GenVR

Report Claims Apple AR-VR Headset Uses iPhone/iPad/Mac For Advanced Features

September 15, 2021 From uploadvr

Apple’s rumored upcoming headset will require a host device for full functionality, The Information reports.

The Information, Bloomberg and analyst Ming-Chi Kuo all claim Apple will release a sleek AR-VR headset as early as 2022 with high resolution color cameras. Kuo claims it will be priced around $1000.

In February The Information claimed to have viewed images of a late-stage prototype “which show a sleek, curved visor attached to the face by a mesh material and swappable headbands”. The outlet drew an impression:

While reports to date suggested the device will be fully standalone, this new report claims it will need to be wirelessly tethered – “presumably” to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac – for “the most advanced features.” The report says the presence of an onboard graphics processing unit “suggests” there is also a standalone mode, but no details were given as to its capability. Apparently the headset’s custom chip is less powerful than the A-series used in iPhones & iPads, and lacks the ‘Neural Engine’ machine learning accelerator. If the chip really is notably less powerful than an iPhone, standalone content may be very limited. Instead, the report claims, the chip has unique wireless transmission and compression capabilities suitable for wireless VR. The chip is “at least a year away” from mass production, the report claims.

It’s unclear exactly how this would work. Potentially the camera imagery could be processed onboard to ensure consistency & low latency, while the host device renders graphical content. This could enable a much smaller battery and thus a lighter headset. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo previously claimed the product will weigh somewhere between 100 and 300 grams, around half Facebook’s Oculus Quest 2. Quest 2, of course, can also wirelessly connect to a host device – a Windows PC with a graphics card.

A separate The Information source claims the Apple headset’s image sensors are “unusually large” to capture high resolution image data. Apparently TSMC “has struggled to produce the chip without defects and has faced low yields during trial production”.

Given the timeline of mass production and issues with the sensors, it’s unknown whether the headset is still slated for a 2022 launch.

Oculus Quest v33 Update Improves Air Link & Link Visual Quality

September 15, 2021 From uploadvr

Oculus Quest v33 is rolling out to headsets now, featuring several smaller improvements.

Many of Facebook’s regular updates to the Quest platform are headlined by big new features or fixes, but Oculus Quest v33 seems to be more concerned with making some finer tweaks. Perhaps the biggest addition is improved visuals for Oculus AirLink and Link. Facebook says users may notice “improved image quality and text clarity” using a new Link Sharpening feature.

Oculus Quest v33 Changes Revealed

We haven’t tried out the update for ourselves but the Link feature compresses the image quality to allow a Quest to display PC VR content either when linked up with a USB-C or wirelessly over AirLink. Any reduction to this effect would be welcome.

Elsewhere, Oculus Quest v33 allows you to clear the history for your Guardians settings to help combat any tracking issues you might have, and Facebook says it’s improved security when using the Oculus Browser. Some of the multitasking features are also being moved out of Experimental release and there are updates to notifications and keyboard settings too. You can see the full list of changes right here.

It’s a pretty quiet update, then. Some have speculated that could be because Facebook is holding back announcements for its upcoming Connect developer conference, which will be held in late October. We’re also waiting on Facebook to reveal the Space Sense feature that was recently unearthed in v32 and, oh yes, the Oculus Quest Pro headset referenced in that update too. Seems like there might be a lot in store for next month.

Felix & Paul Studios Win Emmy For Space Explorers: The ISS Experience

September 14, 2021 From uploadvr

The Felix & Paul Studios and TIME Studios production Space Explorers: The ISS Experience has taken home the Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Program at the 73rd Emmy Awards this week.

Space Explorers: The ISS Experience is an immersive VR production and the second series in the Space Explorers saga by Felix & Paul Studios. Each series is split into a few episodes, with episodes one and two of The ISS Experience available now via the Space Explorers app for Oculus Quest and Rift. Episodes three and four of The ISS Experience are still to come.

The series takes place aboard the International Space Station, putting you right up in the action:

The largest production ever filmed in space, Space Explorers: The ISS Experience is an epic four-part immersive series that invites you to join eight astronauts on life-changing missions aboard the International Space Station. Shot over two years with exclusive access to the crew, The ISS Experience offers an intimate take on the joy, wonder, and dangers of life in orbit.

At this year’s Emmys, The ISS Experience was up against three other nominees in its category, only one of which, Inside COVID-19, was also a VR experience. The other nominees included a YouTube Original, Create Together with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and an Amazon Prime Video production, Welcome To the Blumhouse Live.

