2021

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Social VR App ‘Rec Room’ Raises $145M Funding, Now Valued at $3.5B

Road to VR

Social VR platform Rec Room has sealed another big funding round to close out the year. The Seattle-based startup today announced it’s secured a new $145 million financing round, bringing the company’s total valuation to $3.5 billion. The funding round was led by Coatue Management, with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and Madrona Venture Group.

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A Big Update to ‘Bigscreen’ Boosts Room Sizes, Video Quality, & Quest Performance

Road to VR

Social VR hangout app Bigscreen just got a bunch of improvements in a new update available now. The update brings a range of enhancements across all supported headsets, including boosting room size to 15 people. Bigscreen is a social VR hangout app that lets users bring their PC into VR to share gaming, streaming, work or, well… anything else you can do on your PC, with friends.

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Unity’s Incredible Mixed Reality Demo is Coming to Quest in 2022

Road to VR

Earlier this year the Unity Labs team shared an incredible proof-of-concept mixed reality demo that shows the power of blending the real and virtual worlds together. Now the developers behind the project say you’ll be able to get your hands on the experiment on Quest sometime next year. At Facebook Connect at the end of October, the Unity Labs team revealed Unity Slices: Table , a proof-of-concept social mixed reality app that seamlessly connects people—both local and remote—into a shared

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Gabe Newell: Valve is Making “big investments” in New Headsets and Games

Road to VR

In a talk at an Auckland, New Zealand area high school back in May, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell revealed they’re making “big investments in new headsets and games,” something he hopes will prepare the company for a future of brain-computer interfaces (BCI). . Newell has been living in New Zealand for the past few months, which has been comparatively unaffected by COVID-19 due to strict measures in that country.

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The Future of eLearning in 2022: A Sensitive Eye for Authentic Translation and Localization

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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Sony Reveals VR Headset Prototype with Display Tech That Could Wind Up in PSVR 2

Road to VR

During an online showcase today, Sony revealed a VR headset prototype with a 4K OLED microdisplay. While it appears to be a wholly different project than the upcoming PSVR 2, the company says it expects the display itself to be “used in the entertainment field,” which could include other VR headsets. Today during the Sony Technology Day showcase the company highlighted new technology from across its various businesses.

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More Trending

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Oculus Quest 2 passthrough now works without boundaries

The Ghost Howls

Today I made two little big discoveries about the Oculus Quest 2 that together mean that you can use this headset as an AR device whenever and wherever you want. Let me explain everything to you! Yes, I’ve also made a video about this article… you choose if reading it or watching it! Guardian disabling is now persistent. The first discovery I made is that the setting about the Guardian disabling is now finally persistent.

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Why People Can't Stop Talking About Don't Look Up

GizModo VR

If you’ve spent even a minute on the internet this week, you have surely seen something about Don’t Look Up. The Adam McKay-directed flick is Netflix’s top movie. It’s also perhaps the top reason for people s g their pants online recently. Read more.

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Facebook changes its corporate branding to Meta

TechCrunch VR

Well, it’s official. After 17 years of being called Facebook, the social networking parent company behind Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus has a new name. Facebook’s corporate entity is now Meta. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg announced the change at the company’s AR/VR-focused Connect event, sharing that the new title captured more of the company’s core ambition: to build the metaverse. “To reflect who we are and what we hope to build, I am proud to annou

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The Intel 12th Gen Core i9-12900K Review: Hybrid Performance Brings Hybrid Complexity

Anand Tech

Today marks the official retail availability of Intel’s 12 th Generation Core processors, starting with the overclockable versions this side of the New Year, and the rest in 2022. These new processors are the first widescale launch of a hybrid processor design for mainstream Windows-based desktops using the underlying x86 architecture: Intel has created two types of core, a performance core and an efficiency core, to work together and provide the best of performance and low power in a sing

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How to Train Employees 65% Faster With Virtual Reality

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.

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I’ve paid for 5G for more than 2 years and it has been a complete waste of money

Digital Trends

I signed up for a 5G contract in 2019, and now, more than two years later and despite elaborate promises, I have not seen any benefit from it at all.

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HaptX Statement on Meta Microfluidic Glove Prototype

HaptX

Over the last decade, HaptX has pioneered the field of microfluidic haptic feedback. Our award-winning technology has been widely covered in the popular and technology press, and we’ve worked tirelessly to develop and promote the unique benefits of microfluidics as an approach to high-fidelity haptic feedback. With the longstanding dedication of our engineers, developers, and investors, we have also secured an industry-leading patent portfolio to protect our technology and products.

Haptic 101
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Previewing a Special Quest 2 Experience Featuring Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge at Downtown Disney® District at the Disneyland® Resort in Anaheim, California

Oculus

Meta Quest and ILMxLAB, Lucasfilm’s award-winning immersive entertainment studio, are offering a special Quest 2 preview of Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge coming.

Immersion 101
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Someone Spent $450K To Be Snoop Dogg’s Neighbor In The Metaverse

VRScout

How much would you pay to live next to your favorite celebrity in the metaverse? In case you’ve been living under a rock, NFTs are taking over the metaverse. At this point, it seems like everyone and their mother is investing in non-fungible tokens and cryptocurrency. This includes famed California rapper Snoop Dogg who—earlier this year—partnered with the blockchain-based 3D open-world game The Sandbox to launch his very own world inside the metaverse. ‘The Snoopverse

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AR/VR Simulations for Sustainable, Regenerative, Circular Cities

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.

