The Ghost Howls’s VR Week Peek (2019.07.07): Valve Index shows thumbstick issues, Cosmos works with Wireless Adapter, WeChat introduces AR and much more!

I’m in Italy again and here in these days, it is damn hot and wet. I’m hoping to attend a VR event in the North Pole, so that I can feel some cold again.
 
This week in XR has been quite cold instead, and there have not been many interesting news. Anyway, it has not been that useless either…

Top news of the week
(Image by Valve)
The Valve Index is out in the wild

After the shipment of the first units, the Valve Index is finally out in the wild. We have so some honest feedback from people having it.
 
And not surprisingly, we are also reading about the first problems. The Index has been over-hyped, and as always happens in these cases, when people actually try the device, they discover that it is not perfect, and has its drawbacks. One of the major complains are in the controllers, whose thumbsticks do not “click” when the stick is not in upright position (and some assistance guy from Valve even defined it as a feature, lol). Other people with big hands are finding the whole Knuckles uncomfortable. Some others are finding little defects in the production quality. Others can’t make most games to run on the PC because the 120/144Hz mode is too demanding. Some people are even already returning the Index!
 
Don’t misunderstand me: the Index is still to be considered a great device, a high-quality device that is trying to innovate VR. Most people having it, love it. But as with all the other devices: time is not ready for a perfect VR headset, so if you want to buy it, expect some compromises in this as well.
 
The good news is that Valve has released opensource the CAD files of the headset and all the instructions to create aftermarket accessories. Being a device for an elite niche, I don’t believe much in a big accessories market, but I think that this may be overly important for creating custom accessories in research centers and such. I love this idea by Valve.
 
Youtuber Mike VR Oasis has also published a video of the passthrough vision from the Index. It seems our experience Beat Reality!

More info (Unsatisfied user review n.1)
More info (Unsatisfied user review n.2)
More info (Unsatisfied user review n.3)
More info (Unsatisfied user review n.4)
More info (Valve releasing Index CAD files)
More info (Valve Index CAD repository)
More info (Valve Index passthrough vision)

Other relevant news
(Image by Upload VR)
HTC Vive Cosmos will work with Vive Wireless Adapter

This week, HTC has not made another big reveal about the Vive Cosmos, so we’ll still have to wait to discover more about its price and its features. But it has revealed one little detail that is anyway very interesting: the Vive Cosmos will work with the Vive Wireless Adapter, the same that works with the Vive Pro.
 
This means that every Vive Pro users can buy a Vive Cosmos and enjoy wireless PC VR experience without having to pay for another accessory. As Upload points out, this means that the Cosmos will be the only major new headset of 2019 coming with a wireless solution already on the market.
 
At the same time, HTC has announced the creation of Vive Enterprise Solutions, a new business unit dedicated to managing enterprise VR stuff. It’s more a logistic thing internal to HTC, so I think most of us can not care about this :D.

More info (Vive Cosmos wireless adapter)
More info (Vive Enterprise Solutions)

WeChat now lets you create AR mini apps

You know that I’m very interested in the Chinese market… and in China, with WeChat you can do almost everything. Recently, Tencent (the company behind WeChat) has launched Mini Apps, that is the possibility for developers to create little applications that run inside WeChat. These can be games, applications, marketing experiences or whatever the developer wants.
 
Now, inside these applications, it is possible to add AR features. The first company that has showcased these features has been the popular luxury fashion brand Emporio Armani (yay! Italian people!) that lets the wearer try different Armani lipsticks in AR. If you have a recent phone, you can select the lipstick that you wish and see the image from your front camera updated automatically so that to let you preview how you look with that lipstick on (of course, I looked fantabulous!).
 
You may wonder why you should care. Well, if you are in a company that wants to make marketing in China, WeChat is maybe the most important marketing channel that you can exploit. In the West, it has been proved that AR marketing is very powerful and increases conversions: L’Oreal claims 2x engagement on its website and 3x conversions since when it has implemented an AR try-on. If you can make marketing AR experiences on Wechat, this means that you can increase your conversions in the enormous Chinese market!

More info (AR on WeChat)
More info (AR conversions for L’Oreal)

Microsoft is shipping Azure Kinect

Microsoft is finally shipping its Azure Kinect devkits. Unluckily for us Europeans, it will currently ship only in the US and China, for $399.
 
Interested developers can already have a look at its SDK. As promised, Microsoft has released the documentation on its website. Previous Kinect developers will be able to notice that there are some similarities with the previous Kinect 2 development, but also some differences.
 
Since my first works in mixing Kinects with VR headsets for offering full body VR, I see huge potentials for the Azure Kinect in the VR ecosystem.

More info (All you need to know on Azure Kinect)
More info (Tony Rogers using the new Azure Kinect)
More info (Azure Kinect’s SDK)

SIGGRAPH and Gamescom are coming

Notwithstanding the heat, the summer will include some interesting big tech events, and they will feature AR/VR for sure.
 
