VRScout

DECEMBER 27, 2020

NYT’s Shattered Crosswords can be accessed via the Effects tab of its Instagram account. Puzzler fans rejoice. The beloved New York Times crossword puzzle is now available in AR, offering fans of the long-running daily puzzle the chance to test their word skills in a whole new way. To access the AR-enhanced puzzle, head to the New York Times’ official Instagram account and look for Shattered Crosswords in the Effects tab of the carousel.

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Next Reality AR

DECEMBER 29, 2020

A lot of digital ink has been spilled heaping scorn on Magic Leap. Much of that media schadenfreude was due to what some believed were unmet promises versus some of the early hype around the product. Others just seemed to be rubbed the wrong way by the startup's Apple-esque secrecy and penchant for attempting to coin new terms and frameworks for things that were, mostly, already in play.

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AR Insider

DECEMBER 28, 2020

S everal market factors have converged over the past year to create fertile ground for VR. It’s Covid-aligned in that it supports remote communication and escapism. VR also piggybacks on broader inflections in gaming. These demand signals coincide with the catalyst that is Quest 2. Speaking of Quest 2, its reviews are unanimously positive and the price is right.

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The Ghost Howls

DECEMBER 30, 2020

Virtual events have had a blast this year, with some performances that have become very successful, like the concert in Fortnite by Travis Scott, The Burning Man Festival in Altspace VR, or the Tomorrowland concert. So what could be the best way of celebrating the end of this 2020 if not with a fantastic virtual reality concert happening at midnight of the 31st , available on all platforms, all for free, and with a legend of electronic music like Jean-Michel Jarre?

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Speaker: Chris Paxton McMillin, President of D3 Training Solutions

To avoid awkward and sometimes disastrous learning content, instructional designers must use authentic translation in the right context to get optimal results. For example, even a simple phrase like “got milk” translates to “are you lactating” in Mexico. Can you imagine what a straight translation might do to your course? With over 317 million people in the US and over 6.7 billion potential customers in the world, personalizing training seems logical.

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VRScout

DECEMBER 29, 2020

A deep dive into VR concerts, what’s happening in the industry, and hopes for the future. As 2020 draws to a close, I continue to search for the next killer app combining music and technology in the context of virtual concerts. Millions of dollars are being spent on one-off productions like in-game concerts hosted in Epic Games’ Fortnite , Tomorrowland’s 2D streaming festival , and clunky live performances in Minecraft just to name a few.

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AR Insider

DECEMBER 31, 2020

20 Really Good Things that Happened in XR in 2020. by Ori Inbar. 2 020 was undeniably hard. But alongside the sad and scary times came countless demonstrations of caring, creativity, and resilience by the XR community; it stood up for the human connection, bringing people together safely and virtually. Here are 20 really good things that happened in XR in 2020 – as inspiration for next year: XR saved lives during the pandemic. ( CNN ) ( ARPost ).

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The Ghost Howls

DECEMBER 28, 2020

Happy Holidays , my dear AR/VR community! Even if these should be holidays, my will to inform you is not in vacation, so here you are my roundup of the best AR/VR news for this week. It is the final newsletter of the year, so… see you in 2021, a new year that I hope will be filled with many interesting news about immersive realities! Top news of the week.

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VRScout

JANUARY 1, 2021

Start the new year off right with these physically and mentally challenging experiences. Let’s be honest, 2020 has been an absolute nightmare. From the wildfires to the lockdowns to the protests, this past year has proven to be one of the most difficult in recent memory, offering people the world over a seemingly endless wave of disasters and crises to overcome.

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ARPost

DECEMBER 30, 2020

The global COVID-19 pandemic has meant a lot less travel – particularly leisure travel. A recent study sheds light on one way that some people might be trying to adapt: virtual travel. About the Study. Australian financial service provider and consumer protection group Compare The Market used Google Trends and SEMRush to look at how internet users are searching terms like “virtual travel”, “virtual tourism”, “VR travel”, “virtual reality tours”, and “virtual reality travel.

