The Ghost Howls

APRIL 5, 2021

The rumors on the Apple Glasses are intensifying. It is not a secret that Apple is working on an XR device: the mystery is when it is going to release it and what it will actually be. The hype is rising, and Apple is playing with it. (My usual terrible image to wish you Happy Easter, if you celebrate it). Top news of the week.

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The Ghost Howls

JULY 24, 2023

But I hope you’ll enjoy this newsletter coming from the world of the undead anyway… Top news of the week (Image by Apple) Apple starts accepting applications for Vision Pro devkits Apple has started accepting applications from interested developers to get a Vision Pro to develop XR experiences.

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The Ghost Howls

MAY 28, 2023

Today I want to take you on a journey on one of the coolest prototypes I’ve ever worked on, which is about creating Unity applications that can dynamically modify their logic at runtime depending on the user’s needs thanks to generative artificial intelligence. Cubes are easy to do. It got thousands of downloads.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 15, 2021

Apple already made hardware, so it already had the infrastructure to build it and just added XR people on top of this infrastracture, while Facebook could not). In September, the new Facebook Avatars will come and substitute the current Oculus avatars. Apple AR headset may have been delayed to 2025. But it is impressive anyway.

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Road to VR

OCTOBER 19, 2023

In this Guest Article, developer Thomas Van Bouwel explains his approach to designing an MR game that adapts to different environments. Guest Article by Thomas Van Bouwel Thomas is a Belgian-Brazilian VR developer currently based in Brussels. When it comes to MR platforms, an active discussion on data privacy is important too.

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The Ghost Howls

SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

In this article, I’m going to tell you all the thoughts I had. The new “Autumn” of VR If you’ve read some of my articles this year, you know I’m defining this moment as an “Autumn” for virtual reality. They are Apple AR glasses!”

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The Ghost Howls

JUNE 13, 2022

Image by Apple). Apple has not announced any glasses at WWDC. Every year, we have the same ritual: we wait for an event by Apple, hoping to hear some news about an upcoming XR device, then nothing happens in this sense, we are disappointed and so we hope for a new reveal next year. Top news of the week. Other relevant news.

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The Ghost Howls

DECEMBER 4, 2023

More info (HTC Vive Ultimate Tracker — Road To VR) More info (HTC Vive Ultimate Tracker — Upload VR) Valve releases its own version of Quest Link Out of the blue, Valve has launched Steam Link, which basically is… Oculus Air Link offered directly by SteamVR. This would show the level of polish of the upcoming Apple headset.

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Upload VR

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

Apple Vision Pro is a very impressive fusion of hardware and software, but it's by no means perfect. Apple Vision Pro Specs, Features & Details Apple officially revealed the full Vision Pro specs when opening preorders today. And Apple did not send UploadVR a review unit, we bought our own. But does it deliver?

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The Ghost Howls

NOVEMBER 17, 2019

While we were worried, Variety published an article on the topic, where Magic Leap stated that it was in the middle of raising another round of investments, to be exact, the E round. Image by Oculus, from Road To VR). John Carmack leaves Oculus. Apple AR glasses may be released in 2022–2023. Other relevant news.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 23, 2020

Regarding me, I will probably publish a first impression article after some hours into the game, and then a full-fledged review when I’ll finish playing it. Oculus Del Mar” may be the next Oculus headset. After the leak was discovered, Oculus deleted everything. Oculus has made its GDC announcements.

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The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 13, 2021

It was too early for Unity, but they taught me about C++, C#, Java, OpenCV, OpenGL and other fancy development stuff. In that period, the Oculus DK2 ordered by Gianni arrived, and he told me that I should go to his office to try that device, and my reaction at that time was like “Oculus what??”

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The Ghost Howls

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

References found in the Oculus Quest 2 firmware by users Reggy04 and Basti564 highlight how the Quest 2 Pro should have: Eyes tracking Facial expressions tracking Eye relief knob Granular IPD adjustment External charging station. Apple VR headset may feature a 3000PPI microOLED display. Apple Event was not about AR, like, at all.

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The Ghost Howls

SEPTEMBER 9, 2019

A market where Oculus has almost no earning s from the hardware sales, though, so it’s a weird situation. Internal iOS 13 code seems to point at Apple AR glasses. It is not a secret that Apple is working on a pair of AR glasses (even if someone still thinks that the project has been abandoned). Who knows.

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The Ghost Howls

DECEMBER 23, 2019

It is also working on creating its own hardware : a previous report highlighted that it could build its own chips in the future, and this article shows how the company is working also in acquiring hardware parts markers. Oculus releases hands tracking SDK, official Link cable for Quest and more. Other relevant news.

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The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 25, 2022

I can’t guarantee that these predictions will come out to be true (I always joke about the fact that I miss many of the predictions about Meta/Oculus), but I think they will be worth reading anyway to understand what can be the trends to look for in this new year. Me wearing my branded Oculus Quest 2. So… let’s start!

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ARVR

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

One-year price performance for MSFT as of 2/3/20 Apple Inc. AAPL) As we previously detailed in depth, Apple has been discreetly working on a number of AR/VR products for several years now and is planning to release its own AR smart glass and AR/VR hybrid headset. Ways to Get Your Business into VR 2. the year of AR glasses?

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 10, 2024

All the elusive XR analysts have almost guessed nothing, and they were not even able to predict the launch of the Apple Vision Pro until the date got pretty close. It’s the same with Apple ARKit, which took everyone by surprise and led to the democratization of AR on smartphones. Because it’s f **g true. licensing).

