The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 7, 2019

We all thought about a new Vive Focus with embedded 6 DOF controllers , ready to fight the Oculus Quest. The Vive Cosmos has not been conceived to fight the Quest, but the upcoming rumored Oculus Rift S. I think that to see if this strategy will pay off, we’ll have to discover the price of such headset.

HTC 394

HTC Eye Tracking Virtual Reality Controllers 394

VRScout

MARCH 1, 2017

Approaching the one-year anniversary since shipping the Rift, Oculus has made a surprising move to cut prices for both the Rift and Touch controllers. Announced today at GDC, the Oculus Rift plus Touch bundle price has been slashed from $798 to $598. The post Oculus Rift and Touch Now Cheaper Than Vive appeared first on VRScout.

Oculus 150

Oculus Hand tracking HTC Controllers 150

AR Insider

MAY 31, 2021

The lower-cost locomotion option, Cybershoes , is now on Amazon for $349. Since it features no computational unit and no battery, it can be smaller and lighter than “shoebox” headsets like the Oculus Quest. New Apple Watch Feature Could Form the Basis of the Company’s XR Input Strategy (Road to VR).

Apple 376

Apple Conference AR Strategy 376

The Ghost Howls

AUGUST 24, 2020

Oculus devices will require a Facebook login. The enormous piece of news of the week is tha t Facebook has communicated that from October, 20th, all people that want to use an Oculus device for personal use will have to use their personal Facebook account to log in. Top news of the week. Image by Tweakanalogy). The same on Twitter.

Unreal 504

Unreal Apple Government Oculus 504

Road to VR

AUGUST 5, 2021

Since its launch in 2019 Oculus Quest has represented a major shift in Facebook’s VR strategy by moving away from the PC. While there’s a handful of hand-tracking games available on the headset, the entire Quest menu, including the Oculus browser, can be controlled completely by your hands. Image courtesy Oculus.

Oculus 363

Oculus Hand tracking Controllers Gaming 363

Upload VR

FEBRUARY 24, 2025

But at $500 its appeal is relatively limited, and that's why Meta introduced the $300 Quest 3S, which in just three months became the top selling console on Amazon US for all of 2024. Quest 3S Was The Top Selling Console On Amazon In 2024 Meta Quest 3S was the top selling games console on Amazon US in 2024, despite only releasing in October.

Sony 130

Sony Eye Tracking Amazon Retail 130

AR Insider

MARCH 8, 2021

Interestingly, Niantic, which has its own world-mapping strategy with recently acquired 6D.ai, is now playing the field, trying different solutions to hiding a Pokemon behind a tree. Oculus has partnered with Virtuclear to offer prescription lenses for the Quest 2 for $80. Rumors surface about a new Oculus Quest Pro VR HMD.

Microsoft 375

Microsoft Training America AR 375

Road to VR

JULY 10, 2017

To be clear too, there are cheaper GPUs out there capable of rendering an acceptable VR experience but in our opinion, the selection below is where you want to be aiming to ensure you’re getting the most from your Oculus Rift or HTC Vive VR headsets. Check Amazon for NVIDIA GTX 1070 prices. Check Amazon for AMD Radeon 580 prices.

Virtual Reality 271

Virtual Reality Architecture Amazon Hardware 271

The Ghost Howls

DECEMBER 27, 2021

Oculus Quest 2 had a great Christmas. The sales of Oculus Quest 2 have been great during the holidays , and the Quest has been a Christmas gift very much appreciated by kids (but wasn’t there an age limit?). Many Rift users reported problems in using the Oculus Store on PC this week , in particular in downloading games.

Unity 516

Unity Oculus Virtual Reality Gaming 516

AR Insider

AUGUST 30, 2021

After the free September 9th update, the VR game will expand to allow 2 players wearing Oculus Quest 2 VR Headsets to freely roam in 100 square feet of shared playspace. Ball is a former Amazon strategy executive turned investor. Space Pirate Trainer Arena VR will include warehouse-scale options, and customizable maps.

Virtual World 337

Virtual World AR Latency China 337

The Ghost Howls

APRIL 26, 2021

This week has mostly been in the sign of Oculus, with many news and updates from the brand controlled by Facebook. As always, they’re doing a great job not only with the product but also with the communication strategy. Together with Air Link, Oculus has also rolled out the new version of Oculus Avatars.

Magic Leap 387

Magic Leap Oculus Unity Gaming 387

The Ghost Howls

MAY 2, 2024

The historical moment of the launch of Quest 1 (Image by TechCrunch) Oculus Quest 1 launched in 2019 for $399. And Quest 2 is much cheaper (especially now that has been put at $199): during the last holidays, it outperformed the Quest 3 by a factor 3:1 on Amazon US. Quest 3S launch date and strategy When will the Quest 3S be launched?

