It’s time for some amazing VR news, isn’t it?

Top news of the week

(Image by Ars Technica)

The HTC Vive Cosmos may release soon for €799

Popular VR Youtuber Sebastian Ang has spotted two online stores (one from the Netherlands and the other from Germany) already listing the Vive Cosmos for €799. One of these pages indicates a shipping date of October, 4th. The pages have been already removed, of course, so this makes us think that they had been published by error. VR enthusiast GermanRifter has commented the news highlighting that a Chinese store has published the Cosmos product page as well, with a price of 4888¥ which would be between 750 and 800 € and release on 12th September.



We all know that the Vive Cosmos should release very soon since HTC revealed me that the release date would have been in Q3 2019 and Q3 ends at the end of the month. This is also confirmed by the fact that all these products pages are popping up: this usually happens when the release of a product is close.



The price seems to be €799 (it’s difficult that two websites publish the same wrong price at the same time…). It is not clear how it will translate in dollars… I guess between $699 and $799. The price is a bit less than the double of the Rift S, and puts the Cosmos between the HP Reverb and the Valve Index. The Cosmos seems so positioned as a prosumer device, and will have to prove its high quality, if it wants to gain market shares.



The Rift S is so the only second-gen device selling for less than $500, and I wonder if this will mean that it will completely dominate the consumer market in the end. A market where Oculus has almost no earning s from the hardware sales, though, so it’s a weird situation.

More info (Sebastian’s Tweet)

More info (Sebastian’s Tweet with answer by GermanRifter)

More info (Google Cache for Bestware shop page for Cosmos)

Other relevant news

(Image by Kura)

Kura teases second-gen AR glasses, but…

Last Monday, there has been some hype in some of the XR groups I’m in for the Kura glasses.



Kura is a little startup in California that is working on a pair of lightweight AR glasses. The optics of the company have been already praised by the popular journalist Robert Scoble and the XR innovator Noah Zerkin (the genius that is manufacturing the North Star headsets). Noah says that it has tried the glasses and have been astonished by them.



The first AR glass by Kura is dubbed Kura Gallium and it features stunning specifications like:

150° FOV;

Resolution in the range 4K-8K;

Very transparent screen.

The specs are like a dream, considering that no AR headset on the market is even close to these ones. They are obtained thanks to a new lens technology, that is “pinhole effect” optics, that features little mirrors scattered on the surface of the lenses that reflects on the eye the images created by the projectors. I know about this technology because I remember my friend Scott Hayden having tried some glasses using the same technology (LetinAR) at MWC 2019. LetinAR was able to obtain high resolution and high FOV for its glasses as well, but Scott also highlighted that there were some issues, like the pinholes being somewhat visible for the human eye.



Kura CEO Kelly Peng has announced the Gallium glasses on twitter, asking for feedback and help from the community. The weird thing is, I tried contacting her and her company in every possible way, but she never answered. The same has happened to our XR Ironman Tony Rogers. That’s pretty weird for a little company looking for visibility… so, until I read some hands-on from a reliable XR journalist, I will suspend my judgment on this technology.

More info (Kura Gallium product page)

More info (Noah Zerkin’s endorsement)

TiltFive is going to release its AR headset soon

While Kura aims at making us dream with the headset of the future, another company, TiltFive, has its feet very grounded on Earth and is going to release an AR headset focused on a single purpose (tabletop gaming), but very well suited on it.



TiltFive has been created by the people previously involved in CastAR and its CEO is Jeri Ellsworth. They have learned many lessons with the failed CastAR project and so now they are offering a glass focused on a niche, tabletop gaming, while they wait for the technology and the market to advance enough to make possible the realization of mainstream AR devices.



TiltFive system consists of a pair of glasses, a remote and a board . The user can wear the glasses, and see the board come to life with virtual elements, that can be commanded with the glasses. They aim at revolutionize tabletop gaming, offering to these games a new kind of realism thanks to augmented elements. Imagine D&D matches coming to life on your table!



The glasses feature vivid holograms and a wide field of view and this is possible to a special projection technology: the glasses don’t project the virtual images into the eyes of the user but project them onto the board, that is made in a special material that reflects them back towards the user. This means that these glasses can work only together with the board, but at the same time guarantees that the perceived depth of the hologram is perfect.



Tiltfive is launching a Kickstarter campaign on September, 15th. If you are into tabletop gaming, my advice is to support them!

More info (TiltFive hands-on)

More info (How TiltFive optics work)

Facebook expands its research on hyper-realistic avatars

Do you remember that Facebook is working on hyper-realistic avatars, that not only have an appearance very similar to the one of the user, but that can also simulate exactly his/her facial expressions?



Well, it seems that the research is going on, and Facebook has detailed how it is able to emulate the facial expressions of the user, even if the face is covered by the headset. This is possible thanks to three cameras installed on (and in) the headset, that match the current visuals with a model trained with another special headset, that instead has nine embedded cameras.



The results are astonishing because the movements of the face appear almost natural. The pity is that this technology still requires a long preparation step for each user, where his/her face gets scanned volumetrically. So, it is not something for the present, but more for the future.

