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More info Quest 3 will pair with Windows 11 PCs next month Meta and Microsoft announced that the automatic pairing of Quest 3 headsets with Windows 11 PCs is coming in preview access in December. As a Unity developer (also knowledgeable of VRChat), I’m not surprised at all, honestly. If you’re new to VR, you should give it a look.
Today, Microsoft is making its long—awaited Mesh for Teams immersive VR meeting platform available for enterprise end users. The service is now available for clients, allowing them to access Microsoft’s dynamic virtual remote meeting solution via desktop or Meta Quest headsets. Mesh is helping us achieve that.
More info Anduril takes over the IVAS project Anduril , the defense technology company founded by Palmer Luckey, has taken over the IVAS project, which was previously managed by Microsoft. Microsoft will still provide the Azure cloud, but all the hardware and software should be provided by Luckeys startup.
For instance, in the box I’ve found a cleaning cloth for an Oculus device… and I don’t think it actually comes with a Microsoft HoloLens! So, Microsoft has made whatever it could to make the limited FOV more acceptable and we have to appreciate that. The headset is very light and balanced (Image by Microsoft).
That’s why we rejoiced when Apple launched its headset: while Google and Microsoft can discard new technologies pretty easily, Apple is slower at deciding to take a step, but when it makes it, it commits to it. Furthermore, he decided that Unity Personal will remain free and the funding ceiling to use it will double from $100k to $200k.
Unity’s Latest Trends Report Declares 2020 will be a Breakthrough Year for XR. 15 Experts weigh in on why we’re reaching a tipping point in spatial computing. Timoni West, Director of XR Research Unity Labs says UX designers will have to adjust in order to meet the demand for these new kinds of experiences.
But there’s even more: Unity has already published a page about how it is possible to build for the Quest 3 using not only the XR Interaction Toolkit, but also AR Foundation. Unity page also confirms that the headset will provide plane detection, so you will be able for instance to detect the walls and the desks in your room.
In my opinion, Magic Leap 2 is a superior device to HoloLens 2 (see my hands-on here ), so I think that with these prices, it can have good success in the enterprise market, starting to gain shares with regard to Microsoft. Nano-tech wants to be the Nanite of Unity. See Unity running on Quest. Learn more. This is mind-blowing!
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. Now Microsoft is discontinuing them , putting another nail in the coffin of the HoloLens. Thanks to Davy Demeyer for the tip!)
For larger companies looking to connect their entire team with HoloLens 2 headsets, Microsoft is offering a package that includes Dynamic 365 Remote Assist on each MR headset at the cost of $125 per user – per month. If you’re a developer working on your own, Microsoft offers the HoloLens 2 Development Edition.
SAP shapes the future of work with Unity. That’s changing with the SAP Extended Reality Cloud (XR Cloud), which is based on Unity’s platform and enables the development of mixed reality applications. To make it easier for Unity developers to integrate SAP data into Unity, SAP recently launched the Unity Integration Toolkit.
On the server-side, it is being integrated with Microsoft Azure, and it is also coming in the future for Google Cloud and Tencent Cloud. NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) will be natively supported for HDRP in Unity 2021.2. All you need is an Android device (API level 26+) or a HoloLens 2 and Unity.
And these experiments about wireless headsets make us think that Valve is investigating the possibility of making the Index wireless (or even better, standalone), a feature that many users have asked for. (Thanks Ilja Z for the tip!). Image by Microsoft). Learn more (XR Collaboration) Learn more (Unity College). Some XR fun.
I love how they are jumping on the hype with humor, more companies should do that (Thanks Tom Ffiske for this tip) Decentralized technologies are great, but be careful that are scams, bots, and hackers also operating in this world. Microsoft IVAS program is not doing great. Microsoft IVAS program is not doing great. Other news.
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. Unity’s HDRP is now VR-compatible. Very good news for all us Unity VR developers.
Furthermore, Microsoft 365 apps such as Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint, will be connected with Omniverse Project Mellon has been unveiled. It is a lightweight Python package capable of harnessing the heavyweight power of speech AI (NVIDIA Riva) and large language models (LLMs) to simplify user interactions in immersive environments.
Late to the party after Oculus and Microsoft already released prototypical implementations, but finally Valve has implemented OpenXR into its runtime SteamVR. Thanks Davy Demeyer for the tip). Unity details its MARS solution. Other relevant news. Image from Khronos Group). SteamVR now supports OpenXR.
What is set is the present day, and this week shows the stepping stones towards XR’s tipping point are very much being paved. Developers who begin working with Android XR today can utilize familiar tools such as ARCore, Android Studio, Jetpack Compose, Unity, and OpenXR to start building applications.
The third major change came from Unity which recently announced that it will now be serving AR ads on mobile. Unity has one of the world’s largest mobile ad serving businesses and at the end of last year they partnered with Fossil to pilot this new ad format in mobile games. Virtual humans are getting more and more real.
Michael: And this is why I’ve been working on starting this dojo, or this VR maker space; because the tools for building — there’s VRTK for Unity… there’s just all these tools. Unity is always my top one. As someone who grew up as a game designer and player, I definitely side towards Unity.
Michael: And this is why I’ve been working on starting this dojo, or this VR maker space; because the tools for building — there’s VRTK for Unity… there’s just all these tools. Unity is always my top one. As someone who grew up as a game designer and player, I definitely side towards Unity.
You’ll get tips on design and optimization, and developers will no doubt want to pounce the moment the floor opens for questions (if that happens). Liz Mercuri (Unity). With its Editor VR tool now available in an early incarnation, 2017 is going to be a massive year for Unity and VR. Room 2009, West Hall.
