Yesterday, the Football World Cup ended, and now I feel like I don’t know anymore how to spend my evenings. Compliments to Spain, by the way… I hope that in four years we will be able to play against them… I couldn’t stand another World Cup without Italy!
Anyway, enough talking about football… let’s dig into the best VR news of the week.
Top news of the week
The press talks about a backlash against smartglasses
This week I’ve read two articles from two independent outlets (Engadget and The Guardian), which both mention the same issue: people are concerned about the privacy problems of smartglasses.
According to the magazines, smartglasses like Ray-Ban Meta are now known as “pervert glasses”, because some men used them to record interactions with women without them even knowing. This has also been possible because it was pretty easy to tamper with them to disable the recording LED. The articles go on saying that now many content creators who liked to use these glasses are not using them outdoors anymore, because they are afraid people could feel spied on. These glasses now have the bad reputation of being glasses for creeps and perverts. And the recent privacy scandals related to them (e.g. Meta wanting to sneakily activate face recognition or Meta sending private images to human reviewers in Nigeria) have surely not helped in making people feel safe while wearing them.
I am pretty aware of the potential privacy problems of smartglasses. And I know about the privacy scandals and the assholes that used them to record women. So I’m aware that we need to have conversations about these glasses and the risks they bring. But at the same time, I find it a bit bizarre that the press is now pushing so hard on this. I find it even more bizarre after I asked the VR community what they think about these articles, and some valued members of it mentioned that they have no problems wearing these glasses in the streets. No one had serious complaints. So I’m not sure if these articles are talking about a real problem, or are, as usual, exaggerating a problem to have more clicks.
Anyway, if glasses continue to sell so well, we’ll come to a point where the problem of the cameras will be a topic everyone will talk about. And at that point, we may have two outcomes: either it happens like for Google Glass, and the backlash is so big that tech companies have to remove the cameras; or it happens like smartphones, where in the beginning people were scared, but then they accepted it as the new reality. I think these articles we are seeing now are a first test to see how the public will receive it.
In any case, I find it funny that in 10 years, smartglasses users have evolved from being “glassholes” to being “perverts”. I’m not so sure it has been an upgrade, though…
(Thanks Rob for the tip)
More info (Article about Ray-Ban Meta on Engadget)
More info (Article about Ray-Ban Meta on The Guardian)
More info (Eminus commenting on the articles)
More info (GAMERTAG commenting on the articles)
Other relevant news
Lenovo laid off its XR business division
Lenovo has laid off its XR business division in the United States. I got the rumor from a person informed with the facts, and then the company confirmed the layoffs to me with this official statement:
As the XR market evolves, we see stronger momentum and broader consumer adoption around AI-enabled wearables. As a result, Lenovo is transitioning from a business-first XR strategy under our ThinkReality brand to a more consumer-focused approach within Motorola. This is intended to create a more centralized organization focused on strengthening Lenovo’s ecosystem of AI-enabled and AI-native consumer wearable devices. It will also advance our strategy of delivering a unified Personal AI experience across multiple devices — from AI PCs and tablets to smartphones and wearables. We will continue to focus on making wearable AI devices more accessible, scalable, and personalized as part of our broader vision of enabling Smarter AI for All.
The message is clear: Lenovo is now abandoning B2B AR/VR to focus on consumer-oriented smartglasses. It is a big pity because, actually, Lenovo was able to offer some interesting devices in the past years. But this Winter of VR, united with the fact that Meta canceled the headset Lenovo was building for Horizon OS, made Lenovo take the decision to pull the plug. I just hope that all the people who lost their jobs will be able to find a new one. And I also really hope that this bad moment for VR will end pretty soon.
It is confirmed that Luxottica acquired the liquidated assets of Lynx
A few months ago, I reported to you that the French startup Lynx went into judicial liquidation. Recently, someone shared the news that Luxottica acquired the assets of the company. This week, the CEO of Lynx, Stan Larroque, confirmed the news: Luxottica now owns Lynx’s technology.
The good news is that most of Lynx’s employees were rehired by Luxottica. It is not clear what Luxottica intends to do with Lynx’s technology, but I highly doubt that it wants to release the Lynx R2 headset. Most probably, it will keep working on that technology in some R&D department, maybe for some future glasses/headsets that Luxottica will release without Meta. As I commented when the rumor started to spread out, this news makes us think that Luxottica is already preparing for a future end of the partnership with Mark Zuckerberg’s company.
The fact that Lynx’s technology has not been lost and that most of the employees have found a new job is for sure good news. It is bad news that many of Lynx’s backers won’t see the headset they wanted, or the money they put into it.
And it is interesting that Artur Sychov, the CEO of Somnium Space, mentioned on X that there is much more to say about this story, but he can share the details only after things are officially concluded. I can’t wait to hear more about it.
Ah, and if you were curious about Stan Larroque: he left VR and went to work at drone company Parrot.
