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

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

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

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.

Facebook Announces Zoom Partnership For Horizon Workrooms

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.

Microsoft Flight Simulator VR Controller Support Coming Mid-November

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.

‘Quest Pro’ Face & Eye Tracking References Found In Oculus Firmware

From uploadvr

Reddit user Reggy04 dug into the Oculus Quest v32 firmware, finding strings referring to ‘Quest Pro’ as well as face and eye tracking.

We obtained the Quest v32 firmware file, decompiled it, and searched it with grep to confirm Reggy’s claims.

The Quest Pro reference appears to be from the Hand Tracking setup process:

QUEST PRO ESTIMATES YOUR HAND SIZE AND HOW THEY MOVE SO YOU USE YOUR HANDS INSTEAD OF CONTROLLERS IN VR.

Quest Pro was first teased by VP of Facebook Reality Labs Andrew Bosworth in a February Instagram Ask Me Anything session. In April, Bosworth said Quest Pro could “introduce new functionality to the headset”, but cautioned it would not ship this year.

Face & Eye Tracking

Calibration text for both face and eye tracking are present. While this doesn’t confirm Quest Pro will have these features, it does suggest Facebook is testing them in real device firmware.

In March, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described face & eye tracking as his most wanted feature for future Oculus headsets.

The face tracking calibration asks you to smile, pull an angry face, frown, and then show a surprised expression.

FOLLOW THE TARGET WITH YOUR GAZE

EYE CALIBRATION FAILED

EYE MOVEMENT ESTIMATION COMPLETE

It’s unclear whether the system simply detects these four states or whether the exact lip shape is passed to apps, as with HTC’s Vive Pro Facial Tracker.

SMILE NATURALLY UNTIL THE CALIBRATION IS COMPLETE. YOU MAY NEED TO HOLD THIS POSE FOR A FEW SECONDS.

SHOW AN ANGRY EXPRESSION UNTIL THE CALIBRATION IS COMPLETE. YOU MAY NEED TO HOLD THIS POSE FOR A FEW SECONDS.

FROWN NATURALLY UNTIL THE CALIBRATION IS COMPLETE. YOU MAY NEED TO HOLD THIS POSE FOR A FEW SECONDS.

SHOW A SURPRISED EXPRESSION UNTIL THE CALIBRATION IS COMPLETE. YOU MAY NEED TO HOLD THIS POSE FOR A FEW SECONDS.

FAILED TO CALIBRATE THE EXPRESSION. RETRYING…

FACE MOVEMENT ESTIMATION COMPLETE

Reggy is not the first to discover eye tracking & face tracking – YouTuber Basti564 found similar references back in June.

Lens Depth Adjustment

Reggy also found a reference to a “depth button” for adjusting the longitudinal distance between the lenses and your eyes:

PRESS AND HOLD THE DEPTH BUTTON AND MOVE THE HEADSET CLOSER OR FURTHER AWAY FROM YOUR FACE. THE LENSES SHOULD BE CLOSE TO YOUR EYES, BUT NOT CAUSE

ADJUST LENS DEPTH

Lens depth adjustment, present in headsets like Valve Index, allow the wearer to balance the comfort of pressure with the wider field of view afforded by closer lenses.

A depth button already existed in the PC-based Rift S, but this firmware is for the Android-based Quest range.

‘Quest Pro’ Face & Eye Tracking References Found In Oculus Firmware

From uploadvr

Reddit user Reggy04 dug into the Oculus Quest v32 firmware, finding strings referring to ‘Quest Pro’ as well as face and eye tracking.

We obtained the Quest v32 firmware file, decompiled it, and searched it with grep to confirm Reggy’s claims.

The Quest Pro reference appears to be from the Hand Tracking setup process:

QUEST PRO ESTIMATES YOUR HAND SIZE AND HOW THEY MOVE SO YOU USE YOUR HANDS INSTEAD OF CONTROLLERS IN VR.

Quest Pro was first teased by VP of Facebook Reality Labs Andrew Bosworth in a February Instagram Ask Me Anything session. In April, Bosworth said Quest Pro could “introduce new functionality to the headset”, but cautioned it would not ship this year.

Face & Eye Tracking

In March, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described face & eye tracking as his most wanted feature for future Oculus headsets.

Calibration text for both face and eye tracking are present in the Oculus firmware. While this doesn’t confirm Quest Pro will have these features, it does suggest Facebook is testing them on a real standalone headset, not just PC-based lab prototypes.

FOLLOW THE TARGET WITH YOUR GAZE

EYE CALIBRATION FAILED

EYE MOVEMENT ESTIMATION COMPLETE

The face tracking calibration asks you to smile, pull an angry face, frown, and then show a surprised expression.

It’s unclear whether the system simply detects these four states or whether the exact lip shape is passed to apps, as with HTC’s Vive Pro Facial Tracker.

SMILE NATURALLY UNTIL THE CALIBRATION IS COMPLETE. YOU MAY NEED TO HOLD THIS POSE FOR A FEW SECONDS.

SHOW AN ANGRY EXPRESSION UNTIL THE CALIBRATION IS COMPLETE. YOU MAY NEED TO HOLD THIS POSE FOR A FEW SECONDS.

FROWN NATURALLY UNTIL THE CALIBRATION IS COMPLETE. YOU MAY NEED TO HOLD THIS POSE FOR A FEW SECONDS.

SHOW A SURPRISED EXPRESSION UNTIL THE CALIBRATION IS COMPLETE. YOU MAY NEED TO HOLD THIS POSE FOR A FEW SECONDS.

FAILED TO CALIBRATE THE EXPRESSION. RETRYING…

FACE MOVEMENT ESTIMATION COMPLETE

Reggy is not the first to discover eye tracking & face tracking – YouTuber Basti564 found similar references back in June.