Gaming 389

Gaming Oculus Course Strategy 389

The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 19, 2020

Oculus Go price cut down to $150. Facebook has permanently cut down the price of the Oculus Go to $150 , the same price that made it sell incredibly well on Amazon during the Cyber Monday. More info (Oculus Go price cut) More info (Xiaomi laying off the team dedicated to Go). Top news of the week. Image by Engadget).

AR 223

AR Oculus Magic Leap Microsoft 223

VRScout

SEPTEMBER 27, 2018

The program remains in its trial phase with an end goal of determining whether the idea of a VR experience, similar to that of the Netflix VR app or Oculus Venues , would resonate with airline passengers. No word though on whether users will be able to access their personal subscriptions while onboard.

Alaska 313

Alaska Entertainment San Diego Boston 313

Road to VR

MAY 8, 2017

VirZOOM (pronounced ver-ZOOM) has created a collection of VR sports games designed to combine strategy, coordination, and fitness. image courtesy VirZOOM.

Exercises 279

Exercises Massachusetts HTC Virtual Reality 279

The Ghost Howls

FEBRUARY 7, 2022

These are huge numbers for VR: if you look at the most recent SteamVR survey, you get that Oculus headsets are now at 67% of the whole PCVR market. Some magazines reported this news as a sign of the failure of Meta’s strategy about the metaverse. The previous one went great on Amazon, and I’m sure this will be a great read, too.

Virtual Reality 403

Virtual Reality Microsoft Data Machine Learning 403

Upload VR

OCTOBER 19, 2024

This week's biggest hardware story is the Quest 3S launch , which became the top-selling gaming device on Amazon. Augmented Empire is making a comeback seven years after launching on Oculus Go, and The Exorcist: Legion VR received a new epilogue.

Arizona 113

Arizona Hand tracking Gaming Tips 113

AR Insider

JANUARY 21, 2020

We’ve generally stated “tens of billions” for the collective investment scale of the big five — Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. More importantly, this aligns with the timeframe that followed its 2014 Oculus acquisition. billion for a representative baseline of pre-Oculus spending.

Head Mounted Display 265

Head Mounted Display Exercises AR Trends 265

The Ghost Howls

DECEMBER 1, 2019

This acquisition signs a new course for Facebook strategy in XR: after having just partnered with external studios for the development of its top-notch exclusive titles (e.g. Upload has published a shopping guide for your Oculus Link. Ready At Dawn, Sanzaru Games, etc…), Facebook has actually started incorporating game studios.

Gaming 44

Gaming Czech Republic Microsoft AR 44

AR Insider

OCTOBER 1, 2020

Like in our ongoing “ follow the money ” exercise, they’re each building wearables strategies that support or future-proof core businesses where tens of billions in annual revenues are at stake. The story is similar for Amazon , Microsoft and Bose (kind of), and the 800-pound gorilla in wearables, Apple.

Wearables 269

Wearables Machine Learning AR Apple 269

The Ghost Howls

OCTOBER 7, 2024

As a tech guy, of course, I’m all in for retro compatibility, and I would still love to sometimes attach my Oculus DK2 to my laptop and remember the good old times playing Tuscany. I know that I’m saying something unpopular, but I understand Microsoft’s decision. A Creator Platform for next-gen to ‘Socialize.’

Microsoft 411

Microsoft Samsung Apple Unity 411

The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 22, 2021

I expect the smartglasses from Facebook, first of all, to be Facebook-branded (so, goodbye Oculus), to be very stylish (remember that Luxottica is the leading company for glasses and sunglasses), and to be able to connect to the smartphone without a tether. while we have seen the complicated life of Oculus hands-on booths at Best Buy.

Augmented Reality 541

Augmented Reality Magic Leap AR Apple 541

Road to VR

JANUARY 3, 2020

Oculus Quest. Image courtesy Oculus. Oculus Quest is surely the most important headset to launch in 2019. The headset’s ease-of-use, solid game library, and reasonable price has pushed it to become Oculus’ best rated headset on Amazon thus far. Oculus Rift S. Image courtesy Oculus.

Gaming 246

Gaming Oculus HTC Sony 246

The Ghost Howls

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

I’ve found it also quite inspiring, and actually, I’m already using some lessons that I’ve learned in my work of defining the technical strategy at VRROOM (our metaverse platform for concerts and live shows). So I’ve not only enjoyed the book but it’s actually been useful for my career.

Virtual World 371

Virtual World Study Trends Oculus 371

The Ghost Howls

MARCH 2, 2020

To make you understand how these features are incredible, Qualcomm has stated that “the [XR2] reference design has 2x the CPU and GPU performance, 4x more video bandwidth, 6x higher resolution and 11x AI improvement compared to our current widely adopted XR platform [the Oculus Quest ]”. Oculus fixes two of the greatest issues of Oculus Link.