In other Emmy news, the AR experience ‘For All Mankind: Time Capsule’ won the Emmy for Outstanding Innovation in Interactive Programming (Juried) and Baobab Studios won its ninth Emmy with the Outsanding Interactive Media for a Daytime Program award for Baba Yaga.

You can watch episodes one and two of The ISS Experience now on Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift.

Report: Apple’s Rumored VR Headset Could Feature 3,000 PPI MicroOLED

September 14, 2021 From roadtovr

Apple is hosting what promises to be its big iPhone 13 event today. While we’re once again holding out hope for that ‘one more thing’ to see if the company reveals anything about its upcoming AR or VR wearables, it seems a supply chain rumor contends that Apple’s alleged VR headset may be gearing up to sport a microOLED display with a pretty high pixel density.

Apple has a tight reign on internal leaks, which typically force tech pundits to look at the greater supply chain to get an idea of where the Cupertino tech giant is headed next. That typically also means you’ll have to take whatever pops out of those rumors with a big grain of salt.

Just this year multiple reports have maintained that Apple’s long-rumored VR headset may arrive as early as 2022, cost $3,000, and include limited AR capabilities, something that’s said to act as a precursor to a full-fledged AR device.

Korean publication The Elec is now reporting that Apple has requested a sample of a display component called a fine metal mask (FMM) from the South Korean company APS Holdings, something that’s used for depositing organic RGB material onto OLED displays. The type allegedly requested by Apple is supposed to reach a pixel density of 3,000ppi.

It’s not unusual for micro displays to features pixel densities of that size, so the notable bit here is Apple may be looking to maintain a slim and light profile for its VR headset, which may depart from the high resolution smartphone-size displays used in current consumer VR headsets.

Apple intends on testing the FMM sample, and then forming a more concrete plant for the VR device’s development, The Elec maintains in its report.

Japan’s Dai Nippon Printing is widely considered the number one manufacture of the sort of FMM (Gen 6) reportedly requested by Apple, however these are produced using a process called ‘wet etching’. It’s thought that Apple instead wanted a laser patterning FMM from ABS Holding, as laser drilling the holes “will make 3000ppi more achievable,” The Elec reports.

We’ll be watching the Apple event today and keeping our eyes peeled for AR/VR news. You can follow along live here on YouTube.

Facebook Announces Zoom Partnership For Horizon Workrooms

September 14, 2021 From uploadvr

Facebook announced a collaboration with video conferencing application Zoom, integrating Zoom meetings natively into Facebook’s new remote work solution for VR, Horizon Workrooms.

The integration won’t arrive until next year but will allow you to “easily join Zoom Meetings and use Zoom Whiteboard all from within VR.”

Horizon Workrooms is Facebook’s remote work collaboration tool for Oculus Quest 2, allowing several users to join a virtual boardroom and speak to each other as if they are in a real room, with avatars, spatial audio, remote desktop, keyboard tracking and group whiteboard features.

While the focus is on users joining using virtual reality, Workrooms also contains functionality that allows a non-VR user to join the meeting through a regular video call. However, starting next year, Workrooms will also allow VR users in the virtual boardroom to join an existing Zoom meeting and collaborate using Zoom Whiteboard. You can take a look at the announcement, which was made at Zoom’s Zoomtopia keynote speech, in the video embedded above. The Horizon Workrooms segment begins around the 34 minute mark.

Zoom Whiteboard was also announced at Zoomtopia, just before the Facebook and Zoom collaboration. It is an upcoming tool for Zoom that allows users to collaborate on a virtual whiteboard together, taking notes, making drawings, placing post-it notes and more. With Horizon Workrooms integration, VR users will be able to use Horizon’s desk whiteboard or the large standing whiteboard to alter the Zoom Whiteboard.

Zoom product manager Jordan Thiel said that they “envision” being able to save and share Zoom Whiteboards as well, which would allow you to save the end product after the meeting and send it around to those who weren’t in attendance.

Will you use the Zoom integration with Horizon Workrooms once it’s available? Let us know in the comments below.

Xiaomi Unveils Smart Glasses Vision Featuring MicroLED Waveguides

September 14, 2021 From vrfocus

Xiaomi is one of China’s leading technology companies, previously partnering with Facebook during the Oculus Go era to create the Mi VR Standalone for its home market. Today, the company has teased plans for a future entry into the smart glasses market, a very compact looking device brimming with tech.

Simply called Xiaomi Smart Glasses, the device is being designed as an augmented reality (AR) system that can connect to a smartphone to display key information like calls and messages. Crucially, Xiaomi also notes that the smart glasses won’t just function as a second screen, it’ll have independent functionality to make it a true smart wearable supposedly.

