The Ghost Howls

JUNE 12, 2019

The time for my Oculus Quest review has come. If you already know the headset very well, and just want to read my considerations, go straight to the final part of this article. The Quest has a nice packaging , as all Oculus products. Oculus Quest box content (Image by Oculus). Front view of the Oculus Quest.

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The Ghost Howls

JULY 14, 2022

After a long time with my lovely Unity 2019.4 LTS, I have decided it was time to switch to something new, not to miss the new features that Unity has implemented these years. I have so started using Unity 2021.3 That is, an application built for the Oculus runtime can also run for the Valve Index on SteamVR.

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The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 27, 2020

What is interesting the most are not the features, that more or less are the same as most other headsets: integrated headphones, halo+headband, IPD adjustment, etc… It seems a mix of a Samsung Odyssey and an Oculus Rift S. Oculus Go is not part of the Oculus For Business program anymore. But of course, I hope for a full reveal

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 15, 2021

And the number is also that big because Facebook had no hardware department, so it had to create everything from scratch (i.e. 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). But it is impressive anyway.

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The Ghost Howls

AUGUST 23, 2021

What I’ve not enjoyed is that SideQuest has removed The Unity Cube from its listing, stating that there were too many cubes there. Every year, the Oculus Connect, later (sadly) renamed as Facebook Connect, is the biggest event about XR from Facebook. Another article about the Metaverse. Discover AR fashion.

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The Ghost Howls

JUNE 6, 2022

Probably the biggest of them has been Qualcomm announcing the public release of Snapdragon Spaces SDK and its related hardware DK. There I have tried some interesting devices like Weart haptic gloves, OWO haptic suit, but especially the Magic Leap 2, which I found to be a very well-made piece of hardware! News worth a mention.

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ARPost

JULY 2, 2020

Since then he’s been independently working with creator platforms like Unity and Unreal. The website for the Vector Gear agrees, “ the hardware is stuck on the prototyping stage. Where do you expect the next great XR headset to come from? What about Walker Industries? Walker Industries is … let’s call it “the startup’s startup.”

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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

DECEMBER 4, 2023

More info (Quest 3 going ok in Steam Hardware Survey) More info (Quest 2 selling much better than Quest 3 on Amazon) HTC announced the Vive Ultimate Tracker Finally, HTC has officially announced the Vive Ultimate Tracker, its standalone inside-out tracker unit. But for now, we are not sure at all this is going to happen.

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The Ghost Howls

JULY 26, 2021

The most viral XR article of the week has been an interview that Mark Zuckerberg had with The Verge. The claim reshared by many people from the article is that “five years from now […] people will primarily think about us as a metaverse company, rather than a mobile internet company”. Top news of the week. Image by Facebook).

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ARVR

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

One-year price performance for AAPL as of 2/3/20 Trending AR VR Articles: 1. FB) Facebook is the owners of Oculus Quest , the current gold standard when it comes to VR headsets. Google also offers ARCore , a developer tool for Android, iOS, Unreal, and Unity which help integrate AR elements into the real environment.

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The Ghost Howls

AUGUST 10, 2020

Valve Index and Oculus Quest gain PC VR market shares. The latest Steam Hardware Survey showed some interesting trends happening in the PC VR market (at least the Steam VR market, since we have no info on the Oculus Store market). Oculus explains the logic behind its store curation policy. Top news of the week.

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The Ghost Howls

OCTOBER 26, 2020

And the price of the wireless add-on is even more suspicious: speaking with a hardware manufacturer, they told me that ONLY THE ANTENNAS of a Wi-Gig connection for VR streaming (like the one of the Vive Pro) costs around $100… so how can the whole wireless streaming device cost just $50?? Other relevant news.

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The Ghost Howls

MAY 16, 2022

Even worse, Unity has lost -30% of its stock value. These huge losses have a similar origin to Meta’s ones: Apple’s new privacy policy on the stores has impacted the earnings through Unity ads. Unity is a very important company for many AR/VR creators, so this is not a good piece of news. Lenovo to launch a new MR headset.

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The Ghost Howls

JULY 13, 2021

Oculus plans to introduce in-app purchases to App Lab experiences. Oculus App Lab has been introduced by Facebook to give a way to indie developers to publish their applications for Quest without the need of passing Facebook’s strong store curation. Plus, the Netflix app has been in VR since the times of Gear VR/Oculus Go.

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Road to VR

NOVEMBER 3, 2021

In this article, I’ll share a summary of my impressions. One half of the office had desks where the software was tested, the other half of the room was full of hardware. I imagined this must have been like when Oculus just started out. So we reached out to Lynx to ask for a demo and they invited us to come over. Office Vibes.

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The Ghost Howls

JULY 16, 2020

Before starting, let’s make a recap of the previous article: what is SenseGlove? SenseGlove is currently producing its DK1 device , that can be used both with Vive systems (in this case, a Vive Tracker is attached to the gloves to provide the positional tracking) or Oculus systems (in this case, the Oculus Touch controllers are used).

