It’s a hot summer here in Italy. But this is not stopping me from providing you with my usual roundup of the most important XR news of the week…
Top news of the week
Meta teases VR announcements for Connect
During one of its usual AMAs on Instagram, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth answered the question “Did you guys give up on VR?” with the following statement (transcription is courtesy of UploadVR):
No. We’ve talked about this a lot this year — kind of an odd comment. We’ve just updated the user interface profoundly for the first time in years. We’ve talked openly about the fact that we’re building multiple next-generation headsets. We did get ourselves into more sustainable shape, that’s true. But no. We continue to invest quite a bit there. So, stay tuned for Connect and we’ll have more to share then.
The first part of the answer just reiterates what we already know: Meta is allegedly working on two headsets, one for gaming, the Quest 4, and one for spatial computing, codenamed Puffin/Phoenix/Loma. But it’s the last sentence the most juicy of them all: Meta is going to say something about them at Connect. So in a couple of months, Meta is going to unveil something of its next-gen devices. My bet is that it is going to announce the spatial computing headset Phoenix, and maybe open its preorders, for a full launch expected in the beginning of 2027.
This is great news, because the fact that Meta disinvested in VR is what caused the new VR Winter, so Meta announcing a new headset is for sure reinvigorating the ecosystem a bit. But I wouldn’t be too confident this new device is going to make VR great again: Phoenix is probably going to cost more than $1,000, meaning that it will be an HMD for prosumers and the enterprise. It won’t sell 20 million units like the Quest 2. So it will be a step forward for the ecosystem, but the road to a VR spring is still long.
More info (Meta teasing announcements for Connect)
More info (My editorial on the VR winter still being long)
Other relevant news
Valve launches “Great On Frame” Steam Page
Valve is slowly ramping up the hype for the Steam Frame, the headset many in the VR community have been waiting for. Its latest initiative has been quietly launching this week a section of Steam called “Great On Frame” that collects all the VR games certified to run well on the upcoming Steam Frame headset.
The page just contains a few titles, so it is still under construction. But the fact that it has been made public shows that the launch of the headset is approaching. My bet is that they are going to launch it in July, as soon as the logistics for the Steam Machine have been sorted out. Prepare to hit F5 as hard as you can!
More info (“Great On Frame” on Road To VR)
More info (The official “Great On Frame” page)
Meta improves the privacy LED on Ray-Ban Meta, but…
Meta did a good thing, privacy-wise. Which is great news by itself. But at the same time is considering whether to also do a bad thing, privacy-wise. Which is not news by itself. Let me explain.
You know that the Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses have a privacy LED that turns on when you are shooting a video or a picture. This is important to inform the people around you that you are recording. Unluckily, some motherfuckers were using a workaround to disable the LED, so that they could secretly record people for social media videos without anyone noticing. There was a great concern about this, because you couldn’t trust that anyone wearing a Ray-Ban Meta device was not spying on you.
Well, Meta just released a forced update for the glasses that will make them disable the camera in case the device detects that its LED has been tampered with. This is great news, and it was about time. We have to see if these people will find another workaround, but at least Meta showed its goodwill to solve this big privacy problem. Kudos to Zuck.
But now we come to the other problem. Meta wants Meta AI to be your personal assistant, and to do that, it should always be on. The glasses should use the so-called “super-sensing” feature to continuously listen to what you are listening to and see what you are seeing, maybe shooting a picture every few seconds. This way, you could for instance ask the glasses, “where have I left my keys?” and the glasses could answer you because the AI would have seen where you left them the day before and could recall this information.
This is all amazing on paper. But there are two big problems in reality. The first is that this means that Meta would get information about what you are doing in every moment of your life. There is no way that this tons of information are processed only locally on the glasses; they should be put in a server somewhere. So Meta would collect every possible piece of information about your life, the endgame of data harvesting. This is super concerning.
The second problem is the LED: if the glasses are always recording for the AI, the LED should warn the people around you that this data collection is happening. But Meta is still evaluating if this should be the case or not. A previous report said that Mark Zuckerberg is against this idea, I guess because it would make people realize that when they are using AI, they are recording their life and the life of the people around them and sending everything to Meta… and to some guys in Nigeria. I personally think that this should be explicitly flagged, instead, because people should be aware of what is happening: not only you, but especially the people around you. For instance, a colleague may see your LED blinking and remind you to turn off your Meta glasses when you enter the office, to not leak the company secrets. So, Zuck, please, keep the LED on when the camera is on for whatever reason…
More info (Meta is releasing an anti-tampering update for its glasses / X)
More info (Meta is releasing an anti-tampering update for its glasses / Road To VR)
More info (Meta is releasing an anti-tampering update for its glasses / Upload VR)
More info (Meta is considering what to do with the privacy LED for super-sensing)
Apple is suing OpenAI over its hardware efforts
It’s time to grab some popcorn: Apple has sued OpenAI and io about the AI hardware it is building.
It’s not a secret that OpenAI poached many employees from Apple to build its upcoming AI hardware. And it is not a secret that OpenAI acquired “io Products”, the design company founded by Jony Ive, legendary designer of Apple products. And I guess Apple has not been so happy about all of this.
But what made Apple sue OpenAI is that the company in Cupertino identified misconduct by OpenAI employees meant to steal trade secrets from Apple. The accusations are very important.
We’ve been given two examples of that. Tang Tan, who worked at Apple and then joined Jony Ive to work on OpenAI products, was conducting some hiring rounds for his company. He contacted some folks at Apple about the open positions, and asked them to bring at the interview for the job at OpenAI the prototypes they were working on at Apple for some “show and tell” sessions. As you can imagine, the purpose of all of this was acquiring information about what Apple was working on.
