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Post Malone to Hold ‘Twelve Carat Toothache’ Concert in VR Next Week

From roadtovr

Meta is kicking off a summer-long series of VR concerts and community activities called Horizon Block Party next week. Headlining the event is nine-time Grammy-nominated artist Post Malone, who is holding a prerecorded virtual concert on July 15th.

The Post Malone concert, which will feature tracks from his latest studio album Twelve Carat Toothache, is slated to last 40 minutes and will also feature The Kid Laroi, Fleet Foxes, and Roddy Ricch during the event.

The event will be held in both Venues and Horizon Worlds, and will loop three times on July 15th starting at 6:00 pm PT (local time here). It’s open to 18+ Quest 2 owners in the US, Canada, and UK.

If you can’t make it to the July 15th showings, Quest 2 users can also find it in the ‘Always On’ room in Venues in Horizon Worlds or on Oculus TV, where it’ll be available until September 30th. For non-VR users, a 2D version will be broadcasted on Facebook Watch through both Meta’s and Post Malone’s Facebook pages, as well as on Messenger and Instagram via Watch Together.

Unlike some VR concerts in the past, which heavily skewed to virtualizations of the artist,  the upcoming Post Malone set is slated to include a mix of practical effects and camera framing tailored for 180 display. Meta calls the 8K performance “the highest resolution and fidelity for a musical performance on the platform to date and the first major tentpole event in Horizon Worlds.”

“I’m pumped for the fans to have this VR experience of Twelve Carat Toothache,” Post Malone say in a Meta blog post. “We put so much work into this to make it as incredible as possible. Thank you to everyone who helped bring this to life.”

You can signup here to RSVP, which will also give you a push reminder when the event is about to start.

Sundance 2022 In VR: What To Check Out

From vrscout

Another year, another stellar lineup of ground-breaking VR and AR projects.

Today marks the start of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, kicking off nine days of incredible films premieres, conversations, and immersive experiences. This year the festival is celebrating the 16th birthday of its New Frontier showcase, which serves to highlight the very best in multimedia storytelling.

Similar to last year’s proceedings, event organizers have partnered with digital production studio Active Theory to create The Spaceship, a “biodigital showcase” accessible via a computer or VR headset. Here attendees can use their very own customizable avatars to explore three virtual worlds.

Image Credit: Sundance Institute
  • New Frontier Gallery – A digital event space where attendees can browse the entire catalog of XR content available as part of the New Frontiere showcase and chat with attendees as well as festival employees via proximity chat.
  • Cinema House – An immersive stage environment that will serve as the primary venue for various screenings throughout the festival. This years’ venue includes a new stage designed specifically for live scheduled performances.
  • Film Party – A dedicated social space where attendees can chat with Sundance creators about their respective projects using proximity audio and video chat.
Cinema House / Image Credit:

This years’ New Frontier showcase features over 15 genre-defying projects to enjoy, from comedic VR parodies such as Flat Earth VR to interactive AR experiences like Atua. It can be a bit overwhelming navigating this digital venue, especially for first-time festival-goers.

To help guide you through this years’ offerings we put together a list of must-try XR projects currently available in The Gallery. Here’s what you won’t want to miss:

Flat Earth VR / Image Credit: Sundance Institute
  • Atua (scheduled performances) – “Atua reimagines the realm of Pacific gods in this sculptural AR experience that claims space for gender-diverse identities impacted by colonial first contact, and creates an intimate portal for users to see themselves reflected as vital to their cultural heritage and an intrinsic part of the cosmos.“
  • Flat Earth VR – “Lucas Rizzotto’s delightful and immersive satirical comedy boards audiences onto a stolen NASA ship and launches them into the stars. Here, they have the chance to live out the ultimate flat-earther fantasy of becoming the first flat-Earth astronaut to ever go to space and prove the globe-earthers wrong.”
Suga’ / Image Credit: Sundance Institute
  • Suga’ – A Live Virtual Dance Experience (scheduled performances) – “Suga’ is a collective immersive experience that features live dance performance as volumetric video in a social virtual reality space. The experience takes audiences on a journey through the historical reality of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the establishment of the sugar industry, which has had a lasting legacy on our world today.”
  • The States of Global Peace – “In this immersive documentary, you’ll inhabit the shoes of a prime minister who is preparing to deliver a high-profile speech at a virtual U.N. General Assembly in the near future. The political stakes are high. As you are about to begin your remarks, a group of students hijack the security system and take over the screens, asking to have a dialogue with you.”
This is Not a Ceremony / Image Credit: Sundance Institute
  • This is Not a Ceremony – “Part performance, part participatory media, This Is Not a Ceremony asks us to consider our role in engaging with documentaries about social injustice and to confront modern notions of empathy and personal responsibility. Darkly humorous and occasionally caustic, This Is Not a Ceremony offers contemporary insights into the lived experience of Indigenous men, and extends a chance to embrace responsibility and the meaningfulness of redemption.”

The Sundance Film Festival 2022 runs now until January 28th exclusively online. Those interested in checking out the New Frontier showcase can purchase an Explorer Pass for $50. This enables you access to The Gallery, Cinema House, and Film Party worlds via a computer or any VR headset compatible with the Chrome browser.

For more information visit here.

Feature Image Credit: Sundance Institute

HTC is Holding a Vive Product Event Just Ahead of Facebook Connect

From roadtovr

HTC is gearing up to hold what seems to be a new product unveiling on October 14th, or just ahead of Facebook Connect on the 28th of that month. The company says we’ll be hearing about some “big news in a small package.”

HTC announced the event on Twitter, saying it will take place on October 14th at 11 AM ET (local time here) in the company’s online event space, which is hosted by social VR platform Engage.

There’s still little indication what it might be, although we have some ideas. In February 2020, the company showed off a concept XR headset called Vive Proton, which was touted as a small form-factor device in the making, albeit in its early stages.

Image courtesy HTC

Presented in two flavors—a standalone model and a tethered model—it was suggested at the time that Vive Proton achieved its small form-factor via ‘pancake’-style optics, or the type we saw in the compact Pico VR Glasses prototype at CES 2020 right before in-person events were cancelled. Maybe a more refined version of the goggles fits into that thermos-looking thing as a protective charging case?

The company’s RSVP form for the event and tweet above also features a graphic with what appears to be the outside faceplate of Proton, although that may just be wishful thinking.

Image courtesy HTC

The graphic’s headline ‘Go with the Flow’ may hold a more concrete clue, as a new HTC trademark for a product called ‘VIVE FLOW’ was filed on August 26th, 2021, which refers to a “[h]ead mounted display for computer simulated reality, namely virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality.”

In any case, it’s a pretty safe bet that whatever HTC unveils it will be squarely targeted at prosumers and businesses, although we’re always happy to be wrong. There’s really only one way to find out though, and that’s to tune in on October 14th and see what HTC has in store.