The Ghost Howls

AUGUST 3, 2020

Some time ago, the most important companies of the XR ecosystem (HTC, Oculus, Microsoft, etc…) joined the Khronos Group to discuss a standard to end the fragmentation of the XR space. That is if every company implemented OpenXR, a program built for the Oculus should work with SteamVR as well. Image by Oculus).

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ARVR

DECEMBER 11, 2020

Hand-tracking is on the rise in the XR market. In the last couple of years, several emerging high quality and precise hand-tracking technologies were introduced to the market. VRfree is a solid device including precise and scalable hand tracking data. without any other 3rd party tracking device.

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The Ghost Howls

MAY 25, 2020

Image by Oculus). Oculus Quest becomes 1 year old, and Facebook makes many announcements. The Oculus Quest is now one year old. But the greatest feature is that finally Oculus is accepting hands-tracked applications in the Oculus Store from the 28th of this month! Other relevant news.

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The Ghost Howls

SEPTEMBER 22, 2019

Considering that Facebook is very smart also in leaking misleading info (as it has happened with the “Monterey” headset ), this can also be a move from Menlo Park to create hype for the upcoming Oculus Connect 6 and the AR glasses that will be teased there. The Oculus Connect 6 is coming! Other relevant news. Image by Martin Hajek).

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Road to VR

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

VirtualLink was announced back in 2018 with the backing of NVIDIA, AMD, Microsoft, Valve, Oculus, and HTC—representing a bulk of the most significant hardware players in the VR industry. SEE ALSO OpenXR Now Certifying Headset & App Compliance, Adds Extensions for Hand-tracking & Eye-tracking.

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VRScout

DECEMBER 26, 2018

While hardware advancements such as the HTC Vive Pro and Oculus Rift have solidified at-home VR as a viable option, those looking for next-level immersion will still find the most success with location-based VR installations. LOCATION-BASED VR. Of course we can’t talk about standalone VR without bringing up the HTC Vive Focus.

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Road to VR

APRIL 30, 2019

Facebook today announced at F8, their annual developer conference, that pre-orders for Oculus Rift S are now officially live. Rift S is slated to ship on May 21st alongside the standalone VR headset Oculus Quest across 22 countries. You can also pre-order Rift S through Oculus’ online store. Image courtesy Oculus.

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AR Insider

FEBRUARY 18, 2021

We’ve seen various flavors over the years such as Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D , and of course Google Earth and Street View. Realworld will conversely play on the more accessible Oculus Quest 2. It also utilizes Quest 2’s hand tracking for input, which offers greater agency and immersion.

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The Ghost Howls

APRIL 20, 2020

Last Oculus Quest update shows hints of an Oculus MR ecosystem. Facebook is continuously updating the Oculus Quest , its most successful device, and this week it has rolled out the runtime v16. I think that this update, together with the last ones, marks the beginning of a mixed reality ecosystem that is being built by Oculus.

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The Ghost Howls

JUNE 23, 2020

Ready At Dawn was already collaborating with Oculus since various years, so this is not surprising. Content is the king, and Facebook knows it needs great content of its own to fight Microsoft, Sony, and the other big brands for the domination of the VR sector. Hands tracking on Quest gets always more interest.

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Apple Magic Leap Gaming AR 305

The Ghost Howls

DECEMBER 23, 2019

Besides that, it is also hiring key figures to make this AR dream a reality : the operating system project will be supervised by Mark Lucovsky, a former Microsoft engineer who co-developed Windows NT. Oculus releases hands tracking SDK, official Link cable for Quest and more. Other relevant news. I hate this.

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The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 11, 2022

To showcase its functionality, HTC showed some videos of the tracker in use to improve the performances of hands tracking and also with the tracker installed on external props. The gloves can be so thin because they feature no tracking technology, and they rely on the hand tracking system of the headset (e.g.

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The Ghost Howls

OCTOBER 26, 2020

While Oculus is getting all the glory for the Quest, its competitors are not sleeping. Huawei has upgraded its sleek VR glasses and now they support 6DOF movement and 6DOF controllers that are very similar to the Oculus Touch. Notwithstanding all this hate, the Oculus Quest 2 is selling very well. Other relevant news.

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The Ghost Howls

JULY 27, 2020

The Oculus Quest 2 has been leaked. The famous leaker WalkingCat did it again, leaking this time a new model of the Oculus Quest , in the beginning with some renders, and then with true pictures of a pre-production device (that had been originally shared by redditor CallThePlumber). Top news of the week. Image by WalkingCat).

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The Ghost Howls

APRIL 13, 2020

On the other side, this is massive for Apple, that mixing the data of Apple Maps together with all these point clouds detected by the rear cameras when in use, will be able to create an AR Cloud ecosystem probably even before Facebook, Microsoft, and Google. Microsoft releases Azure Remote Rendering. supports VR. 3D artists rejoice!

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UploadVR Between Realities podcast

JANUARY 4, 2017

What We Know: Microsoft is at the show in a multitude of capacities. What To Expect : The tricky thing about Microsoft’s headset is that they won’t actually let anyone turn them on yet. Oculus (Facebook). What We Know: This year’s biggest question mark by far is hovering over the Oculus Rift.

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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 ]”. Image by Microsoft). News worth a mention.

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The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 15, 2023

Thanks to this, the card will be able to keep two Wi-Fi connections at the same time: one towards a router to have an internet connection, and the other directly to another device, like the Oculus Quest. Congress is stopping the acquisition of more Microsoft IVAS headset. This is a decision that is not going to make Microsoft happy.

