A blog about virtual reality, startup and stuff
It seems that in many countries of the world this weekend was Father’s Day… so my best greetings to all of you that are fathers! It’s curious that actually in Italy we celebrate this in March… but who cares, whenever is the day, it’s always good to celebrate our daddies 🙂 I’ll be very upfront with you: this week in XR has been very boring, so you won’t find super-news here below, but there are some interesting things that have happened in our ecosystem anyway. One of them is that I’ve become for the third year a judge of the VR Awards! Yay! I am very thankful for the trust that AIXR puts in me, and I can’t wait to begin the judging process.
There is a rumor that is circulating this week: Roblox may come to Meta Quest. I don’t know if it is true or only a rumor, but if it happens, this is huge news for virtual reality. The reason why I think that this news is super-important is two-sided:
If this happens, Meta should be very happy about this possibility. But it is also true that with Roblox coming to Quest, Horizon Worlds would have another fierce competitor stealing its users, after VRChat and Rec Room. We have no official confirmation of this news, apart from some rumors, and images like the one above, which seems to have been shared during an earnings call by Roblox. Anyway, I absolutely hope that this is happening, because it would be super-beneficial for the XR ecosystem. (Thanks Yves-Marie Poirier and Simptaro for the tip!)
More info (Roblox on Quest — Rumor n.1) More info (Roblox on Quest — Rumor n.2)
Mark Zuckerberg has announced that Meta will open a store for the Meta avatars. In this store, it will be possible to purchase new clothes for your Meta avatar, and use them at first on Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram, and in the future also in Virtual Reality. To start, you will be able to buy clothes for your digital self from important fashion brands like Balenciaga, Prada, and Thom Browne. I think that Meta’s vision is clear: start selling beautifications for the digital avatars in the Meta ecosystem, in the beginning just from important brands, to then open it to everyone and kickstart the content creation economy of the M-word. I think it’s an important move, because it shows how Meta is totally committed in having this new business model of the creators’ economy, alongside the one about ads.
More info (Meta Avatar Store / VR Scout) More info (Meta Avatar Store / TechCrunch)
Engage is one of the most appreciated virtual reality professional social ecosystems, and it is used a lot for enterprise meetings and presentations and for university lessons. Some months ago, the company behind it teased it was going to launch a virtual world, dubbed Oasis, that should have become “The Linkedin of the M-word”. This week, for the first time, we had a look at it. With a video on Youtube, the always amazing Chris Madsen introduced us to the spaces of this new virtual ecosystem. The name has changed and it is now called “Engage Link”, because after TPLink, Oculus Link, Looxid Link, and Pico Neo 3 Link, we needed something else with the name Link. For sure the name Link has been chosen because it reminds a bit “Linkedin”: if they wanted to become the new Reddit, it would have been “Engage Red”, or going this way, I can’t wait for the future products “Engage Tik”, or “Engage Face”, or “Engage Insta”. Jokes apart, in the video it is possible to see the graphics of the virtual world, which seems good, and the style of the world, which is very clean and corporate. Everything looks like a big serious city, divided into districts depending on the activities to perform: there is the ‘Central Plaza” which is the main hub; and ‘Enterprise Plaza’ and ‘Education Plaza’, where you can find portals to spaces where to perform corresponding activities. Everyone has also a personal apartment in this virtual world, where to host colleagues and friends for more private activities (e.g. parties). The idea is to create a virtual world where to create meaningful work connections and perform activities related to your work. The idea is conceptually interesting, and I’m curious to see how it has been developed because it has the potential of becoming the Linkedin of the future, but also the one of failing miserably because it’s too clunky or too early in time. Let’s see!
Meta is finally rolling out Horizon Worlds outside of North America. The social XR space is now coming to the UK, with the release to more countries in Europe to be expected later this summer. Meta has also added new moderation features to its social VR application, and it is now possible to avoid hearing what the people you don’t know are saying.
More info (Horizon Worlds lands in the UK) More info (New “garbling voices” feature)
The Tribeca Festival, which also featured a beautiful VR version on Museum Of Other Realities, has just finished. Three VR experiences have been awarded:
Compliments to all the winners, I can’t wait to try their experiences!