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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

JUNE 16, 2020

Actually, I have been pretty disappointed because there has been no hardware launch , but my lack of sleep has been rewarded by the announcement of a new software platform by HTC and also by HTC publicly showcasing some prototypes I made in the last weeks. The full video is shown down in the article.

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The Ghost Howls

NOVEMBER 23, 2021

They are currently offering deals for Black Friday, so if you are reading this article close to when I published it, you can check out their offers here. The article Dejan has written is a big collection of tutorials, suggestions, and tips about developing applications that use hand tracking. That said, have a nice read!

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The Ghost Howls

AUGUST 22, 2020

I so asked some questions on Twitter to some people from the social media corporate and Chris Pruett , Director of Content Ecosystem at Oculus, has been so kind as to answer them. In case you were in vacations and you lost contact with VR this week, you may have lost the announcement of the new Facebook account policy for Oculus devices.

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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

SEPTEMBER 11, 2022

I had a lot of delays in writing this article (sorry Pico, sorry VR community), but I promise you that it will be deep and detailed… as you like the posts on my website. It is the same hardware as the Pico Neo 3 Pro, but with a different consumer-oriented runtime, which is being sold in limited quantities in selected European countries.

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The Ghost Howls

FEBRUARY 23, 2023

But in China, they are very famous, and now they are also organizing a big event about XR called FBEC with hosts from all the major VR companies (HTC, Unity, Alibaba, Huawei, etc…). Since Meta made the acquisition and took over Oculus, VRTUOLUO began to write original and in-depth articles on the XR industry.

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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. Bu t the outcome for these headsets is a bit different than expected. Let me tell you why.

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The Ghost Howls

OCTOBER 16, 2021

Pico has been a very smart company, and all these years it has been able to evolve from the mediocre Pico Neo 1, to the interesting Pico Neo 2, to arrive at the Pico Neo 3, that on paper, looks like a Chinese version of the Oculus Quest 2 , and it seems to have all the features to compete properly with this device. But is it really that good?

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 8, 2021

This is also confirmed by the Wired article, where the journalist states that he has been able to see the conference in preview before the general audience. HTC is teasing the launch of a new hardware. More info (HTC is going to launch a new hardware) More info (Second tweet from HTC) More info (Third tweet from HTC).

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AR Insider

JULY 16, 2021

These include video, social media, mobile apps, and games (just ask Unity). “Today, there are only about 18 percent of applications in VR stores such as Steam and Oculus which are free,” said Admix CEO Samuel Huber at an AWE EU event. Historical evidence also suggests that VR could follow a path towards ad monetization.

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Hypergrid Business

FEBRUARY 28, 2020

Although Unity 3D is undoubtedly the most common and trained standards for developing and deploying augmented and virtual reality application for both beginner or expert developer, it is cannot be employed for developing content for some headsets. You also give 5% of net revenues per quarter although its free to use.

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The Ghost Howls

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

I’m finally finding some time to write a few articles that I have left back from my journey to Silicon Valley to attend AWE US. It has been founded by Jeri Ellsworth , a former Valve employee that worked directly with Michael Abrash in the lab that was experimenting with AR and VR before Oculus was even a thing.

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The Ghost Howls

APRIL 5, 2021

The Oculus Quest 2 continues its march towards mainstream adoption. It wouldn’t be a normal week without some news about Facebook and/or the Oculus Quest. All in all, I found the article a nice read, but I don’t like that it looks very corporate and bleached out. Other relevant news.

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The Ghost Howls

JUNE 14, 2021

I found the news a bit worrisome because Facebook currently owns the most used hardware, and is acquiring all the studios creating the best content for the headsets. Do you remember that leaked email when Zuck told that he wanted to control all the technological stack Facebook works on and he wanted to acquire Unity?

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 21, 2021

The shape of the controllers is slightly different than the one of the Oculus Touch, though, and there is a ring that surrounds the wrist of the user. There is also “finger-tracking” a la Valve Index , but just for the thumb, index, and middle finger (so, it is more a la Oculus Touch). Discover some nice XR storytelling content.

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The Ghost Howls

APRIL 13, 2022

Let me explain everything you need to know in this article! Its latest headset, the Pico Neo 3 , was a very good Oculus Quest 2 clone , that also brought some innovations, like the DP Cable to connect it to the PC for a true PCVR experience. Pico enters consumer VR. People playing with Pico headsets (Image by Pico).

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ARVR

JULY 29, 2021

On the other hand, developers only have to write the code once and it will work on all devices (Oculus, Vive, HTC, Google Cardboard, etc.) Trending AR VR Articles: 1.How WebXR Examples WebXR Room I recently created this simple application using the WebXR Device API developed by Mozilla on the Unity video game engine.

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The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 1, 2019

” review of standalone headsets (you can find in other posts the ones related to Oculus Go and HTC Vive Focus ). There is everything you need, but not the same wonder that you have when you open the box of a product made by Oculus. it is bigger than the Oculus Go but smaller than the massive HTC Vive Focus.

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The Ghost Howls

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

He said that Facebook still believes in the tech and will continue investing a lot in it, and this delay may even be an advantage for FB : since Facebook was not a hardware company, the fact that VR will take longer than expected means that the company will have more time to learn about hardware manufacturing.

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