More info (Luxottica acquired Lynx’s assets)
More info (Artur Sychov teasing future revelations about this acquisition)
News worth a mention
Palmer Luckey shows superthin AR glasses
Palmer Luckey showed off on social media a picture of himself wearing some glasses that are as thin as regular smartglasses, but that he claimed were true AR glasses. He also added that they have full color and a wide FOV. This is, of course, incredibly cool.
Anyway, I have to tell you that no one was able to try the glasses and we don’t have any through-the-lens pictures of them, so we have no idea how good they really are. And even if they are really what they claim to be, they would be intended for military purposes, and most probably they would have a cost that is completely unsustainable for any normal person or company.
Still, I am intrigued and would like to know more.
Valve updates SteamVR ahead of the launch of the Steam Frame
Valve has just dropped a massive update to SteamVR, which improves its dashboard a lot. This has surely been made in preparation for the launch of the Steam Frame, which at this point really looks imminent.
We are all curious about the price of the device, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for anything affordable: during an interview, a spokesperson from Valve said that the hardware pricing situation is not getting better, but worse, in the upcoming months. This means that the Steam Frame can’t be cheap.
By the way, we are starting to see some videos from developers using the Steam Frame. And the creator of Cubism shared a short video of how its app works in mixed reality on the Frame. It really looks like having the passthrough of the Quest 2… I feel like it’s 2021 again.
More info (SteamVR update)
More info (Hardware prices getting worse)
More info (Cubism on the Steam Frame)
Moving robots with smart glasses
A few people shared with me a cool video of a guy moving a robot dog, giving it instructions via Spectacles AR glasses. It seems that AR glasses may help as a natural interface for robots. Watch the video and let it inspire you.
The lineup for Venice Immersive has been announced
Venice Immersive is one of the most important events for XR storytelling. This year it will be held in the first half of September, and the lineup has just been announced. 68 projects from 26 countries have been shortlisted: you can read their names by clicking on the article linked below.
Gaussian Splats for training
Gracia, one of the leading companies for what concerns volumetric videos made with Gaussian Splats, has just announced a project made in collaboration with Imperial College London. They recorded volumetric videos of people soldering some PCB boards, so that students can learn in a very accurate way how to do soldering by watching these videos from all the points of view. Until now, volumetric videos were mostly used for entertainment, and it is very intriguing to see them used in an enterprise training setting. I wonder if this can become a new field where Gaussian splats can be disruptive.
Enjoy the PlayStation Summer Sale
Sony is hosting a huge Summer Games Sale that is lasting until August 12. In this sale, there are also big discounts on approximately 200 PlayStation VR and VR2 titles and DLC. If you are looking for a new game to play, the time is now!
Some news about content
- GOLF+ VR, in partnership with the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, is bringing an official VR Open to the GOLF+ Tour. The grand prize winner will receive a trip to St. Andrews in 2027
- Incuvo Games announced that it will be porting Creepy Jar’s StarRupture, an open-world exploration game with base building and combat, to Meta Quest 3
- Discovery: Rogue Planet is a new sci-fi narrative FPS that is coming to PC VR & Quest 3 headsets on August 6
More info (GOLF+)
More info (StarRupture)
More info (Discovery: Rogue Planet)
Other news
The partners of Tactical Assault cut ties with the game after it was discovered that its lead developer had been arrested for crimes related to children
Learn more (Partners cutting ties with the game)
Learn more (The lead developer stepped down from his role)
OpenAI’s first hardware is probably going to be a smart speaker similar to Alexa
EU exempts smart glasses from the new strict repairability rules
There are still rumors about Half-Life 3…
News from partners (and friends)
Discover Nemuseum!
I recently participated in a hackathon organized by NVIDIA and DELL about building applications solving real use cases with Nemoclaw, which is a more secure version of OpenClaw. I created an experience for museums: the visitors, instead of using clunky audioguides spitting boring facts, can wear modern smartglasses and have a guide completely personalized around their tastes thanks to AI. The guide would do everything to make the visit feel interesting and would also be able to use up-to-date data because it can fetch information from the web.
I made also a VR simulator for this experience, using some wonderful assets from VRROOM Studio.
With this project, I managed to reach the finals of the contest! I didn’t win, but honestly, considering the short time I had to work on this project, it’s already a miracle I managed to deliver something. I’m very proud of the results, and if you want, you can check the video below to see what the project is about and eventually think about collaborations!
[Disclaimer: I am a DELL Pro Precision Ambassador]
Watch the video and learn more
Some XR fun
An accurate video depicting OpenAI in their act of copying Apple’s hardware
Funny link
We all need a fix for this issue
Funny link
Meta glasses, or smartglasses in general
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
- Reynaldo T Zabala
- Richard Penny
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- Immersive.international
- Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
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- Sb
- Boule Petanque
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- Caroline
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- Tiago Silva
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- Mark G
- Simplex
- Gregory F Gorsuch
- Paul Shay
- Paul Hadley
- Matias Nassi
And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
(Header image by Meta)