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Top news of the week (Image by Google) Google acquires HTC Vive engineers for $250M Completely out of the blue (at least from our eyes), Google decided to acquire some XR-related engineers from HTC Vive (together with a non-exclusive license on some HTC IP) for the whopping amount of $250M.
Image by Road To VR, from HTC images). HTC launches Vive Tracker 3.0 HTC was not teasing a new standalone headset, but a new Vive Tracker. I know that many of you won’t be excited by this news, but remember the Vive Tracker is one of the most successful accessories ever created by HTC. Come and visit it!
After the announcement of the release date of the Apple Vision Pro, the whole community is just waiting for its preorders to open up this Friday. The headset will be sold in physical stores and on the Apple website. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that Apple has only 60–80K units available at this time , so most likely they’ll go sold out.
My feed on social media is full of posts about the Apple Vision Pro, which has just been released a few days ago. So, as you can expect, a big part of this newsletter will be about Apple’s device, but actually there are also a few interesting pieces of news that regard other products and other companies.
We have lots of non-news about Apple’s XR efforts. The hype around Apple glasses is huge , and everything that gets shared about Apple and XR gets many views. We already knew that Tim likes AR and “what we have to offer” may also be a potato with an Apple brand costing $400. Other relevant news. Image by The Information).
These glasses have outperformed the sales of Ray-Ban’s first-generation smart glasses, ‘Ray-Ban Stories’ This potential deal could grant Meta more control over EssilorLuxottica’s smart glasses division and strengthen its position in the competitive market against tech giants like Apple, Google, and Microsoft.
HTC announced today it is expanding the online presence of the HTC Vive to Best Buy’s website, Walmart.com, and other online retailers. Paired with recent news with Apple, Google and Intel, we’re seeing major retailers and direct-to-consumer companies endorse Vive as the premier VR experience.”.
We may know the field of view of Apple AR headset. Of course, since he has not an Apple HMD, the only thing he could obtain was the screen splitting in two on his phone, showing that view that we XR developers know very well. It is now sure that Apple is going to release an AR headset , the questions are just when and what.
You can imagine that after it has been released through two official blog posts, an enormous backlash from the community started to happen. Apple threatens future support in Unreal Engine. All Apple software, SDKs, APIs, and developer tools ?—?Pre-release So far for the announcement by Facebook. The same on Twitter.
I have written a little blog post about my participation there. Image by Apple). Apple WWDC is back in June. Apple has announced that its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will be held in an online format from June 6 through 10 , free for all developers to attend. Top news of the week. Image by Epic Games).
Top news of the week (Image by Apple) Apple Vision Pro 2 may come in 2026 The rumors about the Apple Vision Pro 2 continue. It seems that most of the rumors are aligning on the launch of an Apple Vision Pro 2 in 2026–2027. What a time to be alive! Matt Miesnieks said that the rumor aligns with some things he heard.
No grey zones like HTC did in the past. Apple headset will not be focused on gaming. A new report seems to suggest that the upcoming Apple headset won’t be focused on gaming at all. For sure mixed reality should be big with this headset because this device is being released in preparation for the future Apple AR glasses.
It’s certainly capturing the cool, retro vibe that’s ostensibly taking inspiration from early home computers such as Magnavox Odyssey, Atari 2600 and Apple II. For now, the company has mentioned basic features and has also shown off a prototype of Simula One. Image courtesy SimulaVR.
Ok, of course, I’m kidding, but, you know, the possibility of saying the wrong name is so high that my proposal actually starts making sense… Top news of the week (Image by HTC Vive) HTC reveals inside-out-tracked Tracker With a totally unexpected move, HTC has revealed a new kind of Tracker.
update, now including official support for Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore software dev kits, and support for SteamVR on Mac. ‘Production-ready’ support for Apple’s ARKit working on iOS11 was initially announced during Apple’s iPhone 8 and iPhone X unveiling last month.
