The XR Week Peek (2026.05.11): We may know more about Android glasses soon, Valve prepares to ship its hardware, and more!
Today it’s travel day! I’m departing to go to China to be a speaker at the VR AR Expo China in Shanghai and then travel around Southern China to meet interesting people! I’m super-hyped… get ready to read a lot on my blog about my adventures in Asia!
But now, let’s get back to the usual business and let me tell you about the most important pieces of AR/VR news of the week!
Top news of the week
We may discover further info about Android XR glasses in the next 10 days
It seems we are going to get more information about Android XR-based smartglasses very soon. Google has two events planned to happen in the next few days:
- The Android Show, happening on May 12 at 10 am PT
- Google I/O, taking place on May 19–20
Many rumors say that something about glasses will be revealed in these events, but it is not clear what. It can be hardware related, like some info about the upcoming glasses built in collaboration with Samsung or Warby Parker; or it can be software related, like some reveals about the Android XR runtime for glasses and related SDK. I honestly think that a launch of Samsung Glasses is unlikely, though, since I guess Samsung will want to announce them at some events of its.
I’m pretty hyped, and I can’t wait to know more! Considering the relevance of smartglasses in this moment, I’m very interested in what Google is going to unveil.
More info (The Android Show)
More info (Info about Google Glasses may come soon)
Other relevant news
Valve reorganizes to launch its hardware
The launch of the Steam Controller was an overwhelming success, and Valve is now reorganizing to allow people to buy it again. On May 8th, it reopened preorders: people can now book only one controller, and as soon as controllers are available again, users will be contacted via e-mail in the order they preordered (first-come, first-served). Using the link in the e-mail, people will be able to finalize the purchase. This is the strategy the company is starting to allow for everyone to be able to book a controller and not be frustrated by an “out of order” message. I believe a similar tactic will be employed for the Steam Frame and the Steam Machine.
Talking about the Steam Frame and the Steam Machine, multiple sources (including our friend Brad) report that Valve is importing tons of game consoles. Most probably, it is preparing a big stock of Steam Machines and Steam Frames before officially launching them. This may happen very soon, we are all counting the days…
More info (New rules to purchase the Steam Controller)
More info (Valve importing a lot of consoles)
The Kenyan whistleblowers all lost their jobs
Do you remember the recent scandal about Meta’s smartglasses? A Swedish magazine found out that what the glasses were seeing during AI sessions was sent to some workers in Kenya for manual review. This included personal images, including naked people and credit card numbers. All of this without the users knowing, because the consent was buried in the usual Terms&Conditions that no one reads.
The whistleblowers interviewed by the Swedish journalist asked for anonymity to protect their jobs. But this has not been enough. This week, an article on the BBC reported that Meta interrupted the collaboration with Sama, the company these people were working for. This resulted in many of these workers being fired. Meta claims that Sama did not meet its standards: Sama disagrees with this decision, saying that its work has always been very good. But probably Meta was not speaking about the standards of the work, but of secrecy.
I personally found the decision morally questionable, but strategically correct. It is morally questionable because many people in a non-rich country have just lost their jobs because of an article in a Swedish newspaper. But it is strategically correct, because this will serve as a lesson to all the workers providing this kind of service to Meta: “speak with the press, and you and all your colleagues are going to lose your jobs”. This will make sure that there will be fewer whistleblowers from low-wage countries who will report on some wrong practices carried out by the company. I still find it morally questionable, but probably this is why I’m not at the head of a major tech company.
News worth a mention
Portal VR Motion allows to play VR games without VR
Long-time VR developer Greg Fodor has released Portal VR Motion, which allows you to play VR games on a flat screen, using Joy-Cons controllers to interact with the game. This solution is great because it allows people who don’t have a VR headset, or who have problems wearing a headset, to be able to try games like Half-Life: Alyx.
Its announcement sparked a huge debate in the XR community: many people love the idea of giving an opportunity to more people to try VR games. But many others see it as terrible, because a VR game is made to be lived from the inside, and playing it in flatscreen mode is kinda sad. I personally think that giving an additional opportunity is always a good thing.
OpenXR OSX aims at making you play PCVR games on your Mac
PCVR games can’t be played on Mac. But Yannick Comte, an esteemed developer of our community, is trying to solve this with OpenXR OSX, a runtime that lets all OpenXR games compiled for Mac to run on Apple devices.