Michael: And this is why I've been working on starting this dojo, or this VR maker space; because the tools for building -- there's VRTK for Unity. Unity is always my top one. As someone who grew up as a game designer and player, I definitely side towards Unity. We're not tied to Microsoft. there's just all these tools.
More info (Vive Focus Vision hands-on) More info (Vive Focus Vision teardown) Unity launches Unity 6 Unity has finally launched its new version: Unity 6. Unity 6 is bringing many new features that are helping with cutting-edge technologies like XR and AI. This may explain why it has been shut down.
Microsoft announces Mesh, an XR collaboration platform. Alex Kipman promised us a Microsoft Ignite conference with an amazing level of immersion , and he kept his word. But since Microsoft owns one of those studios (and using it costs around $100K/day if I remember well!), You are all fantastic! Here you are my flower for you!
Image by Microsoft). Microsoft is acquiring Activision Blizzard for $68.7B. The biggest news of the week has been the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft for $68.7B. With it, Microsoft acquires many popular games like Overwatch, Starcraft, Call of Duty, and even Candy Crush. Other relevant news.
Unity talked about PlayStation VR 2 at GDC. Unity had a talk about developing for PlayStation VR 2 at GDC 2022. More info (Foveated Tracking boost inside PSVR 2) More info (Full Unity talk at GDC). Thanks to Rob Cole for the tip). Thanks to Tom Ffiske for the tip). News worth a mention. What a sad news for gaming!
More info (Logitech MX Ink now available) More info (My hands-on with the device) The end of HoloLens 2 Microsoft has officially announced the end-of-life of the Microsoft HoloLens 2: the company is now selling the last stock and will slowly discontinue the headset. But I hope so.
Tips & Tricks for the Quest 2! New tips and tricks for Quest 2 are being published for Quest 2: Quest 2 doesn’t work well outdoor, even in conditions when the tracking of the Quest 1 worked. Facebook and Microsoft publish two interesting research projects for VR. Simple WebXR” aims at bringing WebXR to Unity.
There is also a good example of a part of the day of a person in the metaverse. (Thanks to Will Burns for the tip). Last Call / Full Saga Review) More info (Microsoft Flight Simulator) More info (Squingle) More info (Half Life 2 VR Mod) More info (Shock Troops) More info (Mafia VR Mod) More info (Gunman Contracts?—?Mod
This is why companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft and Meta are exploring similar technologies. The Unity Cube ?? (PS Respect for the devs of Cooking Simulator, it is actually a good game. Microsoft Maquette gets discontinued. Thanks Shachar Weis for the tip). But it’s not the best PCVR game of 2021).
Before leaving you to the best news of the week, I would like to highlight two notable things about my work: My crazy trolling game “The Unity Cube” has been featured in a video by Upload VR! Johnson has worked at Microsoft and Qualcomm before, and she is a very respected executive. Unity developers will get this joke Funny link.
IGS 2023 wrapped up last week, tipping off a monumental event filled with XR innovation across a series of industries. Major firms like Microsoft, Valve, and Apple are continuing to build immersive product portfolios leading towards the dawn of 2024. As important industry events occur, the sector continues to progress.
More info Discover a Reconfigurable Mobile Head-Mounted Display This is the weirdest research project I’ve seen this week (thanks Ivan Aguilar for the tip). This is great news because MRTK 3 introduces better compatibility with Unity standard tools than its previous version. This is the dystopia we should avoid. A must-watch.
More info Jim Ryan hints at a possible PlayStation metaverse The court documents related to the FTC vs Microsoft trial related to the acquisition of Activision contain a very interesting piece of information related to what Sony may be working on. This would be great for having a more natural interaction on Quest 3.
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. Then, you can create MR applications, and so code in Unity and at the same time see the preview of your 3D game in 3D in front of you.
One of my favorite demos to do for techie people when they come through the lab is: I put the headset on them, I show them a demo and they’re like “oh the tracking is fantastic” and they’re wiggling their heads around like they do on all AR devices. It’s like yep yep, it’s got six milliseconds latency.
Don’t take this as sure news (Thanks Niclas Johansson for the tip!); An article by Microsoft Design details how some designers have created an AR cube with very natural interactions. This could be The Unity Cube 2.0. More info (Intel research) More info (Animated pictures research) More info (Microsoft Design’s cube).
This has been a pretty interesting week for me, having spoken at XR Safety Week and Stereopsia, and having published two cool articles about creating innovative SteamVR controllers and using Application SpaceWarp in Unity to almost double the framerate of your application. Microsoft and Samsung may be partnering for an AR device.
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. The name was of course inspired by “The Unity Cube” application (Image by Rob Cole). Image provided by Rob Cole). The Guncube.
If you are a Unity/UE developer, you may have issues with Quest developing at this moment after the update , because when you build the app, you may see only one controller, or the controllers behaving in a weird way. Thanks to Matias Nassi for the tip! Microsoft has released an OpenXR demo. Interesting devs can dig into it.
The same element can so be compatible both with Unreal Engine, and Unity, but also Roblox and Minecraft. The reason is that the newest Microsoft laptops feature a neural processing unit (NPU) that improves processing power and battery efficiency when running AR experiences.
After so many years, finally VR is reaching its tipping point where one platform will reach the 10 million sold units, which is considered as a magic number for a healthy ecosystem. Epic has implemented it, and Unity is doing that too. I am a Unity developer, and I can tell you that now Unity.XR
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