April, 2024

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Analysis: Meta opens up its walled garden to become the Android of XR

The Ghost Howls

Today a (positive) earthquake hit the virtual reality ecosystem: Meta has just opened up its walled garden, as a strategic move to expand its business in the virtual reality market. It has just authorized other VR OEMs to use its Quest operating system and blurred the lines between the Meta Quest Store and App Lab. Let me tell you everything about this massive news and also analyze with you why this has been a very good idea.

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Matt Miesnieks is back with ‘Dejavu’

AR Insider

It's dejavu for Matt Miesnieks who's back with a freshly minted company that launched at GDC 2024 as part of a16z‘s prestigious Speedrun accelerator cohort. AR Insider Editor at Large Emily Olman goes one-on-one with Miesnieks. This post appeared first on AR Insider.

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Meta is Opening Quest’s Operating System to Third-party Headsets, Marking a Massive Shift in Strategy

Road to VR

Today Meta made what is likely to be an industry-altering announcement: it plans to open up the Quest operating system to third-party device makers. Asus, Lenovo, and Xbox have been tapped to create new headsets built on the operating system which is being branded ‘Meta Horizon OS’ Meta has just made its biggest strategic move in the XR space since betting the farm on standalone headsets over PC VR.

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Glue Collaboration to Shut Down, Operating Firm Declares Bankruptcy

XR Today - Virtual Reality

As of April 8 2024, the company operating virtual reality immersive collaboration platform provider Glue declared bankruptcy under a decision by the District Court of Helsinki. The operating firm is selling assets, including the Glue platform. Unless a new company purchases the platform and continues its operation, Glue may shut down for good – “despite our best efforts to prevent this outcome, we were unable to find a timely solution,” the firm noted.

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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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No, Apple Didn't Just Dramatically Cut Vision Pro Production Due To Weak Demand

Upload VR

Headlines are circulating claiming Apple cut Vision Pro production by almost 50% due to weak demand. Here's why they're almost certainly false. The source of these articles is a new note from supply-chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has been reporting on Apple's supply chain for more than 10 years. Kuo's claims sometimes turn out to be true, but not always , and his latest contradicts not only what we know about Vision Pro production, but what Kuo himself said just a few months ago.

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Interview with Ekto VR about its magical shoes to walk in VR

The Ghost Howls

In my article about the craziest XR devices out there , I mentioned Ekto VR , the shoes that let you walk in real life to walk in virtual reality. After that article, Brad Factor, the CEO of EktoVR, contacted me to tell me that there have been a lot of updates in the device since the last time I tried them. I got very curious, so I proposed to him to have an interview so he could explain to me his product, his vision, and his company in general.

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Behind the Camera: Big Tech’s Silent War Over Spatial Computing

AR Insider

Seven of the ten largest companies in the world are racing to control what will become a foundational layer of the future of the internet: spatial computing. Nils Pihl breaks down the drivers and dynamics. This post appeared first on AR Insider.

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ASUS, Lenovo & Xbox Are All Making XR Headsets Running Meta’s New Third-party Friendly Operating System

Road to VR

Meta today announced it’s opening its operating system to third-parties , and has named three heavy weights that have pledged support for its newly renamed Meta Horizon OS: Asus, Lenovo, and Microsoft’s Xbox. In a blog post , Meta says it’s tapped ASUS’s Republic of Gamers to develop an “all-new performance gaming headset,” Lenovo to “develop mixed reality devices for productivity, learning, and entertainment,” and Xbox to create its own limited-edition

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Will VR Help NASA Put Humans on Mars?

XR Today - Virtual Reality

Recently, an exciting new use case emerged from the XR space. NASA reports that its astronauts are leveraging virtual reality headsets to explore a digital twin of the space station they will soon occupy. Moreover, the firm will train astronauts on the space station’s workflows via VR and allow designers to refine the station, therefore laying the groundwork for putting a person on Mars.

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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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Meta Rebranding Quest Software Horizon OS, Will Run On New Headsets From ASUS, Lenovo, More

Upload VR

Meta is rebranding its Quest software platform to Meta Horizon OS, and opening it up to third-party headset makers. Headsets running the platform will feature a "Built with Meta Horizon OS" sticker on the box. They'll have access to the same core software and platform services as Meta Quest headsets, including Meta's tracking and mixed reality technology and store.

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Wolf Territories rolls out speech-to-text to help the hearing impaired

Hypergrid Business

(Image courtesy Wolf Territories Grid.) In a move to make the virtual realm more inclusive, Wolf Territories Grid, announced the launch of its new speech-to-text function today, in order to improve the in-world experience for hard-of-hearing and deaf community members. With the commitment to ensure equal participation for all users, Wolf Territories Grid’s new speech-to-text feature will convert spoken words into written text in real time, breaking down communication barriers that have lon

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EXCLUSIVE: First details about Valve Deckard have been leaked

The Ghost Howls

In the last weeks, I’ve been able to speak with two Valve employees who revealed to me some important details about the upcoming standalone headset by Valve, codenamed Deckard. These employees spoke under the promise of anonymity (you can imagine why) and were able to tell me juicy details about the development of the headset. And wow, there are a few pieces of information that are really cool… I’ve got to know that the development of Deckard has been a bit troubled because the

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What’s Vision Pro’s Enterprise Play? Part II

AR Insider

Though Apple Vision Pro's polished marketing emphasizes consumer use cases – mostly immersive entertainment – practical adoption in early days is enterprise-weighted. We examine the evidence. This post appeared first on AR Insider.

