The Ghost Howls

APRIL 22, 2024

And it didn’t end very well: the first headset was made by HTC and Valve, and as soon as HTC realized that much of the VR money was on software, it launched its own store: Viveport. The only other example we had in XR of a software platform working on all headsets has been SteamVR.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 21, 2021

More info (FRL Official blog post) More info (Road To VR reporting and commenting the news) More info (Ctrl+Labs’s Dino Game Early Demo) More info (ETH’s experimental wristband). As it had promised on my blog last year , its cool Nreal Light AR glasses have finally arrived in Europe. Image by Microsoft). News worth a mention.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 13, 2023

I’ve very limited time, but luckily this week has not been very relevant for the ecosystem, so I’m managing to write this newsletter anyway Top news of the week (Image by Microsoft) AltspaceVR shuts down In one of the saddest moments of the latest years in VR, AltspaceVR has closed its doors.

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The Ghost Howls

OCTOBER 19, 2021

Image by HTC). HTC launches Vive Flow headset for relaxation, priced at $499. After endless teasings and leaks, in the end, HTC has finally unveiled its headset: called Vive Flow, it is a lightweight device for media consumption. I send you good vibes so things go well for you too! Top news of the week. Other relevant news.

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The Ghost Howls

NOVEMBER 9, 2020

Image by Microsoft). Microsoft ramps up distribution of HoloLens 2 and Kinect For Azure. Microsoft is working to improve the distribution of its latest devices: HoloLens 2 and Kinect For Azure. More info (Unboxing video on Upload VR). HTC Vive celebrates the holidays giving 100% rev share to developers.

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The Ghost Howls

MAY 25, 2020

OMG, it’s almost 3 years that I write these roundups… the first week peek was exclusive for my blog subscribers and it featured as best news the release of Google Blocks and in the other news something about Samsung Gear VR… how much time has passed since then! This is the 150th Week Peek! Apple Glasses may release in 2021 for $499.

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The Ghost Howls

AUGUST 24, 2020

You can imagine that after it has been released through two official blog posts, an enormous backlash from the community started to happen. 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. The same on Twitter.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 16, 2020

And if you need some pieces of advice regarding how to professionally survive this quarantine, I have written a blog post on the topic you can read. This means mainly two things: Livestreams and blog posts where the companies make the announcements that they would have made during the event.

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The Ghost Howls

APRIL 5, 2021

So it seems that the user will be able to see the videos he/she is recording, with the actual AR filters already applied in real-time. Microsoft signs a $22B deal with the US Army. It seems that this test has been a success, and so now Microsoft has won now a bigger contract to carry on the project: $21.88B (!!)

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The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 5, 2020

But as far as I know, nothing disruptive for the industry : Oculus has already shots all its bullets, and HTC for the first time isn’t announcing anything. HTC is celebrating the new year with a $100 discount on the Vive Cosmos running from 1th to 10th of January. Microsoft SharePoint Spaces to launch in the first half of 2020.

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ARPost

FEBRUARY 6, 2023

See Also: Redefining the Future of Location-Based Entertainment With HTC VIVE Focus 3 and The Park Playground “Virtual reality is often perceived as being limited to the world of gaming. We’re already seeing key metaverse players coming together in the collaboration between Meta and Microsoft.

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The Ghost Howls

JULY 14, 2019

All the other major companies (Samsung, Huawei, etc…) are working on AR and Apple for sure can’t stop experimenting with if it doesn’t want to miss the next communication platform as Microsoft did with Windows Phone. And after having seen the new video announcing the beta, I am even more convinced of it.

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The Ghost Howls

AUGUST 3, 2020

If you want to watch it, it’s a very interesting 2-hour-long video and you can find it here [link] together with a summary of the key points he said. Some time ago, the most important companies of the XR ecosystem (HTC, Oculus, Microsoft, etc…) joined the Khronos Group to discuss a standard to end the fragmentation of the XR space.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 2, 2020

This means having AR and VR on the same device ; A 5G modem ; 8K videos playback at 60fps; Accelerated AI so that to be able to perform objects recognition and other cool stuff on the camera feed. The only company not much affected by it is HTC, that manufacturers its headsets in Taiwan and not in Mainland China.

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XR Today - Augmented Reality tag

APRIL 4, 2024

In a recent blog post highlighting the firm’s ten-year immersive journey, the company teased that new smart glasses are incoming. During the blog post, Meta notes that a new AR device is coming that combines AR and AI in more sophisticated ways. Initially, Meta remained the key leading champion in the XR space.

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The Ghost Howls

NOVEMBER 21, 2023

The past week has been a pretty interesting one for the tech world: between Microsoft Ignite, Unity Unite, and the OpenAI drama, there has been a lot to follow. I’ll try to summarize all of that, especially for what concerns the announcements related to our XR space.

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The Ghost Howls

APRIL 27, 2020

With a long post on Magic Leap’s blog, in the end Rony Abovitz has admitted that the company is not going that well, and has announced a new course, that should eventually lead to Magic Leap 2. The blog post is full of the usual fluff: it could have been written in 10 lines instead of a big wall of text. Top news of the week.

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Peter Graham

JULY 25, 2019

Ever since the launch of Firefox Reality by Mozilla last year the company has been gradually scaling up the project by adding new features and support of devices like Microsoft’s HoloLens 2. This addition is expected this summer.

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The Ghost Howls

JANUARY 11, 2022

As it is a tradition of this blog , I’ve prepared a big roundup of the best news in XR from this year’s CES! HTC Vive Wrist Tracker. HTC Vive Wrist Tracker (Image by HTC). HTC has made an announcement at this CES and it has been a pretty cool one. Further references. Shiftall MeganeX.

