The Ghost Howls

NOVEMBER 27, 2023

Italy won the Tennis Davis Cup, and that was pretty cool to see (the match between Sinner and Djokovic was just incredible). If OpenAI wanted to slow down to have time to understand the consequences of this new type of AI, Microsoft would already ready be to hire all the talents of OpenAI and carry on AI developments by itself.

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The Ghost Howls

NOVEMBER 9, 2020

Image by Microsoft). Microsoft ramps up distribution of HoloLens 2 and Kinect For Azure. Microsoft is working to improve the distribution of its latest devices: HoloLens 2 and Kinect For Azure. HoloLens 2 availability has been expanded to 15 new regions : Italy (YESSS!), Other relevant news.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 22, 2022

I’m back in Italy, but I have left a piece of my heart in Austin, where I had an unforgettable experience both on the personal and professional side at SXSW (you can read more about my experience here ). Microsoft IVAS program is not doing great. I thank everyone that made my days so awesome, and I hope to meet you again soon!

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Road to VR

APRIL 13, 2017

While the program was principally incubated by Crytek, students working in VR First labs tend use Unity (48%), followed by Unreal (20%) and then CRYENGINE (14%). VIGAMUS Academy, Italy. image courtesy VR First. University College London, UK. University of Florida, USA. University of Southern California (USC), USA.

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The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 28, 2023

Anyway, in these two weeks, even with some difficulties, I’ve managed to work quite at the same pace that I had in Italy , and we are going full speed ahead in improving the platform (some news about it is coming very soon…). While still in Italy, I verified that Microsoft Teams, Unity, and Github were accessible from China.

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The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 22, 2021

As a long-time AR enthusiast, and one of the first to have tried Google Glass in Italy, I have to admit that I will consider AR mainstream only when it will be on glasses that we will wear all day , when we’ll live in a completely shared mixed reality world (the AR Cloud). Didn’t work (Image by Microsoft). Sounded good.

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The Ghost Howls

AUGUST 24, 2020

That’s why even Microsoft took Epic’s stances : Microsoft uses UE4 to develop some products also for Apple devices, and this decision hurts also its business. More info (Apple threatens Epic) More info (Microsoft files an official support for Epic). Let’s see what will happen… and in the meantime let’s eat lots of popcorns.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 21, 2021

Image by Microsoft). When a journalist of IGN Italy was trying to install the new Xbox Wireless Headset on the platform, he was greeted with an Italian message saying “The VR goggle must be updated”. Learn more (XR Collaboration) Learn more (Unity College). News worth a mention. Xbox VR support has been leaked, or maybe not.

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The Ghost Howls

JULY 4, 2020

I can say that I have been very lucky to work with a group of talented people from many countries (Italy, Russia, France, etc…) on this project. And all of this using Unity, the tool that I already use every day. Part of the stage of the experience inside the Unity editor. Super cool, isn’t it? Yes, it was!

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The Ghost Howls

JUNE 1, 2020

HP and Microsoft have a long track in offering enterprise hardware, so this headset may battle HTC on his own land (B2B). Developers can develop AR experiences with Zappar using the tool they like the most : Unity, native Javascript, A-frame, C++. Unity launches MARS tools. Pokemon Go adds AR occlusion and scanning features.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 2, 2020

The damn coronavirus continues to impact all our lives: the fact that many countries are applying restrictions on flights to and from Italy is, for example, creating various nuisances to my job. Image by Microsoft). This is one of the weirdest rag-doll experiments in Unity. News worth a mention. XBOX Series X will be VR ready.

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The Ghost Howls

JUNE 27, 2022

It’s hot and the drought is creating some issues here in northern Italy. The Metaverse Standards Forum has already gathered many important players of the XR sector like Unity, Unreal Engine, Meta, Microsoft, Lamina 1, NVIDIA, and even other relevant companies like IKEA and Adobe. Top news of the week. Image by Meta).

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The Ghost Howls

NOVEMBER 10, 2019

If you will be in Italy, please come visiting me! Microsoft ships HoloLens 2, nReal gets ready to do the same with its glasses. After a long wait, finally Microsoft is shipping its HoloLens 2 headset. Here you are the Eventbrite page ) I can’t wait to see who will win the VR Awards tomorrow !

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The Ghost Howls

SEPTEMBER 23, 2024

I’m currently in Beijing and today I’m taking the plane to get back to Italy. Here in Italy, I have no idea where to buy any smartglasses, but I’ve seen many shops selling Ray-Ban Meta. These are my last hours in China. If this partnership is exclusive, Meta has just got a huge edge over its competitors like Samsung or Google.

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XR for Business Podcast

JANUARY 20, 2020

We’ve just done one in Bologna in Italy. So you don’t know anything about coding, Unity, Unreal. Alan: So how do you then get people to learn how to do Unreal and Unity without teaching them? So the traditional way to do it is to use Unreal or Unity. Maybe I guess the Unity asset store would be the same.