The core component of the (very thin looking) Xiaomi Smart Glasses is its microLED optical waveguide technology, allowing for a compact, monochrome (green) display solution with a peak brightness of 2 million nits. The information displayed won’t be in 3D, however, as the waveguide only features on the right side of the glasses, on the other are components including the camera.

Xiaomi claims the smart glasses “integrates a total of 497 components including miniature sensors and communication modules,” powered by a quad-core ARM processor. Those modules include a touch pad and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, all weighing in at a respectable 51g. Then there’s the built-in dual beamforming microphone and speaker to take calls. And let’s not forget the 5MP camera that can be used for taking pictures as well as services like translating text.

When it comes to all those software options Xiaomi plans on ensuring the glasses are feature-rich. Apart from getting those basic notifications off your phone, the device can be used for navigation on its own, you can tap the side to take a pic or use the glasses hands-free with the XiaoAi AI Assistant – the company envisions this as the primary interaction method.

Sound too good to be true considering others like Nreal Light and Rokid still have to cable to a smartphone, whilst Facebook’s new Ray-Ban Stories isn’t even AR? While the spec roster of the Xiaomi Smart Glasses is impressive, the announcement is missing crucial details such as the battery life, the actual ARM processor and when the company plans on making it available.

The announcement could be to get the jump on Apple which is holding a press event later today, widely expected to feature an AR component considering some of the PR teasing that’s been going on. When further details have been made available regarding Xiaomi and Apple’s AR plans, VRFocus will let you know.

Horizon Workrooms to Introduce Zoom Meetings in 2022

September 14, 2021 From vrfocus

Several weeks ago Facebook launched its vision for work-based collaboration in virtual reality (VR), Horizon Workrooms. Designed to help colleagues connect remotely, this week it has been revealed that the highly popular video conferencing service Zoom will be integrated into Horizon Workrooms next year.

Horizon Workrooms is currently in open beta for Oculus Quest headsets, allowing anyone to test the new software. With the integration of Zoom, users will be able to join Zoom Meetings and use Zoom Whiteboard directly within VR, to create what could be a seamless experience between the two platforms.

With companies having to switch to remote working during the course of 2020, many have turned to video platforms such as Zoom to stay connected. This has helped Zoom’s popularity soar but has also meant a new term being coined in the process, “Zoom fatigue”. Whereby people find themselves in so many video meetings that it just becomes mentally draining, lacking the fluidity of being together in person. So it’s no surprise that Zoom aims to combat such an issue with initiatives like this with Facebook.

A sneak peek was shown at Zoomtopia this week, Zoom’s annual conference (taking place virtually, of course!). Inside Horizon Workrooms users will be able to dial into those video calls as they normally would, so they can sit around a virtual desk with others in VR whilst talking to even more over Zoom. And with Zoom Whiteboard on hand, brainstorming new ideas shouldn’t be too difficult either as everyone in the meeting can add their input.

Zoom and Facebook haven’t said when they plan to integrate this functionality into Horizon Workrooms during 2022 but the software has plenty of features to keep you busy. There’s the mixed-reality desk and keyboard tracking, which alongside Oculus Quest’s hand tracking means you can see your desk and keyboard to naturally type as you would outside of VR. There’s also remote desktop streaming, spatial audio, and the new Oculus Avatars for that immersive feel.

There are plenty of other ways to collaborate in VR with Horizon Workrooms joining the likes of Spatial, MeetinVR and Arthur to name a few. For continued updates in this field, keep reading VRFocus.

Xiaomi Teases Smart Glasses Concept with MicroLED Display & 5MP Camera

September 14, 2021 From roadtovr

Chinese tech giant Xiaomi unveiled its first pair of smart glasses today, sensibly called Xiaomi Smart Glasses. They aren’t a product you can buy for now, as the company calls the concept device “an engineer’s look into an advanced future.” With the world’s largest smartphone manufacture expressing interest though, it may mean we’ll be hearing a lot more about consumer smart glasses in the years to come.

Hot on the heels of Facebook & Ray-Ban’s Stories camera glasses, Xiaomi released a video showing off its own concept smart eyewear which not only includes a 5MP camera and speakers, but also a microLED display that serves up information such as notifications, turn-by-turn directions, and real-time text and photo translations.

Based around a quad-core ARM processor running Android, Xiaomi Smart Glasses are said to contain a microLED on silicon chip measuring 2.4mm × 2.02mm, something the company says is roughly the size of a grain of rice, with individual pixels sized at 4μm.

For a concept that may or may not be built, Xiaomi doesn’t boast specs like a full RGB display, rather showing one in green monochrome that’s supposed to optimize for brightness—2 million nits, Xiaomi says—serving info to the user’s right eye via waveguide optics.

