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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HTC Oculus Conference China 409

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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Course Magic Leap AR Oculus 269

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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Sony Controllers AR Haptic 432

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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Apple AR Microsoft Magic Leap 265

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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Magic Leap AR China Unity 237

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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Unreal Apple Government Data 427

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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Hand tracking AR Oculus HTC 235

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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Augmented Reality Apple Samsung Ukraine 356

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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Augmented Reality Magic Leap AR Apple 480

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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Austin Texas Italy Industry 480

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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AR Nigeria Apple Oculus 499

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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Virtual Reality Trends China HTC 522

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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AR Machine Learning Government Virtual Reality 78

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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AR Machine Learning Government Virtual Reality 78

The Ghost Howls

AUGUST 12, 2021

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).

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AR Microsoft Hand tracking Eye Tracking 545

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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AR Machine Learning Government Virtual Reality 60

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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Augmented Reality Google Machine Learning AR 164

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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Apple Ukraine Eye Tracking Groups 322

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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Eye Tracking HTC China Amazon 365

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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Apple Gaming Hand tracking Leap Motion 337

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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AR Slovakia Oklahoma Germany 217

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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Magic Leap Oculus Controllers Amazon 162

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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Video Unity Virtual Reality 360 Video 545

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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Controllers Haptic Hardware Simulation 497

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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Oculus AR Data Gaming 544