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XR for Business Podcast

JANUARY 20, 2020

We’ve just done one in Bologna in Italy. So you don’t know anything about coding, Unity, Unreal. Alan: So how do you then get people to learn how to do Unreal and Unity without teaching them? So the traditional way to do it is to use Unreal or Unity. Maybe I guess the Unity asset store would be the same.

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The Ghost Howls

OCTOBER 1, 2024

It was also the week when I returned to Italy, and eating my mother’s pasta again made me excited, too. Experience with 3D content creation is a plus, and you’ll have the opportunity to learn and work with AR design. Senior Unity Developer Join our Unity team and be at the forefront of innovation in the global mobile-AR industry.

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The Ghost Howls

AUGUST 28, 2023

After a few days where we thought we were all living in a big oven, here in Italy we’re having the first taste of Autumn, with the temperatures going down and a lot of rain falling from the sky. That’s fantastic news for all Unity XR developers! in the reviews!

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XR for Business Podcast

JANUARY 20, 2020

We've just done one in Bologna in Italy. So you don't know anything about coding, Unity, Unreal. Alan: So how do you then get people to learn how to do Unreal and Unity without teaching them? So the traditional way to do it is to use Unreal or Unity. Maybe I guess the Unity asset store would be the same.

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The Ghost Howls

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

I think I’ll miss the joys of summer (and all the trophies that Italy has won), but at least I’ll be able to enjoy again some delicious hot chocolate Before leaving you to the news of the week, I’m happy to announce to you that I’ve been selected as a speaker for AWE US 2021 ! This one is the last AR/VR news roundup for this summer!

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The Ghost Howls

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Coronavirus is back in Italy and from yesterday we’re having new restrictions like a night curfew, some kind of shops closed, etc… I hope that you and the people you love are safe. Facebook and Microsoft publish two interesting research projects for VR. Simple WebXR” aims at bringing WebXR to Unity.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 20, 2022

Today, while I’m packing my stuff up to go back to Italy, I want to tell you a few words about my experience there, and if I think it has been worth going. I was not so sure I wanted to go, because from Italy to Austin is a long trip, but I decided to try this new adventure… and well, I’m more than happy of having done that.

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The Ghost Howls

JUNE 4, 2023

More info Microsoft releases MRTK 3 Notwithstanding the fact that most of the team behind it has been laid off, Microsoft has announced that Microsoft Mixed Reality Toolkit 3 (MRTK3) will reach General Availability (GA) in Q3 of this calendar year. I will leave you the link to donate for these two causes below.

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The Ghost Howls

APRIL 27, 2020

Another busy week has passed by, and here in Italy we just got the news that lockdown measures will start to loosen from next week, but the road to go out as we wish is still long. We’re looking for a Unity dev for a freelance gig lasting 1–2 months, ideally from Italy or a nearby country (for easier management).

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The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 20, 2021

From time to time, I like to look at the adoption graph of XR shown by John Riccitiello (the CEO of Unity) in 2017 , where you can see that the real acceleration of immersive technologies should start around 2022-2023. 2021 will be the year that in Italy we’ll have the first most serious rollout of 5G in the biggest cities.

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The Ghost Howls

MAY 17, 2021

Kudos to Shachar Weis for discovering this: he told me about this news, and I have verified that it has disappeared completely from Amazon Italy and Amazon France, while some Redditors confirmed that the same holds for Amazon UK. An article by Microsoft Design details how some designers have created an AR cube with very natural interactions.

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The Ghost Howls

APRIL 5, 2021

Today in Italy it should be the day when we go pic-nicking… but given the fact that we are in lockdown, I’ll just eat a lot at home While I send you a lot of good vibes, let’s see together what have been the best pieces of AR/VR news of this week, that has been incredibly interesting! (My Microsoft signs a $22B deal with the US Army.

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The Ghost Howls

DECEMBER 8, 2021

Today is a special day in Italy when families prepare the Christmas Tree, so I decided to publish a very special post that is a big gift to the whole XR community. Even the big players like Sony, Apple, and Microsoft have substantially reduced their production estimates for 2022, whilst processor manufacturers talk of delays into 2024.

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The Ghost Howls

JULY 28, 2019

and this is good from one side, but stressful on others… much thanks to air conditioning to make me survive in that oven that is Italy in these days!). Microsoft has released an OpenXR demo. Microsoft has released an OpenXR demo that works for both HoloLens and WMR headsets. Thanks to Matias Nassi for the tip!

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The Ghost Howls

SEPTEMBER 20, 2020

I’ve preordered my basic $299 one (€349 in Italy) and it will arrive on October, 15th. I think the name ARIA is a mix of AR and AI , because the glass goes around collecting data for the AI, and since ARIA means also “air” in Italy, it can be a suggestion about the fact that it is used outside the lab.

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The Ghost Howls

NOVEMBER 4, 2024

The very recent news, that Snap announced at AWE EU, is that Spectacles are also coming to Europe, and to be exact in Germany, France, Spain, Italy (yay!), I think instead that Snap should ambition to create a great general AR ecosystem like other companies like Microsoft and Magic Leap already tried to do.

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