Road to VR

DECEMBER 9, 2020

The United States Federal Trade Commission today announced it has filed a lawsuit with the Washington, D.C. US District Court alleging anticompetitive practices that constitute an illegal monopoly on “personal social networking.” The Commission is seeking a remedy which includes spinning out Instagram and WhatsApp. Oculus, the company’s XR organization, is not directly mentioned in the suit, but it’s clear that the case’s outcome would have wide ranging repercussion

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VRScout

DECEMBER 9, 2020

One of the largest shopping center in the US is turning to AR to help keep shoppers safe during the holidays. With the holiday season finally upon us, Westfield shopping centers are hosting an interactive AR scavenger hunt designed to help spread some holiday joy while at the same time offering shoppers the chance to unlock serious savings with each AR experience they find.

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The Ghost Howls

DECEMBER 11, 2020

These weeks I have been pretty busy with the delivery of a project, and the delivery has culminated with a demo of the VR solution we have developed. Since the COVID is strong now in Italy, we thought that it could have been a good idea to use Cleanbox to sanitize the headsets that we used during the demo. Do you want to know my impressions from using Cleanbox for a day?

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AR Insider

DECEMBER 8, 2020

A s we approach a new year, it’s time for our annual ritual of synthesizing the lessons from the past twelve months and formulating the outlook for the next twelve. Notably, when kicking off this thought exercise, we realized that several of the topics look similar to last year. Though there are lots of developments and new insights, the topical containers that house those insights are beginning to coalesce into standard buckets.

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Speaker: Chris Paxton McMillin, President of D3 Training Solutions

To avoid awkward and sometimes disastrous learning content, instructional designers must use authentic translation in the right context to get optimal results. For example, even a simple phrase like “got milk” translates to “are you lactating” in Mexico. Can you imagine what a straight translation might do to your course? With over 317 million people in the US and over 6.7 billion potential customers in the world, personalizing training seems logical.

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ARPost

DECEMBER 8, 2020

Over the past decade, online gaming has exploded in popularity. Today, virtual reality promises to take online gaming to new heights as it delivers an immersive interactive experience to gamers around the world. VR companies are developing hardware: helmets, sensor gloves, hand controllers, and more. Game developers are increasingly writing software that uses the hardware to give players a more immersive in-game experience.

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Road to VR

DECEMBER 10, 2020

Today, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) announced it was initiating formal abuse proceedings against Facebook for its controversial policy of requiring new Oculus device owners to use a Facebook account. Germany’s Federal Cartel Office, the competent authority when it comes to regulating national competition, today announced that it’s opened an inquest to examine “the linkage between Oculus virtual reality products and the social network and Facebook pla

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Cats and VR

DECEMBER 8, 2020

Vertigo Games, the multi-platform VR publisher and developer best known for the platinum selling VR shooter Arizona Sunshine, announced today they have entered into a publishing partnership with Anotherway, a newly formed VR studio led by developers with roots at Microsoft Hololens and Activision, for the upcoming VR Air Guitar music game Unplugged.

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Slashgear

DECEMBER 10, 2020

The fact that the Oculus Quest 2 requires a Facebook account to use has been a point of contention for a lot of VR fans out there, and now it seems that governments are beginning to take notice. Today, Germany’s Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office), which is responsible for investigating and enforcing matters of competition law, announced that it has “initiated … Continue reading.

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VRScout

DECEMBER 8, 2020

Is all that memory really necessary? Well the holidays are just around the corner and what better present to give your family, friends, or even yourself than the Oculus Quest 2 standalone VR headset? Facebook’s followup to the Quest offers improved performance, better visuals, and a lighter, more comfortable design, all for a lower price than the original.

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With a rapidly changing economy, Avangrid Renewables looked to virtual reality to develop a standardized form of immersive training in order to onboard and upskill technicians faster than ever before.

Virtual Reality

Road to VR

DECEMBER 7, 2020

If you’re planning to pick up Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond when it launches this Friday, take note of both the required space and recommended specs. If you aren’t rolling in extra hard drive space, the upcoming launch of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond might necessitate some overdue Spring cleaning. While the final installation size of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond already sits at a huge 170GB, developer Respawn Entertainment advises you’ll need 340GB of free spac

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Hypergrid Business

DECEMBER 8, 2020

(Image courtesy Mursion.). Mursion , an immersive VR training platform focused on improving emotional intelligence in the workplace, announced that it closed $10 million in Series B funding led by Leeds Illuminate , a growth equity firm dedicated to partnering with high growth companies in education and workforce development. Mursion uses a combination of AI and live human interaction to create a safe training environment for practicing skill development such as emotional intelligence, adaptabil

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GizModo VR

DECEMBER 11, 2020

For the past few weeks, the COVID Tracking Project’s graphs have haunted my Twitter feed with growing regularity. If you, too, are online, then you’ve probably seen them. Read more.

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VRScout

DECEMBER 10, 2020

Computer vision and AR technology bring Mount Kilimanjaro to life in your living room. Google has partnered with Red Bull TV to launch a brand new AR-enhanced on-demand video experience following Canadian-born climber and paraglider pilot Will Gadd as he scales the legendary ice caps of Mount Kilimanjaro in an effort to show the devastating impact of climate change on the rapidly-changing environment.

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Speaker: Nik Gowing, Brenda Laurel, Sheridan Tatsuno, Archie Kasnet, and Bruce Armstrong Taylor

With 191 country signatories to the Paris Climate Agreement now hard at work in the race to zero carbon by 2050, much of the heavy lifting in ecosystem sustainability falls on the shoulders of the world's densely populated urban centers. This conversation considers how today's AI-enabled simulation media, such as AR/VR, can be effectively applied to accelerate learning, understanding, training, and solutions-modeling to sustainability planning and design.