Meta is finally rolling out the long-awaited travel mode for Quest 2 and Quest 3, ostensibly hacking away another unique feature from Apple Vision Pro. Update (May 13th, 2024) : Meta says the new Quest 2/3 Travel Mode was specially tuned to account for the motion of an airplane, even when it comes to looking out the window.
Unless there is an Apple drawn on it, of course. They are just meant to see phone notifications and make photos and videos; this is not something for which people would spend $1000 on top of their phone. So, apart from the fans of Meta and the hard tech enthusiasts, who does usually buy very expensive devices in the early stages?
More info Some news about Apple Vision Pro The news and rumors about Vision Pro never end. In these two weeks, we got to discover that Apple is planning to organize demo sessions of Vision Pro inside the Apple Store venues and that in the beginning, the only way to buy a Vision Pro will be going to an Apple Store.
Zuck always said that Meta is the “open ecosystem” that fights against Apple’s closed ecosystem, but until today there was nothing open at all. Meta risked being squeezed again between the two giants Apple and Google , ready to bring their domination directly from the phones to the XR headsets.
Apple is finally getting serious about VR on its Mac platform, announcing that it is working with Valve to bring SteamVR to Mac. Apple’s executives hinted that more announcements would be coming related to VR during its developer conference, including VR workflows so creators can make VR content with the Mac.
Here below I’m posting for you the best offers I’ve found: for instance, HTC is discounting basically every piece of hardware (including Vive Trackers that can be useful for all the VRChat fans out there), while Pico is offering one of the best deals with €100-worth-of-content given for free with every purchased Pico 4.
Exactly one week ago, Apple announced the Apple Vision Pro, its first XR headset. It will be a shorter and maybe not-so-exciting newsletter, but I will be happy of having shed some light on other interesting pieces of news from this week in XR Stay tuned for my roundup about the Apple Vision Pro coming in the next few days!
More info (Quest 3 going ok in Steam Hardware Survey) More info (Quest 2 selling much better than Quest 3 on Amazon) HTC announced the Vive Ultimate Tracker Finally, HTC has officially announced the Vive Ultimate Tracker, its standalone inside-out tracker unit. This would show the level of polish of the upcoming Apple headset.
Image by HTC Vive). HTC is probably going to announce Vive Flow. With a surprise move, HTC Vive has started teasing the launch of a new product. The company has set up a virtual event on the platform ENGAGE (of which HTC is an investor) for October, 14th 2021 at 8 am PDT. Apple Maps are going AR.
More info PSVR 2 is getting five new games and a renewed interest PlayStation has detailed on its blog that PSVR 2 is getting four new games by the end of the year: Mare, Trombone Champ: Unflattened, Masters Of Light, and Alien: Rogue Incursion. Plus there is Hitman World of Assassination that is coming next year.
Top news of the week (Image by Apple) Apple Vision Pro may be out in January According to the latest report on Bloomberg, Apple is still on track to release the Apple Vision Pro at the beginning of this year. May it be something that HTC is going to announce at CES? I hope we will meet there and have fun together!
As it is a tradition of this blog , I’ve prepared a big roundup of the best news in XR from this year’s CES! HTC Vive Wrist Tracker. HTC Vive Wrist Tracker (Image by HTC). HTC has made an announcement at this CES and it has been a pretty cool one. Further references. Shiftall MeganeX.
More info (FRL Official blog post) More info (Road To VR reporting and commenting the news) More info (Ctrl+Labs’s Dino Game Early Demo) More info (ETH’s experimental wristband). As it had promised on my blog last year , its cool Nreal Light AR glasses have finally arrived in Europe. Nreal Light is on sale in Germany.
One of the smartest ideas ever had by HTC has been the invention of the Vive Tracker: a little puck that you can attach to an object so that to track it inside virtual reality. The Tracker is good, but since HTC has never had competition in the field, i t has always been the same since the launch year. News worth a mention.
