This week’s update is surprisingly long, given the coming election on Tuesday which will reach fever pitch this weekend. Everyone seems to be rushing to get the news out before the election eats everything. Hopefully the divisions of the election will, like Y2K, quickly fade away allowing us to get back to our regularly scheduled lives. Fortunately, the Mandalorian and his ward, baby Yoda, are back on Disney+ tonight. And there’s Halloween treats to be had in VR. Meanwhile, money.
Whoop device is coupled with a personalized monthly subscription service.
Fitness Wearable WHOOP Raises $100M From Backers Like Durant, Mahomes. might have been a lot of money before Google acquired Fitbit for $ 2.1 billion. The Boston-based wearable training company had previously garnered $200 million.
Computer vision is turning low skilled workers into high skilled workers with on-the-fly computer ... [+]
TechSee closed a $30 million investment for its intelligent visual assistance applications. The round was led by OurCrowd, Salesforce Ventures, and Telus Ventures. TechSee uses smartphone based AR and computer vision to recognize products and allow remote experts to walk users through physical troubleshooting.
Real people, virtual game. Could be a thing.
Tilt Five raises $7.5 million for its AR glasses built for tabletop games. Tilt Five ran a successful Kickstarter campaign a year ago raising $1.7 million. While COVID delayed the shipping of the first Tilt Five units targeted for this year, the interest in Tilt Five has continued to grow during the pandemic. Tilt Five is aiming to ship to pre-orderers and kickstarter backers in the next two quarters.
Quest 2 pre-orders outpaced the original Quest pre-orders by more than 5x, and Facebook AR is incoming. The exact numbers weren’t revealed during Facebook’s recent earnings call. The FAANG companies hit it out of the park. During the call management reported progress on Facebook’s AR efforts. Facebook is partnering with Luxottica, the maker of Ray-Ban and Oakley, to launch their first smart glasses sometime next year. Not a moment too soon as it appears the FB flagship is losing users. It does feel like the cluttered old Internet. Just saying.
Can this upstart disrupted the HP Reverb before it's been released?
New VR headset DecaGear revealed by recently unstealthed startup. The new headset, set to launch in May 2021, sports impressive specs at a $450 price tag. In addition to displays matching HP Reverb G2’s 4.6MP, the DecaGear reportedly sports facial tracking, controllers with finger tracking, a hip tracker, and a $50 wireless streaming addon. Given that this is a newer startup, it’s unknown whether or not the company will deliver on all these features for the price tag.
Reactiv SUITE from Vizetto launched this week. Users can interact with and manipulate everything on a shared digital table which takes screen sharing to the next level, allowing documents and interactive whiteboards to be shared across desktop and mobile platforms.
According to SuperData, digital games earned $10.7B in September 2020, up 13% year-over-year. Games earned more across all platform types than during the same period in 2019. Mobile revenue was up 9%, PC rose by 8% and console earnings increased 38% as major fall titles began to hit the market.
Cruise working hard to make driverless autonomous ride sharing a reality. The company, owned by GM, is pushing for an exemption from the federal government’s rules that vehicles must have steering wheels and pedals. Their Origin vehicle has four inward facing seats and no steering wheel or pedals since it runs entirely autonomously.
The resolutions possible with the new OLED technology could lead to VR displays with zero screen ... [+]
Samsung and Stanford developed a 10,000 pixels per inch OLED display. The resolutions possible with the new OLED technology could lead to VR displays with zero screen door effect or noticeable pixels. While there’s no timeframe on when the technology will reach consumers, Samsung is currently working on using the new OLED tech in a full sized display.
Custom Home Mapper shows how untethered VR games can adapt to physical locations. The new game, or collection of mini games, is available on the Oculus Quest and Quest 2 for $7.99. Players map out their physical space, both walls and furniture, which the game turns into levels for its various arcade style games. Whether you’re in a tiny apartment or a large home, you can play untethered and without a guardian system stopping your moves.
The XR Association added a new “Inclusive and Accessible Software Designs for XR” chapter to its XR Developers’ Guide. The chapter provides guidance on developing inclusive platforms accessible to users of all abilities and can be found on the XRA’s website here.
Epic Games hosting event to showcase Unreal Engine being used in the film industry. The event takes place online on Tuesday, November 10 kicking off at 9AM PST/12PM EST/5PM GMT. More information on the Unreal Engine website here.
This Week in XR is now a podcast hosted by Paramount’s Futurist Ted Schilowitz. You can find it on podcasting platforms Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.