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The Ghost Howls

AUGUST 14, 2023

Reading the article excited me a bit, because when an experienced VR journalist says that something impressed him, well, I know that thing is super cool for real Vicon , which is a leading company in mocap systems, showcased for the first time its markerless mocap tool. The startup just raised $1.6

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The Ghost Howls

FEBRUARY 3, 2020

monthly connected headsets only on Steam (so this doesn’t consider Oculus Store users and PSVR users), and t he year-over-year growth is +75%. He said that only on Christmas day, people spent $5M on the Oculus Store , and we can expect that most of this money was spent on Quest. Image by Oculus). There is not enough market yet.

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The Ghost Howls

JUNE 14, 2021

This week we had another report from supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, that is said to very reliable in rumors about Apple (even if he only made wrong predictions about Apple Glasses, but this is none of my business). More info (Report by Kuo) More info (Report about Apple Glasses). Apple announces minor XR news at WWDC 2021.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 14, 2022

Apple chips may be its secret weapon for XR. The new Apple M-series chips continue to make strides in the tech communities: they are proving to be fast and reliable while being small and consuming little battery power. More info (Apple M chips) More info (Rumors on M2 chips in the upcoming Apple headset). Image by Waymo).

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 27, 2023

Of course, Epic is completely against Apple and its vision of its own walled garden. Epic also announced a few interesting things, like a tool to record facial animations for MetaHumans that run on an iPhone; and Fab, the Unreal version of the Unity Asset Store, where the developers can find many tools and multimedia elements put on sale.

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The Ghost Howls

JULY 5, 2021

The first interesting forecast is about the number of sold Oculus Quest 2 headsets. More info (Link to original article) More info (Article on this report not behind a paywall). Unity releases free guide on mobile development optimization. Other relevant news. Image from the web). But actually, this has not happened.

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The Ghost Howls

MAY 17, 2021

But before leaving you to the best pieces of AR/VR news of the week, let me tease you that in the upcoming days I will publish an article I’m sure you will all love… it’s a hands-on preview on… you’ll discover it! Roblox CEO hints at the Oculus Quest as a future platform. Some intriguing news on the Oculus Quest.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 1, 2021

Oculus has also partnered with Virtuclear to offer prescription lenses for the Quest 2 for $80. All the 3 major VR runtimes (Oculus, SteamVR, Microsoft) are now compatible with OpenXR , and this means that on the runtime layer on PC, now OpenXR has been fully integrated. You can now use consumer devices inside Oculus For Business.

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The Ghost Howls

MAY 8, 2023

You can be sure that this article has been entirely crafted by some breathing meat… for the good and the bad. It’s a few weeks that nothing truly relevant is happening in the XR field: it seems the most interesting articles lately are all about AI… and especially about how AI is going to kill us all. Not 2x or 3x, but 26x.

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The Ghost Howls

NOVEMBER 1, 2021

Oculus brands disappears. And most importantly, the Oculus brand will disappear and will just become Meta : Oculus Quest will be the Meta Quest (yes, it sounds terribly, I know). He says that “We all have a strong attachment to the Oculus brand, and this was a very difficult decision to make”, but I don’t believe him at all.

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The Ghost Howls

OCTOBER 12, 2020

Facebook has started today enforcing the “Facebook login” rule , asking Oculus users to merge their Facebook and Oculus accounts. So I imagine a Quest 2 where you can avoid having a Facebook account, but you can’t use the Oculus Store, or all the most important apps and games , and so you are de facto forced to use it.

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The Ghost Howls

FEBRUARY 14, 2022

PSVR 2, Apple XR visor) and games, will be fundamental to understand its evolution and its potential. A leaked image from the Oculus team shows that the company is working to implement body tracking inside the Oculus Unity SDK. References to Apple RealityOS have been leaked. Some articles on the metaverse.

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The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 22, 2021

Regarding the glasses, I have not big hopes for true AR glasses, but I think that thanks to Facebook and Apple, finally we’ll have some important smartglasses entering the market , making the mainstream think about wearing something on their face to enjoy notifications from the phone. Phone AR will be always more popular.

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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

SEPTEMBER 30, 2022

A few weeks after I officially entered VR, the technology started being overhyped after Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus. The XR field is now growing, and the long-term outlook is also great, with the upcoming release of the Apple mixed reality headset which is for sure going to re-ignite the hype for immersive realities again.

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The Ghost Howls

JULY 4, 2022

I want to dedicate this newsletter article to my friend Mathew Olson, who at The Information kickstarted the “Reality Check”, a newsletter about XR which I received 3–4 times a week in my e-mail, and that was very well done. The same luck has not happened to employees at Niantic at Unity. Other relevant news. Image by Mojo Vision).

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The Ghost Howls

AUGUST 11, 2019

Anyway, I will keep you posted about that in a dedicated article! Everyone of us already knew that Gear VR was a platform almost abandoned when Oculus announced the Oculus Go. Original image by Oculus). Xiaomi disbands the Mi VR team, with unknown effects on Oculus Go. Top news of the week. Image by Samsung).

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The Ghost Howls

SEPTEMBER 27, 2021

This has been a hectic week for the leaks on the upcoming new Oculus Quest Pro device. Marky Z hinted that the device should feature eye and face tracking, and recent findings in Oculus Quest 2 runtime confirm this. I also thank everyone of you that supported me in this journey! Top news of the week. Image from Imgur).

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The Ghost Howls

DECEMBER 13, 2021

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. Apple headset may be very lightweight.

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