SIGGRAPH showcase experiences have been unveiled and there are many high-quality titles. 4 of them are even premiére experiences by big important studios: A Kite’s Tale by Walt Disney Animation Studios (VR Theatre), Undersea by Magic Leap (Immersive Pavilion), II Divino: Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling in VR by Epic Games, and Mary and the Monster: Chapter One by Parallux and New York University’s Future Reality Lab (Immersive Pavilion). If you are in Los Angeles, at the end of July, the SIGGRAPH seems the place to go.
 
If you are in Germany in August, instead, you could attend the Gamescom. It is more a game-oriented event, but there you can find some interesting VR experiences and hardware as well. I was there last year, and I found a lot of cool stuff to try. This year I will be there again, so it can be the right occasion to meet 🙂
At Gamescom, Fast Travel Games is organizing a VR showcase, a bit similar to the one that UploadVR has made for the E3. Some indie developers have partnered to make a bigger impact inside the event. Of course, I will sustain this effort as I can!

More info (AR and VR at SIGGRAPH)
More info (AR and VR at Gamescom)

News worth a mention
(Image by Screengrab/Motherboard)
Researchers are studying hacking in VR

Two cybersecurity researchers have found some vulnerability in popular social VR experiences like SteamVR, VRChat, and High Fidelity and have exploited them to hack the experience perceived by the users.
 
The researchers have warned the creators of such experiences (that have been patched), but this makes me wonder what will be the consequences of hacking in the VR age. Crackers could take complete control of the world the user is in, causing him psychological harm or injecting subliminal info into his mind.

More info

TestHMD helps you in detecting the features of your HMD

One of the journalists of Real O Virtual has created an application that helps you in detecting the basic features of a headset, like FOV, sweet spot, resolution, etc… I tested it and I can tell you that is cool, and it is overly useful if you are a hardware reviewer or such.
 
It costs 4$, and in my opinion it is worth every penny.

More info

IDC has released another positive report about XR

In this short report, it is highlighted how shipment of VR headsets has increased of a 27.2% factor from the same period of previous year. Top VR headset makers have been Sony, Facebook, HTC, Pico, and 3Glasses.

More info

Reality Rebels wants to turn your house into an arcade

Little indie studio Reality Rebels is creating a framework to let you play LBVR games in your house using Oculus Quest. The system is able to procedurally generate levels that follow the planimetry of your house and then you can play them in VR using your Oculus Quest. Of course, the system supports multiplayer… and this means that you could play in your house with your friends games that are a bit similar to the ones of the arcades!
 
The project is overly cool, but I have only one question: what about the furniture?

More info

Researchers are studying if VR can hurt your brain

There are some people that think that VR may lead to dementia. This may seem a very stupid claim, but actually, some research on mice has highlighted how some parts of the brain (the hippocampus) get crazy while the user is in VR, because of the sensorial mismatch between what is seen and what all the rest of the body perceives.
 
The long term effect of this is unknown: considering that our brain evolves over time, adapting to the conditions… can it adapt to the wrong behavior induced by VR, becoming permanently damaged? Currently there is no evidence of this, but of course, some research is needed.
 
The article is very interesting, and especially lets us wonder why there are mice in the lab that have better VR than us 🙂

More info

XR4All is a grant for EU XR projects

The program XR4ALL, that is inside the Horizon2020 EU grants will award 10,000€ for 50 European projects that will try to push further the boundaries of XR. 25 of this projects will be selected to have an additional funding of €40,000.
 
If you are interested, just follow the link 😉

More info

Blood&Truth developers explain some design choice of the game

In an interesting article on Road To VR, the developers of Blood&Truth, one of the most successful games for PSVR, detail some design choices related to the game. If you are a game developer, I advise you to give it a read.
 
Ah, if you are a game developer you may also be interested in knowing that they are hiring

More info (game design)
More info (hiring)

Oculus Summer Sale has arrived!

If you want to buy some Oculus game, this is the right time!

More info

NASA has a long story in using VR for training

Training the astronauts for missions in the outer space is crucial to make sure that they won’t make errors while they are outside the spaceships to perform some operations. That’s why NASA is using VR to train them since lots of years, even before the advent of the Oculus Rift.
 
This long article details the use of VR by NASA and how it has been important all over these years.

More info

Palmer Luckey got married!!!

My best wishes to him and his new wife. I really hope they will have a long and prosperous life together. In sickness and in health. In reality and virtuality. 😀

More info

Some XR fun

I asked the community to caption a terrible photo that my friend (and VR director) Gianluigi Perrone has made me in China.

The results have been fun… even Rony Abovitz took part of the game!

Funny link

Surfing is fun with the Oculus Quest!

Funny link

Playing Rec Room as an adult is not always funny…

Funny link

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These weekly roundup require me a lot of time and effort to read all the news during the week… so, if you found them useful,support me on Patreon to keep this column alive!
 
 Happy VR 😉


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