What’s cooking for virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) after the conclusion of 2018 edition of Las Vegas’ Ces? Nothing revolutionary, but a lot of news regardin improvements in existing products.

Htc updates the Vive

Htc, first of all, announced an updated release of its viewer Htc Vive, i.e. Htc Pro, that will have 3K definition (overcome from that of Pimax 4K, Pimax 5K and the next Pimax 8K VR headsets), an integrated audio, a SteamVR v2 tracking system, two front camera so that you can use it for AR and a better confort. Also controllers should be improved even if we still don’t know if they will be an evolution of the Vive Knukls or of the Vive Wands. Vive Pro will be on sale by the end of this quarter, while the bundle with controllers and the Lighthouse tracking system will be launched by the second quarter. By the third quarter should be on sale also a wireless adapter for the Vive Pro.

Oculus Rift lands in China

Oculus Rift announced a partnership with Chinese group XiaoMi for manufactoring Oculus Go. XiaoMi will launch a the same time an Oculus Go “clone” for the chinese market, based on the Mi VR platform, to be named Mi Standalone. In this way Oculus Rift (owned subsidiary of Facebook, which Bejing govenrment doesn’t like) will be able to finally land in China, a market from wich so far it has been excluded.

Google and Lenovo started a partnership

Google for its part has already started a partnership with Lenovo that will allow the chinese manufacturer to enter in the VR “standalone” headsets market with its model Lenovo Mirage Solo. This headset will use Google Worldsense technology to offer a 6 DOF tracking (but controllers will have just 3 degree of freedom).

Lenovo Mirage Solo is based on the Google’s Daydream smartphone an altough it weights more and at the moment has lower performances than an Htc Vive, it will have a price under 400 dollars when it will be on the market, by the end of the second quarter. Please note that Google and Lenovo partnership gives life also to a camera for 3D, 360 degree 4K camera, the Lenovo Mirage Camera, thanks to which you’ll be able to realise VR movies sharable on Youtube.

Intel NUC VR compatible

Among other “big names” at Ces 2018, Intel announced NUC8i7HVK, a compact micro-pc, carried out in cooperation with Amd, which allows to achieve VR experiences at 90 Fps. Beyond the use of i7 core series Cpu, NUC8i7HVK will use Radeon Vega M graphics card. NUC pcs have been used for many years by enterprises for instance to realise interactive kiosks: shall we see VR experiences increasingly common during trade fairs and events?

Hollywood likes Sansar

Last but not least: Linden Lab was at Ces 2018 to present the latest news about Sansar, particularly Ready Player One, a virtual location carried out in collaboration with Intel, Warner Bros and Htc which recreate the Aech garage you can see in the latest Steven Spielberg movie (“Ready Player One”, taken by the omonymous novel of Ernest Cline). This location will open officially March 30, 2018 at the debut of the movie all around the world; this is the second time Hollywood and Linden Lab cooperate, after the Star Wars memorabilia exhibition opened to mark the debut of “Star Wars the Last Jedi” and it shows as VR virtual worlds like Sansar can have an increasingy relevance in the area of advertising: if you are good in graphics, let start to study.

Of course these were not the only news at Ces 2018. If you wanna know more about these theme, please continue to follow Mondivirtuali.it, also through our account on Twitter and our fanpage on Facebook (but remember: Mondivirtuali is on Flickr, on Pinterest, on Scoop.it on Paper.li and also on Youtube too) and maybe subscribe our newsletter!