All you have to do is:
- Install the OpenXR OSX runtime
- Launch a thin client on your Quest headset
- Run the OpenXR game on your Mac with some command-line parameters
- Have fun!
It is not a perfect solution, it’s very early stages, but it works. And it will be released in the open, hoping that the community will contribute to it.
I love it because it finally allows OpenXR to enter the Apple ecosystem…
VRChat releases statistics, unveils big growth in Japan
VRChat shared on X some key statistics:
- 158,192 Record Concurrent Users
- 100,000 Daily Average Concurrent Users
- 250,000+ Active Communities
- Japan Growth 3.9×
It’s great that its numbers are growing and that its community is healthy. It is also intriguing to see the numbers on its huge growth in Japan: does this mean there is a lot of untapped potential for VR in that country?
(By the way, while writing this piece of news the song “Big In Japan” started playing in my mind…)
A popular venting piece
An article venting about how Mark Gurman, MacRumors, and all the other magazines continue to downplay the Vision Pro, has gone viral in our community. We all feel the frustration about the general press that continuously says that “VR is dead” and that this way is killing VR for real.
But at the same time, we should keep being realistic: I don’t think Mark Gurman has “killing VR” as a personal goal of its life. If he’s reporting about the bad sales of the Vision Pro, it is because the Vision Pro is not selling well for real. Apple released an M5 refresh of the Vision Pro instead of a Vision Pro 2 because the device has not performed incredibly well. I don’t think Apple abandoned VR, but like many other vendors, it has surely disinvested a bit from it.
Jaron Lanier speaks about AI and VR
Jaron Lanier, the father of the term “virtual reality,” is for sure a visionary. In a recent interview, he gave his point of view about the current situation of AI and VR, and as usual, he said interesting things.
(Thanks Mikko, for sending the video to me.)
The Creature Feature featured interesting VR news
The Creature Feature & Friends of the VR Games Showcases revealed some interesting pieces of news about present and future VR games. One has been a pretty big piece of news: Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades (H3VR), one of the most popular PCVR games, is getting a sequel, which is also running on Quest. The weapons sandbox has been produced in collaboration with the developer behind Vertigo. I’m pretty sure this title is going to be big on Quest, too.
I think it’s also relevant the news that Wordbound, a puzzle game where you can mix and match letters to create 3D elements, is finally coming to Quest 3 and SteamVR.
These have been my two favorite pieces of news, but you can read them all by clicking on the links below.
More info (All the announcements from the Creature Feature Showcase)
More info (H3VR 2 announced)
More info (H3VR 2 has been made in collaboration with Zulubo Productions)
More info (Wordbound is coming to VR) More info (New games announcements from Trebuchet)
Some news about content
- Sci-fi horror shooter Memoreum is getting a huge price cut on Quest. It now costs only $14.99
- VR remakes of Myst and Riven are finally coming to PSVR 2
- Meta released an update of the list of the 50 best-selling Quest games of all times
- Espionage adventure game Spymaster, from the innovative developer Innerspace, is out in Early Access on Quest and Steam, priced at $11.99
More info (Memoreum)
More info (Myst & Riven)
More info (50 best Quest games)
More info (Spymaster)
Some reviews about content
- FlatOut 4: Total Insanity VR has strong gameplay about wrecking cars. Sound and visuals are pretty good. There are currently various issues, but being in Early Access, this is acceptable.
More info (FlatOut 4: Total Insanity VR)
Other news
Unity launches Unity AI Beta to offer in-editor Vibe Coding
XPANCEO announces ultra-tiny solid-state batteries for its smart contact lenses
A guest post on Road To VR talks about the challenges of moderating social VR spaces
At Display Week, TCL showcased new high-density microdisplays for XR
Wiz3D aims at making all flatscreen games stereoscopic
Christoph Spinger released some minigames for Rokid glasses as opensource
News from partners (and friends)
Object tracking via hand tracking
Do you remember my experiment for tracking real objects by only relying on Quest hand tracking? Well, it seems that a team from a French university tried to do something similar, of course, in a more structured and professional way than I did! And the results are pretty cool, you should check them out…
Learn more (Object tracking video)
Learn more (Object tracking article)
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Let’s speak business
Some XR fun
Still my favorite controllers to this time…
Funny link
How I imagine the Apple Car
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:
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And now here you are the link to donate:
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(Header image by Android Headlines)
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