More info

Internal iOS 13 code seems to point at Apple AR glasses

It is not a secret that Apple is working on a pair of AR glasses (even if someone still thinks that the project has been abandoned). What we don’t know is what Apple is creating and when it will be released.



According to MacRumors, internal builds of the iOS 13 operating systems already contain references to AR functionalities and AR glasses. The OS seems ready to work with a connected AR device, and in fact, it is rumored that the first Apple glasses will work connected to the iPhone.



MacRumors report references to Starboard, that seems the menu to start the applications in augmented reality (Springboard is the name of the home screen of iPhone devices, as Upload reminds us). There is also an AR test application that can run in two modes: “worn” and “held”, even if it is not clear what these names mean.



It is intriguing that there are various references to and AR device dubbed “ Garta ”. This may be Apple codename for its AR glasses or just the name of an AR prototype. Who knows.



The sure news is, Apple is working full steam ahead on creating its AR glasses.

More info (MacRumors original article)

More info (Upload VR explanation)

Internal code of Valve The Lab reveals a Half Life VR game

Continuing the speculations based on souce codes of applications, Valve News Network reported that in the source code of the latest update to Valve’s The Lab, there are various references to what seems a Half Life VR game, codenamed “Project Shooter”.



Tyler of VNN has decompiled the Unity code of The Lab (something that is pretty easy to do) and in the DLLs has found all the code of a shooter game that features various characters from Half Life . Of course, this has created an enormous hype, since we all know that Valve has to release a flagship VR game this year and all the rumors aim at a Half Life VR one.



But as Tyler suggests (and I personally agree), it’s highly improbable that what has been found in The Lab’s DLL is the code of this game, for these reasons:

People at Valve are not stupid , and are not including such a precious code in a way that everyone can find it (it is more probable that they wanted us to find it so that to raise the hype);

, and are not including such a precious code in a way that everyone can find it (it is more probable that they wanted us to find it so that to raise the hype); Valve doesn’t develop in Unity, but only prototypes in it. It is highly probable that an HLVR game will be developed in the Source game engine, so a Unity game is not a possibility.

I think that the possibilities are so two:

It’s the code of an old prototype of the HLVR game, maybe left there on purpose so that to raise the hype; It’s the code of an HLVR minigame in The Lab that will be released after the release of the flagship game.

We’ll see. For now, it would be amazing if some developer could take that decompiled code and make it work…



In the meantime, this week Valve developer Kerry Davis should talk at Digipen about its experience developing a flagship VR game for Valve. I don’t expect an announcement there, but even some little teased info would be nice 😉

More info (Project Shooter news)

More info (Kerry Davis)

News worth a mention

The “Cablegate” is hurting Oculus Rift CV1 owners

If you have an original Rift CV1 (like me), it seems that you have to worry a lot about your HDMI cable. Some Redditors have tried to buy a new cable to substitute a broken old one and Oculus told them that CV1 accessories are not on sale anymore, so the only possibility is buying a refurbished CV1 headset. If your headset is still in warranty, the cable will be substituted (even if some Redditors had problems even with headsets in warranty), otherwise, you are SOL (S*it Out of Luck).



After the “Cablegate” has become pretty popular, Oculus stated that is thinking about solutions on how to solve this problem, but nothing has been announced until today. For sure, it’s been a weird decision the one of stopping producing the accessories of the Rift CV1 so fast, considering that it has been removed from the market only some months ago. It is a nonsense that people have to buy a new headset just because a cable is not working anymore. I hope that they will find a solution, even if it involves refurbished cables or something like that.

More info (One of the many reddit posts on the topic)

More info (Upload VR article on the topic)

Ubisoft abandons Space Junkies, but starts working on an AAA VR game

After having just updated its multiplayer VR shooter Space Junkies, Ubisoft has announced that the development of the game is over, and has also scrapped completely its plans for a non-VR version. The servers will remain online (I wonder for how much time) but the project appears to be abandoned.



While this is bad news, there is also a good one. Ubisoft is in a hiring-spree to create a team of 50 people working on an undisclosed AAA VR game about one of its important IPs. Most probably it will be a game about Splinter Cell or Assassin’s Creed made as an exclusive title for Oculus, as some earlier rumors seem to point. 50 people for Ubisoft is not a big team (a friend in the [GDI] VIRTUAL REALITY facebook community commented the news with “Ubisoft with 50 people makes Tetris” 😀 😀 :D), but it is a big team for the current standards of virtual reality, whose market is mostly made of little indie teams. So, that’s good news, especially if this means that franchises like Splinter Cell come to VR!

More info (Space Junkies closed)

More info (Ubisoft AAA VR team)

More info (Ubisoft AAA VR team)

Venice Film festival has come to an end

La Biennale del Cinema di Venezia has finished two days ago and the winners have been announced. For the VR categories, they have been:

Best Virtual Reality: “The Key”, Céline Tricart

Best Virtual Reality Experience: “A Linha”, Ricardo Laganaro

Best Virtual Reality Story: “Daughters of Chibok”, Joel Kachi Benson

This year’s edition offered many high-quality productions, and other VR creations were worth an award, like for instance Loveseat.