Hand tracking 294

Hand tracking AR Oculus HTC 294

The Ghost Howls

AUGUST 16, 2019

I and my partner Gianni bought every new headset on the market : the Oculus Rift DK2, the Vive, the Rift CV1, the Gear VR, etc… We also went to almost every event we were invited to, even the smallest one (I remember once we went to a public plaza with like 7 people listening to our talk about VR…). The reasons?

How To 416

How To Technology Virtual Reality Examples 416

The Ghost Howls

APRIL 24, 2018

The HTC Vive Pro page on Amazon US. The reason for this positioning, IMHO, is that HTC knows that for most people current headsets are enough for standard use : the more is always better, but a WMR toaster or an Oculus Rift CV1 gives a good enough experience. Oculus for business costs $900. rating is due to the high price.

HTC 231

HTC Italy Oculus Course 231

The Ghost Howls

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

Considering the leaks on Amazon and MediaMarkt, the device will probably be available starting from October, 10th, 2023. You can see that the user is holding a Touch Plus controller (with the Oculus logo on the home button as some devkits have) confirming this. It’s a big bet, and I think Zuck doesn’t want to make it wrong.

Data 428

Data AR Apple Case Study 428

The Ghost Howls

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

As for the agency, we did some cool stuff for Lenovo Chile earlier this year: worked on a very intense motoGP simulator for Oculus and also did this awesome screen pillar with Kinect. I mean, besides the Oculus Quest 2, there’s hardly anything to get locally. Your best bet is Amazon and dealing with the international shipping charges.

Chile 431

Chile America Government Hardware 431

Upload VR

MARCH 1, 2024

The Meta Quest operating system is a fork of the open-source core of Android (known as AOSP), a similar strategy to Amazon's Fire OS for its Fire tablets. Meta has been working on it for at least seven years, as it first arrived in 2018's Oculus Go.

Google 144

Google Hardware Strategy Samsung 144

ARVR

APRIL 5, 2021

This traces back to Facebook’s Oculus acquisition in early 2014 that kicked off the current wave of excitement….including That excitement culminated in 2016 after the Oculus acquisition had time to set off a chain reaction of startup activity, tech-giant investment, and VC inflows for the “next computing platform.”

Wearables 130

Wearables AR Strategy Apple 130

Upload VR

MARCH 5, 2024

Facebook Won’t Allow Cloud VR Streaming On Oculus Store Or App Lab A new Oculus policy forbids cloud VR streaming on both the store and App Lab. I tried PlutoSphere back in 2021 just before it launched, and found that when using a nearby datacenter it felt essentially identical to Virtual Desktop with a PC on my local network.

Strategy 131

Strategy Amazon Oculus Technology 131

AR Insider

MAY 6, 2020

8th Wall recently partnered with Amazon Sumerian on a WebAR ad experience where, with just a click of a banner ad, an AR experience placed a 3D Spiderman into your space for you to interact with directly in your mobile browser. The Evolution of Brand Activations. The Evolution of Customer Support.

AR 406

AR Examples Data Head Mounted Display 406

Upload VR

JANUARY 29, 2024

Its strategy is more akin to wanting to be a second Apple than what Google did with Android. But Meta's strategy also harms its reported own long-term goal of being an Android-like player. It's even possible that new entrants ike Amazon or Valve could change the landscape entirely.

Samsung 136

Samsung Google Apple Hardware 136

Road to VR

SEPTEMBER 8, 2016

As an electronics company, Apple’s general strategy seems to be to wait until a market is well established before joining it, then attempt to create an Apple-idealized product for that market. Apple is infamous for its patent strategy and you shouldn’t be surprised to find that they’re well into it in the AR/VR space.

Apple 100

Apple AR Head Mounted Display Augmented Reality 100

UploadVR Between Realities podcast

NOVEMBER 4, 2016

Facebook – NASDAQ: FB – Oculus VR, VR headset, VR Camera, VR content, VR platform. Samsung – KRX: 005930 – GearVR (partnership with Oculus VR) and 360 Camera. Amazon – NASDAQ: AMZN – VR Content & Game Engine. Amazon – NASDAQ: AMZN – VR content. Public Companies involved in VR. Unconfirmed.

Industry 100

Industry Magic Leap Samsung Amazon 100

The Ghost Howls

SEPTEMBER 30, 2024

Every year I like to write a detailed report about all the major news from Oculus/Facebook/Meta Connect. This year I want to do something a bit different: instead of reporting a list of all the announcements from there, I want to give you a detailed commentary about the event from a technical strategy standpoint.

AR 394

AR Data Apple Italy 394