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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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Oculus Founder Reacts to Horizon OS News: “Hopefully it isn’t too late”

Road to VR

Meta dropped a major announcement yesterday, saying it plans to allow select partners to build third-party headsets that will run Horizon OS (formerly Quest OS). The news is prompting significant discussion within the XR industry, including from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey. Here’s a quick primer for those of you who are newer to XR industry. What eventually became the ‘Quest’ headset and ‘Horizon OS’ platform from Meta started when the company bought a VR startup c

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Haptic Solution to Support XR Accessibility for the Visually Impaired

XR Today - Virtual Reality

This week, HaptX gained a Phase 1 Small Business Technology Transfer program grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, and National Eye Institute to advance research into using haptic solutions to provide accessible XR applications for visually impaired groups. HaptX Founder and CEO Jake Rubin added: Our research team will explore solutions that can significantly improve digital experiences for visually impaired people.

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Meta Partnering With Microsoft's Xbox To Make A "Limited Edition" Quest Headset

Upload VR

Meta is partnering with Microsoft's Xbox to create a "limited edition Meta Quest" headset. The announcement comes as Meta also announced it's rebranding the Quest software platform to Meta Horizon OS, and letting third-party hardware companies such as ASUS and Lenovo make headsets running it. Meta Horizon OS Will Run On Headsets From ASUS & Lenovo Meta is rebranding its Quest software platform Meta Horizon OS, and it will also run on new headsets from ASUS, Lenovo, and more.

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OpenSim hits new land, user highs

Hypergrid Business

The total land area on OpenSim’s public grids reached the equivalent of 138,831 standard regions this month, an all-time high — and the fourth month in a row that OpenSim land area has broken this record. That’s an increase of more than 5,000 regions since last month. The biggest gainer in terms of land area was OSgrid, which gained 2,655 new regions, taking the top slot back from Wolf Territories Grid.

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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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Environment understanding for mixed reality: why it is important and why it should improve

The Ghost Howls

These days I’m experimenting with the development of mixed reality applications , and on Quest I’ve so been playing around with environment understanding, seeing the good and the bad of Meta’s approach on this topic. In this article, I will explain to you where we are at, and what we have to change to make mixed reality truly useful.

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Apple Vision Pro: a Lesson in Customer Lifetime Value

AR Insider

Among all of the things that Apple Vision Pro is doing and demonstrating, a seldom-discussed matter of its customer support was revealed by AR Insider Editor-at-Large, Emily Olman. She unravels the tale. This post appeared first on AR Insider.

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Hands-on: Apple Upgrades Personas for True Face-to-face Chats on Vision Pro

Road to VR

Apple today released ‘Spatial Personas’ in public beta on Vision Pro. The newly upgraded avatar system can now bring people right into your room. We got an early look. Much has been said about Apple’s Persona avatar system for Vision Pro. Whether you find them uncanney or passable, one thing is certain: it’s the most photorealistic real-time avatar system built into any headset available today.

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Lenovo, Qualcomm Partner for AI-Ready XR Training

XR Today - Virtual Reality

VirtualSpeech, an immersive training solutions provider integrating genAI technology to make responsive and personalized enterprise training scenarios, recently announced that it is teaming up with Lenovo and Qualcomm to launch its VR service on the ThinkReality VRX headset and Snapdragon Spaces ecosystem. By integrating VirtualSpeech XR learning solutions onto the enterprise focus headset, the firm can reach a “significant milestone” in achieving global scalability of its product.

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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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Meta's AR/VR Division Sees 30% Quarterly Revenue Growth "Driven By Quest Headset Sales"

Upload VR

Meta's Reality Labs division's quarterly revenue grew 30% year-over-year in Q1 2024. Reality Labs is the division of Meta behind Quest headsets, the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, and research & development toward AR glasses and their neural wristband input device. In its Q1 2024 earnings call today Meta reported $440 million Reality Labs quarterly revenue, 30% higher than Q1 2023.

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JEDEC Extends DDR5 Memory Specification to 8800 MT/s, Adds Anti-Rowhammer Features

Anand Tech

When JEDEC released its DDR5 specification (JESD79) back in 2020, the standard setting organization defined precise specs for modules with speed bins of up to 6400 MT/s , while leaving the spec open to further expansions with faster memory as technology progressed. Now, a bit more than three-and-a-half years later, and the standards body and its members are gearing up to release a faster generation of DDR5 memory, which is being laid out in the newly updated JESD79-JC5 specification.

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How to make an Augmented Virtuality app for Quest in Unity

The Ghost Howls

A few days ago I posted this video on my social media channels where I poured some biscuits from a real-world biscuit box into my VR kitchen to have some breakfast: So tasty… The video got some interest from the community and some people asked me how I did it. Since I’m always favorable about sharing knowledge, let me tell you the secrets behind this application, so that you can do your augmented virtuality application for your Quest, too!

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7 Steps to Elevate Product Showrooms with VR

AR Insider

Among VR's growing list of enterprise use cases, enlivening product demonstrations continues to grow. How can it elevate product showrooms with immersive demos that boost product sales? This post appeared first on AR Insider.

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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