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With a rapidly changing economy, Avangrid Renewables looked to virtual reality to develop a standardized form of immersive training in order to onboard and upskill technicians faster than ever before.

Virtual Reality

Road to VR

DECEMBER 31, 2020

Many social VR platforms are playing host to informal New Year’s Eve parties, with users banding together to ring in the new year. VRChat is going the extra mile this year though to put on a 24-hour NYE bash that includes ball drops on the hour and live music so everyone can celebrate. VRChat’s New Year’s Eve celebration is already in full swing, replete with a Virtual Times Square.

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AR Insider

JANUARY 1, 2021

New Study Projects Headworn AR Revenue to Reach $13.4 Billion by 2024. ARtillery Intelligence publishes its five-year outlook for head-worn AR revenues. ARtillery Intelligence has released a new report that projects headworn AR revenue to grow from $822 million in 2019 to $13.4 billion in 2024. Entitled Headworn AR Global Revenue Forecast, 2019-2024 , the report examines glasses-based AR revenue totals and subsegments – including consumer and enterprise spending.

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VRScout

DECEMBER 30, 2020

Embarrass your leagues last-place-finisher with these hilarious 3D visuals. League punishments are a staple within the fantasy football community. Those unfortunate enough to find themselves at the bottom of the bracket come the end of the season often times find themselves facing a harrowing gauntlet of humiliating penalties (pun very much intended).

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ARPost

DECEMBER 31, 2020

Mark Pesce’s book Augmented Reality: Unboxing Tech’s Next Big Thing comes to shelves in January, but Polity Books put an advance copy in our hands at ARPost. The book takes a long look at augmented reality’s past in an attempt to warn us about its potential future. Pesce is an award-winning columnist published in The Register and IEEE Spectrum. He also hosts the award-winning podcast The Next Billion Seconds.

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Speaker: Nik Gowing, Brenda Laurel, Sheridan Tatsuno, Archie Kasnet, and Bruce Armstrong Taylor

With 191 country signatories to the Paris Climate Agreement now hard at work in the race to zero carbon by 2050, much of the heavy lifting in ecosystem sustainability falls on the shoulders of the world's densely populated urban centers. This conversation considers how today's AI-enabled simulation media, such as AR/VR, can be effectively applied to accelerate learning, understanding, training, and solutions-modeling to sustainability planning and design.

Simulation

Road to VR

DECEMBER 30, 2020

While Oculus doesn’t offer much publicly in the way of understanding how well individual apps are performing across its VR storefronts, it’s possible to glean some insight by looking at apps relative to each other. Here’s a snapshot of the top 20 Oculus Quest games and apps as of December 2020. Why We Publish This Data. While the SteamVR library already has a comprehensive tracking database thanks to SteamDB , Steam 250 , and more, no similar database exists to track applications on Oculus stor

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AR Insider

DECEMBER 30, 2020

A R continues to show up on the list of emerging tech that helps local businesses boost revenue. Last week, we examined Uptown Networks’ AR-fueled restaurant gifting program. This follows a longer-running program from Niantic to help small businesses (SMBs) drive foot traffic. In fact, one of the emerging “wild cards” for local marketing is Pokémon Go.

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VRScout

DECEMBER 28, 2020

From stationary mode to room-scale, here’s what you need to know. With Christmas 2020 officially in the rear view mirror, a new wave of Oculus Quest 2 users now find themselves enjoying all the incredible games and apps available on Facebook’s magical standalone VR headset. We’ve talked a lot in the past about the best ways to maximize your Oculus Quest 2, from initial setup to your first five downloads.

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ARPost

DECEMBER 28, 2020

You can’t legally paint graffiti on someone else’s property, or plant advertisements in someone else’s yard. But, what if the property owner doesn’t know that that graffiti or advertisements are there? This is one level of the discourse currently happening around location-based AR experiences and no one has done more to add to that discourse than Darabase.

