More info (The Pirate Queen)
More info (Daft Punk DLC for Beat Saber — Road To VR)
More info (Daft Punk DLC for Beat Saber — Upload VR)
More info (The Faceless lady)
More info (Dungeon Full Dive)
More info (The Oniri Forest)
More info (MLB Home Run)
More info (Meteora)
More info (Thief Simulator VR)
More info (Tiny Archers)
Some reviews about content
- The Pirate Queen: A Forgotten Legend left the Upload VR’s reviewer with mixed feelings. On one side, the story is interesting, but on the other side, the ending is a bit disappointing and the execution lacks polish.
More info (The Pirate Queen review)
Other news
Owlchemy Labs’ Jazmin Cano and Peter Galbraith gave an interesting talk about how they implemented accessibility in Cosmonious High
Cia is reportedly hiring an Extended Reality Specialist. But it can not confirm or deny this news.
This week Meta’s server malfunctioned, and at that moment all Quests became unusable. The company is working to prevent this from happening in the future
Learn more (All Quests became unusable)
Learn more (Meta is working to prevent this from happening again)
On the Financial Times, there is a pretty interesting article on microchips
(thanks Rob for the tip)
Google Genie can create 2D platform videogames starting from images or text prompts. This is pretty cool
News from partners (and friends)
Discover Our Next Reality
Two people I personally esteem a lot from our ecosystem, Louis Rosenberg and Alvin Graylin, have just written a book about XR and AI, and how they can impact our future, for the good or the bad. You can get it from the most important e-book stores.
Learn more
Sponsored Area
Feature your product on The Ghost Howls!
Do you want to promote your XR product or company to the community? I can help you! This blog proposes a few advertisement options, and one of them is having a mention in this section of this very popular weekly roundup column. Read all the information about how to advertise on The Ghost Howls by clicking the link here below. Let’s collaborate together!
Discover Advertisement Options
Some XR fun
The best short movie about technology you will see this month
Funny link
I think Meta gives too high rewards to the participants of this study session… don’t you agree?
Funny link
It happens to me all the time!
Funny link
Donate for good
Like last week, also this week in this final paragraph I won’t ask you to donate to my blog, but to the poor people who 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
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And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
(Header image by PlutoSphere)
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