Millions were invested in Sansar before its creator Second Life decided to throw in the towel. Made ... [+]
Day 12 of captivity. Los Angeles. There is nothing to do but write, poke around social VR and play games. We played Pictionary using Spatial.io. If you are playing Racket Fury Table Tennis VR on Quest please reach out via Twitter.
Linden Lab sells Sansar to Wookey Project Corp. Linden Lab will be shifting its focus back to Second Life as Wookey Project Corp takes over the operations and development of Sansar. High Fidelity exited the category six months ago, citing low demand. A little web sleuthing revealed that Wookey is owned by Mark Gustavson, an M&A executive who is also CFO of publicly traded SharkReach Corporation (OTC:SHRK). Wookey.com 404s, but a helpful Redditor provided this url for the one page Wookey website. It appears for now they’ll be expanding on Sansar’s current event based strategy. Social VR sites are buzzing. Microsoft’s last minute rescue of Altspace proved prescient. But it remains to be seen if Wookey can be Microsoft for Sansar.
Nreal's booth at CES 2020 was mobbed. There's a huge amount of pent up demand for these $499 spatial ... [+]
Nreal is on schedule with mid-year launch plans in Japan and Korea, with the US and Europe following in the fall. They solved their supply chain problem by building their own factory, which can produce as many as one million units a year.
RealWear's HMT-1 versatile ruggedized monocular microdisplay made for front line workers.
Microsoft Teams soon to be available on RealWear headsets. While Teams currently works on the Hololens, Microsoft is expanding its team communication and collaboration software to work on other headsets as well. This spring expect Teams to work on RealWear’s HMT-1 head mounted display.
Speaking of RealWear. The company announced it has a new CEO, Andrew Chostowski. A spokesman said Andy Lowry was basically changing places with advisor Chostowski “for personal reasons.” Founding CEOs don’t often step down from supposedly booming young companies. Pure speculation on our part, but maybe selling headsets is not much of a business without a source of recurring revenue. Just saying.
Visiting a remote construction site with Avatour.
Avatour, a new remote collaboration app, makes a timely debut. A host operates a 360 camera which can be shared by five remote participants as spatial avatars, which can interact with each other, and the host. An unlimited number of observers are allowed. Possibly the best application of 360 video we’ve ever seen.
Oculus accidentally teases upcoming hardware code named “Del Mar”. On the Oculus developer portal new messages can be found alluding to a headset called “Del Mar”. The messages include warnings to developers not to share any information about the new hardware. It is assumed that the new hardware is another mobile headset like the Go or Quest, but reliable information is currently sparse.
Manus reveals their full body tracking solution for VR. Polygon uses 5 Vive trackers, one for each hand and food, and one worn around the waste, in order to track a user’s position. The software supports multiple users as well as separate tracked objects. Manus’s data gloves are also compatible with Polygon for additional hand tracking capabilities.
SuperData’s latest report reveals digital games spending in February totaled $9.4Billion, up 4% year over year. Wonder what March is going to look like.
Half-Life: Alyx launches to worldwide fanfare as the biggest AAA VR title yet. Concurrent SteamVR users hit an all time high on March 23rd after the launch of Half-Life: Alyx. The title is the first installment of the Half-Life series we’ve seen in 13 years and is a VR exclusive. It has received rave reviews from all major outlets, including some perfect scores. Half-Life: Alyx is available for all major PCVR headsets. You don’t need a high end PC VR set up to check it out. Nathie has done it for you.
Labster announces $5 million in temporary relief to educators during COVID-19. Labster is offering low cost or free access to its library of virtual laboratory simulations for students, schools, and educators. Learn more.
Resolution Games launches Glimt, a whodunit detective game for the Magic Leap 1. Glimt is free to play and has players exploring the Grand Starlight Hotel in search of missing guests and the mystery behind their disappearance.
VirZOOM’s VZfit turns any stationary bike into a VR bike ride. Attach the VZfit sensor to a stationary bike and pair with a VR headset to turn an indoor stationary bike ride into an outdoor cycling experience.
Sketchfab adds USDZ file compatibility and conversion. Applie introduced the open file format in 2018 and USDz files can be viewed in AR on iOS using Quick Look. Tapping a link to a USDz model on iOS allows users to view the models instantly in AR.
PTC offers AR and CAD apps for free to industry and students. Vuforia Chalk is a remote assistance AR app that allows users to draw in 3D space in real time. Onshape SaaS CAD Solution is free for highschools and universities looking to teach collaborative STEM and 3D CAD courses.
Classkick offers its homeschooling app for free to all coronavirus affected schools.
VirBELA Open Campus. It's free to walk around and chat, but owning your own, private world, gets ... [+]
VirBELA and Event Farm partner to create virtual event hosting platform. VirBELA is a remote collaboration platform while Event Farm is an event management platform. Together they intend to make creating, managing, and hosting remote events easy and affordable.
Mayday Impact Award PitchFest Image.
#AIShowBiz Summit 4.0, May 4th - 6th, presented by Lenovo and Intel, convenes XR Trailblazers to combat the coronavirus, climate change and humanity’s greatest challenges by connecting resources to the entrepreneurs. Online attendence is complimentary. Register at the Ai Show biz site here.
“This Week In XR” is written and edited with Michael Eichenseer.