The story of Chang Liu, another employee included in the lawsuit, is even more interesting. He managed to keep the laptop with which he was working at Apple, and discovered he was not revoked access to the confidential material. He joked about that in some internal chats, and his “LOL” and “so funny” comments about this are going to be permanent memes in the tech community. He used his access to download proprietary Apple information and use it in his daily job at OpenAI. When Apple realized this, everything stopped being “so funny”, though.
So now the lawsuit will begin, and it’s going to be an interesting one to follow. OpenAI confirms to be the Facebook of the AI companies, which “moves fast and breaks things”, collecting scandals in the process. I wonder if this lawsuit will force OpenAI to slow down its plans for AI hardware: we know the company is experimenting internally with AI glasses, but maybe after this scandal, the timeline for their announcements has been changed. Let’s see.
More info (OpenAI sues Apple — 9to5Mac)
More info (OpenAI sues Apple — X Post 1)
More info (OpenAI sues Apple — X Post 2)
More info (OpenAI sues Apple — X Post 3)
News worth a mention
Even Realities becomes a unicorn
Even Realities, the Chinese startup producing camera-free lightweight AI glasses, has just announced a new financing round of $150M, which brings its evaluation over a billion dollars, making it reach “unicorn” status. And I think this achievement is well-deserved, considering the great interest these glasses are getting among tech enthusiasts.
XREAL’s xbx glasses go on sale internationally
XREAL has officially launched its low-tier media-viewing smartglasses falling under the new “xbx” brand. These glasses are tailored towards a younger audience and are much more affordable than the premium XREAL One glasses, while offering fewer features. The price is very affordable, though: you can get these media-viewing glasses for only $300. Starting this week, many people around the world can finally buy them directly from XREAL or from its partner retailers.
Distance Technologies launches AcuityOS
Distance is the startup built by two of the cofounders of Varjo. This company started with a technology to visualize 3D information over a windshield, but slowly got more and more into the military field. Last year, it announced some sort of AR glasses intended to let military personnel in a closed vehicle see what is around them. And this week, it launched Acuity OS, a visual intelligence platform that connects data from different sources and lets the operator see them on glasses.
If you are thinking “isn’t this similar to what Palmer Luckey is doing at Anduril?”, we are thinking the same. It seems that Distance is becoming a sort of smaller European Anduril.
A Tomb Raider VR game was canceled
A leak from the magazine MP1st tells us that the Vertigo Games division that has been shut down a few weeks ago was working on a Tomb Raider VR game before the project was cancelled earlier this year. The leak includes a lot of screenshots, concept art, and also a short gameplay video, so we can say the leak is reliable. The fact that the game was canceled around January, the time at which Meta announced its layoffs, makes us think that the game was partly funded by Meta, and then this project was canceled when Meta disinvested from VR. What a huge pity… a Tomb Raider VR game would have been very fun to play…
More info (Canceled Tomb Raider VR game — Road To VR) More info (Canceled Tomb Raider VR game — Upload VR)
Some news about content
- After 10 years, VR shooting simulator Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades (H3VR) launched its 1.0 release over the weekend. It’s July, but probably it’s going to snow outside…
- Hellsplit: Labyrinth, a roguelike dark fantasy action RPG follow-up to Hellsplit Arena, will release in spring 2027
- The Binary Mill has canceled its free-to-play multiplayer project Survive The Night after teasing it at the Ruff Talk VR Showcase
- The 18Birdies and Arccos apps, now integrated in Meta AI on smart glasses in the US & Canada, can act as your personal AI golf caddy
- Cloudhead Games is working on a new multiplayer VR title
- CONNECTOME is an immersive art experience that uses natural interactions on Quest and Vision Pro
- Squingle Arcade, a free-to-play spatial puzzler with mixed reality support, is out today on Meta Quest
- Lamborghini’s free Apple Vision Pro app brings four of its rare vehicles into living rooms with life-sized immersive showcases
- Combat Waffle Studios has announced Ghosts of Tabor: Legacy, a spinoff from the original game locked to the 2024 era, for Meta Quest and PC VR
More info (H3VR)
More info (Hellsplit: Labyrinth)
More info (Survive The Night)
More info (18Birdies)
More info (Cloudhead Games)
More info (CONNECTOME)
More info (Squingle Arcade)
More info (Lamborghini)
More info (Ghosts Of Tabor: Legacy)
Other news
This VR installation by Nissan can really make you feel like flying
John Carmack is still willing to put $1M to let Team Beef officially bring ID games to VR
Learn more (Upload VR) Learn more (Road To VR)
Apple published detailed technical specifications for third-party Vision Pro motion controllers
Styly abandons at-home VR to focus on location-based VR and mobile AR
News from partners (and friends)
Support ARV Studio on Kickstarter
ARV Studio has the dream of building a holographic recording studio in Oslo (Norway) and has opened a Kickstarter campaign about it. This is its message for you:
We are a small team with a big dream, trying to accomplish something in Oslo, Norway.
1. Build a hologram studio to capture our own volumetric experiences. That way we can easily pitch and prototype for use cases.
2. Get big projects our way to fund the equipment and to lower the price for the consumer.
3. Make this tech accessible to the public by making it an easy drop-in, capture, and see captures.
4. Normalize AR through glasses by bundling their captures with the newest AR glasses from our partners.
Support them using the link below!
Support ARV Studio on Kickstarter
Some XR fun
The wish version of the Nissan VR experience
Funny link
Some funny places in this funny world
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
- DeoVR
- GenVR
- Eduardo Siman
- Jonn Fredericks
- Jean-Marc Duyckaerts
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- Simplex
- Gregory F Gorsuch
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And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
(Header image by Even Realities)