My trip is going well and this week I will start writing on my blog about my XR experiences here in the Red Country, while on my X/Twitter channel, you will be able to see some landscape and food pictures! I’m writing this newsletter across Hangzhou and Qingdao, which are two cities I personally love here in China! This could be huge.
First of all, it seems that the headset is not a new product, but that Apple has been working on it for 7 years. It seems anyway that for the first time ever at Apple, Cook has this time now given priority to the operations team. There are some interesting pieces of information about the glasses inside the article.
This is the same confusion that created issues for HTC in the past with the Vive Pro, for instance. The other part of the problem is due, as per my speculation, to Meta wanting absolutely to take this out before Apple could release its headse t, to have a first-mover advantage over it. Donate for good.
Of course for some ad-based tech companies, the current economic situation is not the only problem, but there is another big one which is Apple and its new privacy features embedded into iOS. HTC releases its “metaverse phone”. HTC has just announced its new phone, the Desire 22 Pro, and defined it as a “metaverse phone”.
There is no official confirmation on this, and I hope to be wrong because having to use earphones would be a big hit to its comfort Release date and price : of course the release date (will it come before or after an Apple headset?) More info (PSVR 2 unveiled) More info (Official blog post on PSVR 2 headset). News worth a mention.
HTC has made its moves at MWC, too. HTC is one of the best companies when it comes to XR for enterprise and it’s good that it is expanding its offering in the field. In the meanwhile, the Oppo AR glasses have been one of the most appreciated AR glasses at MWC, thanks to their very lightweight design.
For sure he knows that pros will be Apple’s target and hopes to beat Apple with his device (AHAHAHAH). Image by HTC Vive). HTC is keeping on its strategy of releasing whatever stuff metaverse-related. I don’t see myself buying a VR headset to substitute for my laptop in 2022, but I would be happy to be surprised.
Most probably this announcement has been made to envision a future competition with Apple, bringing to XR the battle Android vs iOS (and Samsung vs Apple) that we already have on phones. Learn more Some XR fun In China I have found where the Apple headset is manufactured. Is this consortium going to succeed? Don’t miss them!
One of the consequences of the launch of Unity 6 is that Unity also finally released to the public the Unity beta package to develop for VisionOS, so that finally all of us Unity developers can start developing for the Apple Vision Pro, trying our prototypes on the emulator. Great job, Vuzix.
He frequently shares his views and knowledge on his blog. This kind of calculation is the basis for what Apple refers to as a “retina display”, a screen that when held at the right distance would generate this kind of pixel density on the retina. Yuval is CEO of Sensics and co-founder of OSVR. Horizontal Pixels Per Eye.
If I had to bet, I would say that the possibilities are two: Smartglasses to see the notifications of your phone A hybrid VR/passthrough AR headset, similar to Project Cambria or the rumored Apple headset. With the rumors intensifying, and with Apple always closer to entering the market, I am expecting an announcement for this year.
Stay tuned on my blog for more articles about my Chinese experience in the upcoming days! Bloomberg publishes new hints on Apple glasses. Every week we have new hints on Apple glasses: it is no more a matter of “if” they will come to the market, but a matter of “when” and “what”. HTC keeps updating the Vive Cosmos.
What an exciting week for technology, with the Facebook Connect, PS5 price announcement, Apple event and the release of RTX30 graphics cards! Even Apple uses modified ARM chips. Oculus and HTC), there were some cases when this sensor could actually prove to be very useful for some experiments. What a time to be alive!
We don’t know if it is just a reference design for external partners (like HTC) or it is an actual headset that Valve is producing. Someone hypothesizes that Valve may produce the headset by itself because: HTC has started its own store, Viveport , and so it is not pushing Steam as an official store anymore.
See Also: Redefining the Future of Location-Based Entertainment With HTC VIVE Focus 3 and The Park Playground “Virtual reality is often perceived as being limited to the world of gaming. Although gaming is certainly a great use case and example of what immersive VR experiences can deliver, the possibilities are endless,” said Vindevogel.
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