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Speaker: Richard Goring, Director at BrightCarbon

Remote meetings are here to stay - and many are BORING. If you are trying to engage your learners (or any audience), compelling content is critical. But trying to create stimulating content with the same tools you’ve always had is hard, right? Thankfully, wrong! Terrific tools in PowerPoint along with visual assets help you create the kind of dynamic content you need to capture your remote audience’s attention, with functions that allow for interactive sequences and navigation.

How To

Road to VR

DECEMBER 29, 2020

Tundra Labs , which makes chips and development kits for devices which use SteamVR Tracking, is building its own tracking accessory for the tracking ecosystem. The company is positioning its Tundra Tracker as a smaller, cheaper, and better alternative to HTC’s Vive Tracker. A Kickstarter campaign to fund the project and gather feedback is planned for next month.

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AR Insider

DECEMBER 29, 2020

A s we enter a new year, it’s time for our annual ritual of synthesizing the lessons from the past twelve months and formulating the outlook for the next twelve. Notably, when kicking off this thought exercise, we realized that several of the topics look similar to last year. Though there are lots of developments and new insights, the topical containers that house those insights are beginning to coalesce into standard buckets.

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VRScout

DECEMBER 26, 2020

If you ever wanted Crash Bandicoot in VR, look no further. You wouldn’t of thought VR could make a good home for platformers, but we’ve seen some surprisingly innovative experiences in the last few years. Between earlier attempts like Lucky’s Tale to Moss and Astro Bot Rescue Mission , a high bar was set but these games all lacked a particular element: that classic touch.

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Hypergrid Business

DECEMBER 31, 2020

(Image courtesy kalhh via Pixabay.). A new VR glove could be coming that tracks the motion of each finger and thumb bone. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office just published a patent application from Apple for a VR glove made with smart fabric that will be capable of this fine-level motion capture. The glove should work with VR and AR and allow the user to touch, feel, and hold virtual objects in their hand.

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Speaker: Treion Muller, Chief Strategy Officer at ELB Learning

Since when has learning and development (L&D) become such a negative experience with its intended learners? Could it be because learners have been conditioned by very poor learning experiences over the past two decades, combined with the kinks of technological innovation? Or is it because learning has typically been designed as a one-size-fits-all solution, despite the fact that humans are not clones?

Technology

Road to VR

DECEMBER 29, 2020

Oculus Quest 2 has everything you need in the box to get playing an awesome selection of VR games. Once you’ve owned it for a few weeks though, you may be looking to reduce the headset’s inherent pain points with some aftermarket stuff. Here, we’ve rounded up some of the best basic accessories you may want to consider as a long-term VR user. 1 – Upgrade Your Headstrap.

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GizModo VR

DECEMBER 31, 2020

After the past year’s wall-to-wall cavalcade of death and dreck, it’s not a surprise to see a lot of folks stepping into 2021 with what can best be described as “modest expectations” for the world writ large and their Capacity To Deal with whatever it throws their way. This is the year that we’ve seen people finally… Read more.

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TechCrunch VR

DECEMBER 31, 2020

Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang doesn’t need a crystal ball to see where artificial intelligence will be used in the future. He just looks at his customer list. The four-year-old startup, which recently hit a valuation of more than $3.5 billion , got its start supplying autonomous vehicle companies with the labeled data needed to train machine learning models to develop and eventually commercialize robotaxis, self-driving trucks and automated bots used in warehouses and on-demand delivery.

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Digital Trends

DECEMBER 29, 2020

While the PlayStation 5 had immediate appeal, the Xbox Series X feels more and more like the best long-term choice this generation.

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Speaker: Micah Eppler, Account Executive for Rehearsal of eLearning Brothers

Did you know that companies such as Paychex, 3M, and Honeywell are getting better results by incorporating video-based practice and coaching within their L&D strategy? From sales pitches to soft skills, learners are becoming top performers by applying and validating knowledge transfer using the unique benefits of video. Whether used as a stand-alone application or integrated with a learning platform, video-based practice and coaching platforms give learners the ultimate opportunity to repeatedly

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