More info (VR edition of Tribeca Film Festival) More info (All the winners of Tribeca Film Festival)
One of the most shared news in our communities this week has been the research article “Quantifying the Effects of Working in VR for One Week”, which has proven that working in VR to do standard 2D tasks (e-mails, word, etc…) is less productive than doing this on a standard PC. The reasons are obvious: it is less comfortable, it may lead to nausea, the interface is clunkier, eyes get tired soon, etc… A huge “You don’t say”. But people seemed very surprised by it. VR is not ready to make people work 8 hours a day in it, yet. We need at least 2 new hardware versions in my opinion to reach that stage. I tried working with a Valve Index myself, and after 4 hours my head and eyes were tired. The day we can work in VR will come but in a few years.
A new version of the Quest runtime is rolling out, and it is bringing with it the very needed parental control tools, plus a beta fix for Oculus Link not working well on Windows 11. I am glad that Meta is working on the problems that the community has notified it about.
As every week, let me notify you the most interesting articles I have found about the M-word:
More info (McKinsey and Company’s report) More info (Kevin Geiger and Alvin Wang Graylin) More info (New World Notes on Web3 worlds)
You all know that Meta is doing this very interesting research about super-realistic avatars called Codec Avatars. Until now recording your face for such an avatar required to use a dedicated volumetric videos studio, while with the latest research experiment, you can perform the procedure just with a commercial iPhone. This is a great step forward for usability.
It is that time of the year again, and thanks to Steam Next Fest you can try for free the demos of some cool VR games that are going to be released in the next months!
More info (Green Hell — PC VR review) More info (Half-Life: Alyx “Levitation”) More info (Beat Saber Mixtape remix) More info (Demeo’s 4th episode) More info (Vail) More info (SuperNatural) More info (Puzzling Places) More info (Mothergunship Forge release) More info (Mothergunship Forge review) More info (Dark Souls VR Mod)
Road To VR has published one of his amazing behind-the-scenes articles about Moss Book 2
NVIDIA has presented on its blog another use case of enterprise collaboration in VR that uses 5G and cloud rendering
Ultraleap has added physics hands with realistic grip to its SDK
According to Valve News Network, Valve may be working on a new space exploration VR game
Part of your data on Tik Tok may still be accessible from China. You don’t say
Enea Le Fons’s consultancy services
My friend Enea Le Fons, the man behind the “30 days in VR” now offers consultancies with a first free chat available. If you want to exploit his long experience with VR and design, book a timeslot of his here below. Learn more
Participate in the AR/VR Survey and win prizes
I just got this from my friends at Slash Data: AR/VR creators, this survey is for you. Which tools and platforms are you using to build mind-bending creations? Take the survey to help the global community learn more about the skills and technologies necessary to succeed in 2022. The survey takes about 15 minutes and covers VR, AR, and mixed reality sectors. It’s available in English, Chinese (Simplified), Spanish, Vietnamese, and Russian. Just pick a language you’re most comfortable with. In return for your effort, you will enter prize draws for a chance to win $500 towards your AR/VR project, a $100 Amazon voucher, $30 Gumroad ebook of your choice, swag, and more. If you have a few extra minutes, promote the survey for a chance to win up to $1,000 USD in cash. The survey welcomes creators of all profiles: no-code, developers, students, hobbyists, and professionals. Take the survey before it closes, on August 4th. Learn more and participate
Lucas Rizzotto has invented THE FARTVERSE Funny link / 1 Funny link / 2
They got me in the first half, not gonna lie Funny link
VRChat in a nutshell Funny link
Valve Index I love you, Valve Index I hate you Funny link
Latest Meta’s concept of the metaverse reminds me something… Funny link
I think that with this news, the metaverse community has reached the lowest point ever. Funny link
Like last week, also this week in this final paragraph I won’t ask you to donate for my blog, but to the poor people that are facing the consequences of the war. Please donate to the Red Cross to handle the current humanitarian situation in Ukraine. I will leave you the link to do that below. Let me take a moment before to thank anyway all my Patreon donors for the support they give to me:
And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
(Header image from Bloxy News)
AR/VR developer, startupper, zombie killer. Sometimes I pretend I can blog, but actually I've no idea what I'm doing. I tried to change the world with my startup Immotionar, offering super-awesome full body virtual reality, but now the dream is over. But I'm not giving up: I've started an AR/VR agency called New Technology Walkers with which help you in realizing your XR dreams with our consultancies (Contact us if you need a project done!)
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Notify me of follow-up comments by email.
Notify me of new posts by email.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Donate for The Ghost Howls on Patreon! Scientific studies certify that if you donate for this blog on Patreon, your happiness will increase by 55%, your productivity by 32% and the average chance of meeting a Panda in your city by 77%. Never say no to Pandas, donate even $1 a month for this blog to keep it alive!