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The Ghost Howls

OCTOBER 19, 2021

Vive Flow is a 6DOF headset that works with your Android phone as a 3DOF controller (hands tracking is coming in the future). HTC advertises it as a headset for relaxation and productivity because it wants to position it as a different product than a gaming machine like Oculus Quest 2.

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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. A report from Insider states that Microsoft may have canceled its plans for HoloLens 3. It’s basically a monopoly. But there is also bad news to talk about. Some updates on Meta products.

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The Ghost Howls

APRIL 5, 2021

The Oculus Quest 2 continues its march towards mainstream adoption. It wouldn’t be a normal week without some news about Facebook and/or the Oculus Quest. The first one is that the Quest 2 has now sold in some months more than all the other Oculus headsets (with the exclusion of Gear VR) combined in all these years.

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The Ghost Howls

OCTOBER 22, 2024

There is even one aspect in which it is better than the Quest 3: its front IR illuminators make hand tracking work even in the dark , which is useful for… some use cases. It works incredibly well and has also amazing hand tracking. Fingers crossed that it will help with the further adoption of XR.

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Road to VR

JUNE 18, 2017

Despite its primary competitor, Oculus, making a major price cut to the Rift & Touch earlier this year, HTC’s Vive headset still sits at a hearty $800. ” Indeed, the Vive’s SteamVR Tracking tech requires two external sensors that only need wall power to offer tracking in a sizeable 11.5 Price Point.

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ARPost

MARCH 31, 2023

So, in the past few weeks we have seen big tech, including Meta and Microsoft, announce massive layoffs , mostly to their XR division and at the same time, pivoting towards artificial intelligence and generative content. Despite the news, this year’s DEAL expo was as busy as ever. A true patchwork of all the different technologies.

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The Ghost Howls

JUNE 15, 2020

Late to the party after Oculus and Microsoft already released prototypical implementations, but finally Valve has implemented OpenXR into its runtime SteamVR. Someone is working on a Linux driver for the Oculus Rift. Indie developer Thaytan is working on a Linux driver for the Oculus Rift. Other relevant news.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 1, 2024

We can say the new cycle started with the announcement of the Apple Vision Pro , because that has been a disruptive moment for our market: Road To VR’s Ben Lang says that it has been the most important moment for virtual reality after Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus , and I agree.

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The Ghost Howls

JUNE 11, 2020

This is a cool video of me unboxing the Nreal Light Devkit: I have to say that I loved unboxing this headset : while Nreal has not reached the mastery of packaging that Oculus has, it has done a great job: the external box is in a very elegant silver color, and the case of the glasses is small and beautiful.

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UploadVR Between Realities podcast

OCTOBER 26, 2016

Microsoft’s play for command of next generation personal computing can be seen today with the announcement of a series of Windows-powered VR headsets starting at $300. The headsets planned from HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, and Acer will use what’s known as “inside-out” position tracking.

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ARPost

APRIL 11, 2023

Companies like Google, Microsoft, Lenovo, and Vuzix are developing smart glasses to enhance the AR experience. VR-Enabled Online Shopping Experiences VR creates an immersive visual environment, including 360-degree videos, photos, product demos, and complex experiences using devices such as the HTC Vive or Oculus Quest.

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AR Insider

JANUARY 18, 2021

The experience will debut this winter on PSVR and Oculus. The product increases and improves upon haptic feedback, form factor, and hand tracking to enable a user’s feeling of shapes, textures, and resistance in VR. The company is currently developing an email service to compete with Google and Microsoft.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 27, 2023

Furthermore, Microsoft 365 apps such as Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint, will be connected with Omniverse Project Mellon has been unveiled. First of all, it has revealed “Oculus Publishing”, the publishing branch of Meta which is helping external studios in developing and launching games for Quest.

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XR Today - Mixed Reality tag

JUNE 13, 2022

Last Thursday, Microsoft debuted version three of its Mixed Reality (MR) toolkit (MRTK3) for use in Unity Technologies’ real-time 3D (RT3D) animation engine. MRTK3 runs on OpenXR, meaning that the toolkit supports a range of extended reality (XR) devices like the firm’s Microsoft HoloLens 2.

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The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 22, 2021

Didn’t work (Image by Microsoft). 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. Sounded good. Nu Eyes AR glasses.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 16, 2020

And while this is anyway a good result for a startup (developing an AR headsets means spending billions in R&D), targeting the consumer market has been a suicide move , that let Microsoft get full control of the profitable enterprise market. Valve Index and Oculus Quest were on sale again. Image by Oculus). Who knows….

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ARPost

APRIL 22, 2022

The XRA is an industry organization founded by Google , HTC VIVE , Microsoft , Oculus , and Sony Interactive Entertainment. The world-facing cameras on XR devices that enable world-tracking in AR and hand-tracking in VR contribute to what some are calling “the era of constant reality capture.”

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The Ghost Howls

SEPTEMBER 23, 2024

Because of this, this device has no way to compete with the Quest 3 on the consumer side, but the above features may still make it compelling for some categories : for instance, the better support of hands tracking, eye tracking, and lossless connection to PC may make it very interesting for people that spend their time on VRChat on PC.

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The Ghost Howls

MAY 11, 2020

Image by Oculus). Facebook is working on a new version of the Oculus Quest. According to a report by Bloomberg, Oculus is working on a new Oculus Quest model, and it has already done prototypes that are lighter and more powerful than the current device. Top news of the week. Mechanical IPD is confirmed.

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