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The Ghost Howls

MAY 17, 2021

Image by HTC Vive). HTC launches Vive Focus 3 and Vive Pro 2. In the end, the rumors were correct and HTC launched two headsets at VIVECON: the Vive Pro 2 and the Vive Focus 3 Business Edition. But this device got also some criticism: first of all , HTC has not released new controllers and still sells it with the old Wands.

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The Ghost Howls

JULY 27, 2020

Sports events can’t have the audience anymore, and now NBA has partnered with Microsoft so that big screens next to NBA matches will show people connected with Microsoft Teams that will watch the match and comment it , to let the players feel less alone. Keeping a blog requires a lot of effort, a lot of time and also some money.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 28, 2022

This week we had a full reveal of the headset, the controller, and the computational unit in a video that reveals all their external details. HTC adds more parental control tools to its headsets. Microsoft and Nreal have developed a very interesting research project to help blind children in speaking with people around them.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 27, 2023

Ok, of course, I’m kidding, but, you know, the possibility of saying the wrong name is so high that my proposal actually starts making sense… Top news of the week (Image by HTC Vive) HTC reveals inside-out-tracked Tracker With a totally unexpected move, HTC has revealed a new kind of Tracker.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 26, 2018

HTC has finally revealed the price of the Vive Pro : it will cost $799 just to have the headset (no controller and no base stations, so you must already have a Vive 1 kit) and will be available for pre-orders since April, 5th. But, as Road To VR has stated, maybe HTC should have clarified that in all its marketing material.

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Road to VR

NOVEMBER 20, 2017

Pixvana, a Seattle-based startup creating a cloud-based processing and delivery platform for VR video, today announced a $14 million Series A funding round led by Vulcan Capital with participation from Raine Ventures, Microsoft Ventures, Cisco Investments and Hearst Ventures, and existing investor Madrona Venture Group.

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The Ghost Howls

JUNE 7, 2021

Just to make you understand how much money this could mean, my reader Sir Gamedev has sent me a link where one of the previous Xbox executives has revealed that the initial undercost sales of the first Xbox units cost Microsoft between $5B and $7B. More info (HTC Vive Pro 2 review) More info (HTC Vive Pro 2 review?—?cached

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Digitalnauts

NOVEMBER 16, 2021

Among such are HTC Vive and Oculus Rift headsets. . The most famous example being Microsoft Hololens. . In summary, the experiences that overlay graphics on video streams of the physical world are Augmented Reality. Source: Microsoft “What is Mixed Reality” [link]. SOME EXAMPLES OF VR APPLICATIONS. SMART GLASSES.

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The Ghost Howls

OCTOBER 2, 2023

Instead of showing people how the “metaverse” is now with very rough images (that easily become memes) or how it may be in the future with some fluffy videos, Zuck has used the best technologies from the Meta R&D department: Meta’s Codec Avatars. So this version is still meant to take photos, videos, and have phone calls.

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XR for Business Podcast

DECEMBER 18, 2019

Dean: Yeah, I was sort of a traditional newspaper and magazine journalist for a long time, and then, when the web came along and people started podcasting and blogging, I looked around and felt like it was less of a risk to go try something new than it was to stay at a newspaper. Alan: HTC’s got their enterprise division.

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XR for Business Podcast

DECEMBER 18, 2019

Dean: Yeah, I was sort of a traditional newspaper and magazine journalist for a long time, and then, when the web came along and people started podcasting and blogging, I looked around and felt like it was less of a risk to go try something new than it was to stay at a newspaper. Alan: HTC’s got their enterprise division.

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XR for Business Podcast

DECEMBER 18, 2019

Dean: Yeah, I was sort of a traditional newspaper and magazine journalist for a long time, and then, when the web came along and people started podcasting and blogging, I looked around and felt like it was less of a risk to go try something new than it was to stay at a newspaper. So we're still one of the last, larger independent tech blogs.

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XR for Business Podcast

DECEMBER 18, 2019

Dean: Yeah, I was sort of a traditional newspaper and magazine journalist for a long time, and then, when the web came along and people started podcasting and blogging, I looked around and felt like it was less of a risk to go try something new than it was to stay at a newspaper. Alan: HTC’s got their enterprise division.

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The Ghost Howls

OCTOBER 5, 2020

More info (Reddit post explaining how to do AR with the Index) More info (Video showing AR on the Index) More info (MetaChromium on Steam). Google tried again to make its platform revive with the Mirage Solo , but even this headset has never been successful , and the HTC Vive Focus and the Oculus Quest took the standalone market in its place.

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The Ghost Howls

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

I’m sorry about that, but it’s still a miracle I’ve managed to write it… Top news of the week (Leaked image from Samsung video) Samsung is back to XR with Google and Qualcomm The big news of the week is that Samsung is back to XR. Don’t miss them! Learn more Hand tracking is now available also in three.js

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The Ghost Howls

JUNE 27, 2022

For every one of the four main themes, a headset solving it has been shown in the video. This has been also confirmed by TESTED, which has been able to go hands-on with the headset and offer a very meaningful video about them (which I advise you all to watch). NVIDIA Blog). Image by HTC Vive). News worth a mention.

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 6, 2020

Skype vs VR: 2D video is ok most of the times. A video chat of a group of three friends over Skype (Image by Microsoft). For instance, when I organized my blog birthday party over Mozilla Hubs , half of the people had problems joining it (mic not working, the system refusing them to connect, etc…).

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The Ghost Howls

MARCH 31, 2021

Today I host a new article of the amazing Rob Cole, passionate maker and ergonomics expert from Immersion Mechanics , already the author of amazing posts on this blog, especially about the ergonomics of the Valve Index. It’s designed for use with HTC Vive and Vive Pro, Valve Index, and Pimax headsets. Image provided by Rob Cole).

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