Simulation

Road to VR

DECEMBER 9, 2020

Originally released on Macintosh in 1993, Myst immersed players in a first-person adventure that was truly ahead of its time, both visually and conceptually. Real-time 3D rendering was still in its infancy back then, so there was something unique about Myst’s rich pre-rendered environments and its simple (but effective) story, which was told across 2,500 point-and-click stills.

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Digital Trends

DECEMBER 7, 2020

Ghost’s quadruped bots are the scary older brother of every other dog robot you’ve ever seen. And with good reason. They’re shipping off to join the military.

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GizModo VR

DECEMBER 11, 2020

In May 2016, a student enrolled in a high-school in Shelbyville, Texas, consented to having his phone searched by one of the district’s school resource officers. Looking for evidence of a romantic relationship between the student and a teacher, the officer plugged the phone into a Cellebrite UFED to recover deleted… Read more.

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VRScout

DECEMBER 8, 2020

The grand prize winner will walk away with $20,000 USD. Over the course of four months (August 3rd to November 9th), applicants from nine different countries submitted a total of 145 works (59 in AR and 86 in VR) to the 2020 NEWVIEW Awards. This week event organizers The 2020 NEWVIEW Awards has listed their 25 finalists for immersive technology innovation; seven in AR and the remaining 18 in VR.

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Speaker: Richard Goring, Director at BrightCarbon

Remote meetings are here to stay - and many are BORING. If you are trying to engage your learners (or any audience), compelling content is critical. But trying to create stimulating content with the same tools you’ve always had is hard, right? Thankfully, wrong! Terrific tools in PowerPoint along with visual assets help you create the kind of dynamic content you need to capture your remote audience’s attention, with functions that allow for interactive sequences and navigation.

How To

Road to VR

DECEMBER 10, 2020

Superhot VR (2016), the VR adaptation of the popular time-warping beat ’em up game, just got a fresh update in time for the holidays. Coming alongside some quality of life patches, the update brings a few new features to all platforms that should get you back and punching at crystalline red dudes to your merry heart’s content. First, a look at the game’s free holiday DLC drop, appropriately called its ‘Boxing Day’ update.

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Digital Trends

DECEMBER 7, 2020

Future Macs will come with 32-core processors and 128-core graphics chips, marking an enormous power surge compared to the Intel processors it recently ditched.

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GizModo VR

DECEMBER 10, 2020

Pharmaceutical company AvKare issued a recall on Wednesday for two different medications after pills were inadvertently mixed during bottling, according to a new report from the FDA. The generic drugs being recalled are sildenafil, used to treat erectile dysfunction, and trazodone, an antidepressant and sedative.… Read more.

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VRScout

DECEMBER 7, 2020

You’ll need an RTX2080 and 160GB to get the most out of this WII epic. We’re just a few days away from the release of Oculus Studios and Respawn Entertainment’s ambitious WWII VR shooter, Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond , on Oculus and SteamVR headsets. Featuring a massive 50-mission campaign and fast-paced competitive multiplayer, Above and Beyond will have you traveling throughout war-torn Europe as you engage in large-scale VR battles across land, sea, and air.

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Speaker: Treion Muller, Chief Strategy Officer at ELB Learning

Since when has learning and development (L&D) become such a negative experience with its intended learners? Could it be because learners have been conditioned by very poor learning experiences over the past two decades, combined with the kinks of technological innovation? Or is it because learning has typically been designed as a one-size-fits-all solution, despite the fact that humans are not clones?

Technology

Road to VR

DECEMBER 11, 2020

Following the announcement in September that Facebook will discontinue the Rift product line in 2021 , it appears the company is gearing up for a final sendoff by offering its latest PC VR headset, Oculus Rift S, for just $300. Facebook launched Oculus Rift S back in March 2019 for $400, a price point built to appeal to consumers looking for a relatively cheap, relatively high-quality VR device, not to mention access to the platform’s exclusive titles such as Asgard’s Wrath (2019)

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Digital Trends

DECEMBER 9, 2020

As the year draws to a close, the Digital Trends editorial staff wanted to look back and highlight our favorite products of 2020. Here's the cream of the crop.

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GizModo VR

DECEMBER 11, 2020

On December 9, 1968, Douglas Engelbart and 17 other researchers from the Stanford Research Institute gave a 90-minute demo of groundbreaking technologies that provided a startlingly accurate glimpse of a future that was still decades away. One of those technologies was a computer interface navigated with a mouse: a… Read more.

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VRScout

DECEMBER 5, 2020

Early supporters receive a custom badge and additional VRC+ time. SocialVR platform VRChat this week introduced a paid subscription service on SteamVR headsets, offering fans of the immensely popular free-to-play multiplayer experience the chance to unlock additional upgrades while at the same time supporting the hard-working developers. For $9.99/month ($99.99/year) , subscribers unlock a variety of premium features designed to help set them apart from the tens of thousands of users occupying t

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Speaker: Micah Eppler, Account Executive for Rehearsal of eLearning Brothers

Did you know that companies such as Paychex, 3M, and Honeywell are getting better results by incorporating video-based practice and coaching within their L&D strategy? From sales pitches to soft skills, learners are becoming top performers by applying and validating knowledge transfer using the unique benefits of video. Whether used as a stand-alone application or integrated with a learning platform, video-based practice and coaching platforms give learners the ultimate opportunity to repeatedly

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