If you like XR storytelling, you will be happy to know that on VRRoom XR app you can watch 6 of the experiences presented at Venice for free until October.

More info (Highlights of Venice Film Festival)

More info (Article on VR at Venice Film Festival)

More info (Article on Loveseat)

More info (XR movies on VRRoom app)

More info (Venice VR Awards winners)

There is a place where there are listed all Oculus apps featuring cross-buy

Road To VR has been able to find a page with a list of all games featuring cross-buy between Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift.

More info (Oculus cross-buy games list)

Latest Steam survey still highlights Oculus domination of the consumer market

In the latest hardware survey, Oculus still owns around 50% of the headset market among Steam users. It is also interesting to notice that the Rift S has already sold more devices than all WMR headsets combined and this once more highlights how this platform has been a failure. The Valve Index is around 3–4% of the whole market.



It is more interesting to notice, in my opinion, that currently on Amazon US the Oculus Quest is selling better than the Nintendo Switch. Once more, this proves how this headset is being a great success.

More info (Steam Hardware Survey)

More info (Quest selling more than Switch)

Some news on VR gaming and apps

As always, let me do also a quick recap on some interesting news on VR gaming experiences from this week:

AltspaceVR is finally arriving on the Oculus Quest on September, 12th;

on September, 12th; Low-Fi , the game promising a high-quality cyberpunk VR open world, has been immediately funded on Kickstarter ;

, the game promising a high-quality cyberpunk VR open world, ; Upload has gone hands-one with Stormland co-op multiplayer and loved it;

Spice and Wolf VR seems a disappointing non-interactive anime experience ;

; Afterlife seems to bring new ideas on VR storytelling, with a branch narrative made all with recorded videos;

Nostos openworld seems to have a UX that is more suitable to a flat destop than to a VR headset.

More info (Altspace VR on Quest)

More info (Low-fi funded on Kickstarter)

More info (Hands-on with Low-fi)

More info (Hands-on with Stormland Co-op)

More info (Hands-on with Spice and Wolf VR)

More info (Afterlife)

More info (Nostos UX problems)

VRX has released its report on the VR market

Data from theVR Intelligence 2019 report highlight that:

Always more XR companies are investing in offering enterprise solutions and not consumer ones;

and not consumer ones; XR software providers are investing less in gaming in this year (shifting to enterprise);

(shifting to enterprise); Almost all (98.6%) of enterprise users said that they were at least considering investing more into XR in the next few year ;

; Product design and prototyping was the most common area of usage for enterprise end users , with more than 96% deploying VR to help the process, followed by workforce/project collaboration (93.4%), educational learning (89.7%), training/worker guidance (89.7%), sales & marketing/external communication (84.2%) and manufacturing (81.1%)

, with more than 96% deploying VR to help the process, followed by workforce/project collaboration (93.4%), educational learning (89.7%), training/worker guidance (89.7%), sales & marketing/external communication (84.2%) and manufacturing (81.1%) Consumer entertainment content creators in the XR space continue to find value in XR. Among this segment 75.9% reported that VR had had a very or somewhat positive impact on their business and 72.3% said the same for AR/MR

More info (Download the full report for free)

Lenovo releases Marvel AR game

Do you remember the Lenovo smartphone AR headset through which you could play a Star-Wars-themed game? Well, it seems that Lenovo is finally releasing a new game for it, this time in the Marvel universe. And thanks to new just released controllers, you can also use your both hands in the game.



The price of the full kit is $249 and it includes the plastic AR cardboard, the controllers and the games. If you have already the Mirage AR headset, in the future you will be able to buy only the controllers, but the price of the upgrade kit has not been revealed yet (even if in the beginning some articles reported a $99 price tag).

More info (Marvel Dimension of Heroes game)

More info (Snapshot of the article showing the $99 price tag)

Sensor Tower reveals some data about mobile AR games

Mobile market research firm Sensor Tower has released some interesting news on mobile “AR” games. I put AR on quotes because we are talking about the Pokemon Go clones, where AR is just a little part of the game.



It seems that “Harry Potter: Wizards Unite”, even if highly disappointing, has been the second-highest-grossing game in the first month of the category, having made $12M in the first month after launch.



What has surprised me even more, is that actually in the latest month, the second highest-grossing game, in general, has been “Let’s Hunt Monsters”. If your reaction has been “WTF is that” (mine has been that one), well, it is Tencent’s Chinese clone of Pokemon Go, that exploiting the big Chinese market has grossed $52M only on iPhones in the last month.



(Thanks Tom Emrich for the tip)

More info (Harry Potter: Wizards Unite performances)

More info (Let’s Hunt Monsters)

ARKit 3 allow the creation of full-body filters

Look at these wonderful creations made exploiting the full body tracking offered by ARKit 3.

More info (Video 1)

More info (Video 2)

Some XR fun

Just another Beat Saber gameplay video

Funny link

Inverse augmented reality is the best idea we were all waiting for

Funny link

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