Lens Depth Adjustment

Reggy also found a reference to a “depth button” for adjusting the longitudinal distance between the lenses and your eyes:

PRESS AND HOLD THE DEPTH BUTTON AND MOVE THE HEADSET CLOSER OR FURTHER AWAY FROM YOUR FACE. THE LENSES SHOULD BE CLOSE TO YOUR EYES, BUT NOT CAUSE DISCOMFORT.

ADJUST LENS DEPTH

Lens depth adjustment, present in headsets like Valve Index, allow the wearer to balance the comfort of pressure with the wider field of view afforded by closer lenses.

A depth button already existed in the PC-based Rift S, but this firmware is for the Android-based Quest range.

Baobab Studios Nabs 9th Emmy Award Thanks To Baba Yaga

From uploadvr

Baba Yaga won an Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Media for a Daytime Program at the 48th Annual Emmy Awards, bringing Baobab Studios’ total Emmy awards wins to nine.

Baba Yaga also previously won two other Emmy awards — Outstanding Directing Team for Animated Program (Eric Darnell, director, and Mathias Chelebourg, co-director) and Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation for Character Design (Karl Athannossov).

“It was already such an honor and thrill for Baba Yaga to be awarded Emmys for both character design and direction,” said Baba Yaga director and writer Eric Darnell. “And now, to be honored with the award for best interactive is truly spectacular and a reflection of the team’s monumental efforts to give the audience the opportunity to be the hero of their own story.”

The immersive VR movie released in January exclusively for Oculus Quest after premiering at various film festivals in 2020, including the Venice Film Festival almost exactly a year ago. In our review at the time, we found it to be entertaining but slightly safe. It certainly wasn’t the ambitious step-up we were hoping to see from Baobab’s next offering:

This is a likable, sweet but ultimately safe adventure, highlighted by some great VR novelties but also equally limited by them. I want to see something from this studio that feels truly dynamic — like my presence has genuine impact in the stories it creates. Baobab remains one of VR’s most promising storytellers but, four years on from its debut, I feel like I’m still waiting for it to really hit its stride.

You can read our full review from last year here.

Baba Yaga is available now on Oculus Quest for $5.99.

HTC Vive Pro 2 Full Kit Ships In October For $1,399

From uploadvr

The HTC Vive Pro 2 Full Kit will start shipping in October, the company today confirmed.

Pre-orders for the bundle are already live in the US and will launch in Europe, Middle East and Africa on September 23rd. The kit costs £1,299 in the UK and you can also pre-order from Vive.com, Amazon, Scan or Overclockers to get a £50 voucher at the respective store. The pre-order window closes October 14th, so expect units to ship in the second half of next month.

HTC Vive Pro 2 Full Kit Ships Next Month

The Vive Pro 2 Full Kit includes the headset itself, two Vive wand controllers and two of Valve’s 2.0 SteamVR Base Stations. There’s also two months of the company’s VR subscription service, Viveport Infinity, thrown in too. Previously the headset had only been sold as a base model with just the device itself.

As we calculated back in May, though, you can actually get the Vive Pro 2 on its own and then buy the base stations and a pair of Valve Index controllers for $1,375. Not only are you saving yourself a little money, but the Index Controllers (which HTC has confirmed are compatible with the headset) support advanced finger detection and have analog sticks too.

It’s definitely worth doing a little digging if you’re in the market for a full PC VR kit, then. We haven’t tried the Pro 2 for ourselves yet but its specs certainly impress on paper – with dual 2448×2448 LCD panels, more than 2.6x as many pixels as the original Vive Pro. Hopefully we’ll be able to bring you some full impressions sometime in the near future.

Oculus Quest 2 ‘Space Sense’ Guardian Intrusion Feature Found In v32 Firmware

From uploadvr

Twitter user Basti564 has found updated graphics and settings options for the ‘Guardian Intrusion Detection’ interface, first found back in March, which is now referred to as ‘Space Sense.’

Basti564 posted a video on Twitter showing new graphics and an explainer video within the Quest running on v32. We’ve been able to get the graphics too. In Settings, under Device, we can see ‘Space Sense’ — a currently dormant feature, which shows an outline of people and objects that move in front of you while using a roomscale boundary.

The feature and the menus depicted above are not accessible natively to Quest users on v32. However, UploadVR was able to test the adb commands to bring up the menu on a Quest 2 and enable the feature. The menus seem to just be a placeholder for now — in our testing, the feature didn’t work even after it was enabled via hidden menu.

Here’s a transcription of the text from the dialog box:

Enable Space Sense to see outlines of people and things inside your Roomscale boundary. Staying aware of what’s around you while in VR helps keep you and others safe. 

You can see outlines up to 9 feet away, as long as it’s still within your boundary and directly in front of your headset. You can turn this feature off at anytime in Settings. 

Basti564 also posted a clear capture of the new explainer animation, which shows a Beat Saber player who is alerted by a ghost-like visual of someone entering their play area and walking across the player’s field of view. It also shows a user who is able to see visualizations of objects in their play area. The Quest can currently detect objects during guardian setup, but this feature looks to show a visualisation of them during regular use.

Evidence of this guardian intrusion feature was first found back in March by Basti564. At the time, it had graphics in the style of the older Quest UI and evidence suggested that it had been dormant in the Quest since v20.

While it’s still unclear whether the feature will release soon, the updated Space Sense name and the newer Quest 2-style animated instructional clips would indicate that the feature is perhaps still being actively worked on. If nothing else, the graphics look more polished than they previously did and the inclusion of a settings menu, where you can adjust the sensitivity of the feature, bodes well.

Would you use this guardian intrusion feature if it came to Quest? Let us know in the comments.