Xiaomi Smart Glasses house a single 5MP camera for taking photos and doing machine learning tasks like translating text between languages. Like Ray-Ban Stories, an adjacent indicator light is included so others know when its in-use. The whole package is said to weigh in at only 51g, which is about the weight of two alkaline AA batteries.

The company is positioning it as a standalone device that won’t act as a “second screen” for your smartphone. That’s a bit of a stretch for now though since it only has a few functions, such as displaying basic notifications, incoming calls, turn-by-turn navigation, taking photos, and serving up what it claims is “real-time text and photo translations.”

Optical wearables such as smart glasses and AR headsets (learn about the difference here) are still in such an early state that input is far from solved. Xiaomi says its primary input will be handled by XiaoAi AI voice assistant, which can do things like audio-to-text transcription. It’s also said to contain a touchpad, which is ostensibly integrated into one of the glasses’ arms.

It’s uncertain if Xiaomi Smart Glasses are simply a “what if” at this point, or if it’s truly looking to productize the fledgling wearable in the near future. Xiaomi generally seems at home making smaller design risks to better differentiate itself from Samsung and Apple, with things like retracting selfie cameras and edge-to-edge displays making headlines. That said, if Xiaomi is gearing up to enter a market, you can bet they’ll bring their patent one-upmanship to the table in any class of smart device they produce.

Zoom Meetings Heading To VR On Oculus Quest 2 Next Year

September 13, 2021 From vrscout

One of the most popular teleconferencing programs in the world joins Facebook’s new VR co-working platform.

Facebook today announced a partnership with Zoom Video Communications to bring the company’s popular teleconferencing software program to Horizon Workrooms, marking a major milestone for the recently released VR co-working platform.

Image Credit: Zoom Video Communications

Horizon Workrooms launched this past August on Oculus Quest 2 headsets. The platform makes excellent use of the headset’s many unique features to offer a one-of-a-kind VR co-working solution unlike anything currently available on the market.

A combination of remote desktop streaming and hand-tracking technology allows you to access your personal computer and type on your real-world keyboard without having to remove your headset. There’s also a virtual whiteboard, notetaking capabilities, support for video calls, and more.

Beginning next year, Horizon Workrooms will feature support for Zoom Meetings, allowing you to more easily connect with those outside of VR. Zoom Whiteboard integration lets you jot down notes and brainstorm with other users across multiple platforms. Hopefully, we’ll be able to interact with the Zoom Whiteboard by flipping the Touch controller around and using the end as a makeshift stylus, similar to the default Horizon Workrooms whiteboard.

You can learn more about Zoom Meetings on Horizon Workrooms at Zoomtopia, an annual celebration of the platform and its partners and users. The event runs from September 13-14th remotely via Zoom Events.

“The way we work is changing, and we’re excited that Zoom and Workrooms are coming together to help you and your colleagues defy distance to stay connected and productive, across realities,” states the company in an official blog post.

Zoom Meetings will be available on Horizon Workrooms beginning next year. Facebook’s VR coworking platform is available now in open beta.

Feature Image Credit: Zoom Video Communications

Microsoft Flight Simulator VR Controller Support Coming Mid-November

September 13, 2021 From uploadvr

A developer roadmap from Asobo indicates that support for VR controllers is planned to launch with Simulator Update VII, currently set for a mid-November release.

In their weekly developer update, Asobo posted the usual ‘Virtual Reality Feedback Snapshot’ list which shows the top ‘wishes’ and the most important bugs as voted on by the community, along with their development progress. For bugs, the team notes whether the bug has been reproduced and report the progress on fixing it. For top wishes, Asobo marks some as started, some as under investigation, etc.

‘VR Controllers Support is Missing’ is currently the top trending wishes post in the feedback snapshot, with 482 votes. The status of VR controller support is now marked as ‘Started’, with a SU7 release date. This of course refers to to Simulator Update VII (or 7, depending on how you like to stylize), which the development roadmap has set for release in mid-November.

While that might be a few months out, there is some content set to land before then as well. On September 28, Asobo are adding a new plane to the mix — the Junkers JU-52 — and next month in late October the Simulator Update VI will release.

According to the feedback snapshot list, SUVI will includes fixes for VR users include missing anti-aliasing on VR menus and broken VR reflections, present since the last update. No doubt a larger list of changes will be available closer to release.

In the longer term, we also know that Microsoft Flight Simulator will receive helicopters in 2022 — Asobo marked helicopters as a ‘planned feature’ for 2022 on the roadmap in July. The most recent update also added a bunch of new landmarks, focused around Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

Are you looking forward to VR controller support in Microsoft Flight Simulator? Let us know in the comments.