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VR Metaverse ‘Horizon Worlds’ Now Open, Get Started Here

VRScout

Learn how to begin crafting your own worlds and experiences in Meta’s highly-anticipated VR social platform. When Meta’s Horizon (now called Horizon Worlds) launched as an invite-only beta last year, a small group of Quest users was permitted access to the ambitious social experience and given the tools to start building their own world, play games, create safe spaces for discussions, and make new friends.

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Rats Play ‘DOOM’ Using VR-Like System

VRScout

We’ve seen our fair share of bizarre VR experiments over the years, but this one might just take the cake. Last month, neuroengineer Viktor Tóth published an article entitled Rats in Doom in which he details a “VR” setup that automatically trains rodents to traverse 3D environments without the need for excessive restraints or any surgical procedures. “I built a VR setup for rodents from scratch and trained three rats in an automated fashion, without manual intervention, t

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Disney Wants To Create Its Own Metaverse

VRScout

The company’s massive collection of original IPs could make for the ultimate metaverse experience. To the metaverse and beyond! The Walt Disney Company has announced that they will be joining Mark Zuckerberg in creating their own branded metaverse by connecting the physical and digital worlds using Disney’s collection of IPs universe. This includes iconic characters like Buzz Lightyear and Princess Elsa to big franchises like Star Wars, Marvel, The Muppets, Disney Animation Studios,

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VR App ‘Hauntify MR’ Turns Your Home Into A Haunted House

VRScout

Collect mysterious artifacts scattered throughout your real-world environment while avoiding evil spirits. Available now on the Oculus (Meta) Quest 2 via SideQuest, Hauntify MR is a unique VR experience that utilizes the Quest’s Passthrough+ technology to transform your real-world environment into a mixed reality hellscape stalked by a horrifying evil spirit.

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Are You Still Watching? How to Create Engaging Presentations for Virtual Learning

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.

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The Creator Of ‘Pokémon Go’ Is Building Its Own AR Metaverse

VRScout

The company is making its Lightship Augmented Reality Developer Kit open to any and all developers. Niantic, the developer behind location-based AR games such as Pokémon Go and Pikmin Bloom , today announced that it will be making its Niantic Lightship Augmented Reality Developer Kit available to developers around the world in an effort to build its ever-growing AR metaverse.

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‘Cyberpunk 2077’ VR Mod Coming Next Month

VRScout

Step back into the role of V and explore Night City in immersive VR. Luke Ross, the creator behind popular VR mods for games like Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 , is bringing his talents to the world of Cyberpunk 2077. First reported by PC Gamer , Ross is currently in development of a new mod that will introduce full VR support to CD Projekt Red’s ambitious open-world RPG.

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Samsung Debuts Its New Augmented Reality Playgrounds

VRScout

Visitors can collaborate with others in real-time and contribute to existing structures using persistent AR elements. Samsung today announced Dreamground, a next-gen playground that combines physical structures with AR technology to immerse visitors in a one-of-a-kind digital environment. Here they can use their smartphone devices to explore physical artwork enhanced by AR visuals, floating portals leading to additional worlds, and a variety of on-screen animations. “Consumers want meaning

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‘VRChat’ Avatars Are Getting A Major Upgrade

VRScout

Who doesn’t love a good virtual head pat? This past April, VRChat hosted a developer stream during which the company revealed a new set of features on the way to its ever-growing social VR platform. The Avatar Dynamics system, as it’s referred to by the company, will introduce a wide range of avatar-to-avatar interactions designed to enhance your in-game experience without killing your framerate.

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Who C.A.R.E.S.!? How Learning Got Its Bad Rap & What We Can Do About It

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?

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Facebook’s Codec Avatars Look Almost Too Real

VRScout

These 3D human avatars are so realistic you can see the pores on the skin. During today’s Meta (formally Facebook) Connect Keynote event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg walked us through a series of major announcements detailing how the newly branded company is building towards its vision of the metaverse. During a conversation with Reality Labs Chief Science Officer Michael Abrash, Zuckerberg asked Abrash what it was going to take to put Meta on the path to becoming a metaverse company.

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‘Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time’ Now Fully Playable In VR

VRScout

A new mod brings the classic Nintendo 64 action-adventure game to PC VR headsets for the first time. One of the most iconic video games of all time is now available in VR thanks to a new mod by BrianMp16. This isn’t some 20-minute tech demo; it’s a fully playable Ocarina of Time VR game. You can play the entirety of the legendary campaign from start to finish, all from an immersive first-person perspective.

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BHaptics Announces $299 VR Haptic Gloves

VRScout

TactGlove is compatible with hand tracking systems like the Meta Quest and Leap Motion. Since its foundation in 2015, haptic technology company bHaptics has released several VR-ready haptic suits compatible with over 100 games and apps, from VR rhythm games like Beat Saber to action-adventure games like Half-Life: Alyx , with the list growing every day.

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Feature Film ‘We Met In Virtual Reality’ Shot Entirely In ‘VRChat’

VRScout

The experimental documentary showcases how social VR technology can affect our emotional and social relationships. We Met in Virtual Reality is a 90-minute feature documentary that tells the story of five different members of the VRChat community through their own voices as they navigated romance, friendships, and self-discovery in the virtual as well as the real world.

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The Key to Getting the Best Out of Video-Based Practice & Coaching

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