WebXR

Magic Leap Commits to OpenXR & WebXR Support Later This Year on ML2

June 7, 2022 From roadtovr

In an ongoing shift away from a somewhat proprietary development environment on its first headset, Magic Leap has committed to bringing OpenXR support to its Magic Leap 2 headset later this year.

Although Magic Leap 2 is clearly the successor to Magic Leap 1, the goal of the headsets are quite different. With the first headset the company attempted to court developers who would build entertainment and consumer-centric apps, and had its own ideas about how its ‘Lumin OS’ should handle apps and how they should be built.

After significant financial turmoil and then revival, the company emerged with new CEO and very different priorities for Magic Leap 2. Not only would the headset be clearly and unequivocally positioned for enterprise use-cases, the company also wants to make it much easier to build apps for the headset.

To that end Magic Leap’s VP of Product Marketing & Developer Programs, Lisa Watts, got on stage at week’s AWE 2022 to “announce and reaffirm to all of you and to the entire industry [Magic Leap’s] support for open standards, and making our platform very easy to develop for.”

In the session, which was co-hosted by Chair of the OpenXR Working Group, Brent Insko, Watts reiterated that Magic Leap 2 is built atop an “Android Open Source Project-based OS interface standard,” and showed a range of open and accessible tools that developers can currently use to build for the headset.

Toward the end of the year, Watts shared, the company expects Magic Leap 2 to also include support for OpenXR, Vulkan, and WebXR.

OpenXR is a royalty-free standard that aims to standardize the development of VR and AR applications, making hardware and software more interoperable. The standard has been in development since 2017 and is backed by virtually every major hardware, platform, and engine company in the VR industry, and a growing number AR players.

In theory, an AR app built to be OpenXR compliant should work on any OpenXR compliant headset—whether that be HoloLens 2 or Magic Leap 2—without any changes to the application.

OpenXR has picked up considerable steam in the VR space and is starting to see similar adoption momentum in the AR space, especially with one of the sector’s most visible companies, Magic Leap, on board.

A VR Cannabis Store Has Officially Opened To The Public

May 23, 2022 From vrscout

Chat with specialists, review ingredients, and buy products straight from the metaverse.

ADC, a technology-centered cannabis manufacturer and distribution company, has partnered with metaverse company Alt Magic to open a digital cannabis store you can visit from the comfort of your home using a smartphone, tablet, computer, or VR headset.

This WebXR experience allows you to explore a virtual cannabis store using a digital avatar. According to the official release, you can chat with specialists to learn more about the latest industry news, peruse a wide selection of tasty treats, and actually purchase products straight from the metaverse.

ADC’s virtual cannabis store opened on April 20th to thousands of people in honor of 420, an international holiday dedicated to all things marijuana. Now anyone can access this digital storefront and begin exploring a wide variety of products.

ADC currently offers a wide variety of cannabis products, such as CBD, Delta 8, CBG, CBN, HHC, THC-O, and THCV. You can explore some of these items now by visiting adistributioncompany.com/vr-shop on a smartphone, tablet, computer, and in VR using a WebXR browser, such as Firefox Reality.

Moving forward, ADC will be hosting a series of podcasts featuring various cannabis experts in an attempt to help educate the public on cannabis.

For more information visit here.

Image Credit: ADC x Alt Magic

Mozilla is Shutting Down VR Browser ‘Firefox Reality’ Soon & Handing the Torch to ‘Wolvic’

February 4, 2022 From roadtovr

Mozilla is shutting down its made-for-VR web browser, Firefox Reality, and handing off the project to third-party team Igalia.

Mozilla launched Firefox Reality back in 2018 on a host of early standalones, including Oculus Go, Lenovo Mirage Solo, and Vive Focus. In the following years, Mozilla also brought it to Quest and PC VR headsets.

Firefox Reality is set to be removed from app stores within the coming weeks, Mozilla says in a blog post, with the newly announced Igalia Wolvic taking its place starting as soon as next week.

Wolvic is based on Firefox Reality’s source code, which includes the same native support for WebXR content and privacy/security that Mozilla has touted in the past with Firefox on other platforms.

Igalia says in a blog post that its first focus is on serving Android-based, standalone XR systems and HarmonyOS tethered systems, which includes Meta Quest, Huawei VR Glass, HTC Vive Focus, Pico Interactive, and Lynx. The company says its also hoping to support Qualcomm and Lenovo XR devices in the future.

“The Firefox Reality project was created […] to give users some choice and ensure that open and unlimited access to the web remains strong on these devices,” said Brian Kardell, Developer Advocate at Igalia. “These ideas are core to what we do at Igalia, so we’re thrilled to be able to carry the torch forward in leveraging that work to create a new browser, Wolvic. Together, we will help to ensure that the web ecosystem remains healthy.”

Igalia is consultancy studio based in Spain that’s focused on maintaining and promoting Free Software. The team says its developing via this GitHub repository, asking for help from the community to file any issues there that may arise.

Sundance 2022 In VR: What To Check Out

January 20, 2022 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.

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

Web & WebXR Apps Are Coming to the Quest Store With Multitasking

October 28, 2021 From roadtovr

Oculus today announced that web apps and WebXR apps will soon be allowed into the main Quest store and App Lab. Apps served this way will support multitasking, allowing users to run them side-by-side for increased productivity. Developers will also be able to charge for these experiences just like any other app on the headset.

Oculus recently updated Quest to support multitasking for flat apps, but only a few of its first-party apps were available, making the feature only minimally useful.

That’s about to change as the company today announced that it will allow web apps based on the Progressive Web App framework—like Slack, Dropbox, and Facebook—to be distributed through the main Quest store or App Lab.

Obviously one could just as easily have pulled up Slack, Dropbox, or Facebook through the built-in Oculus Browser, but when served this way, these ‘flat’ web apps will support multitasking within the Quest interface, making it easier to run productivity apps side-by-side in the headset.

Apps installed this way will also be included in the headset’s regular app library, which should make them easier to access compared to first launching the browser and then entering a URL or navigating to a bookmark.

Developers could also ostensibly modify their app to run differently when in the headset compared to running on a standard monitor; this could include tweaks for ease-of-use (like bigger buttons and text or an email-based login to spare the user from typing their credentials with the slow virtual keyboard). As an incentive to customize their app specific to the headset, developers can also choose to charge for their web apps, according to Oculus, though in-app subscriptions and DLC functionality isn’t supported.

Oculus says it will launch the first batch of web apps in the Quest store tomorrow, starting with Facebook, Instagram, Smartsheet, and Spike, followed soon by Dropbox, Monday.com, MURAL, My5 (UK), PlutoTV, and Slack. In the “near future,” the company says others will be able to submit their web apps for distribution through the Quest store or App Lab.

Oculus says that apps delivered this way can also make use of WebXR, meaning they can easily go from being flat apps to fully immersive experiences. One could imagine a 360 video player that has a flat video browser but can then play back the video in a sphere around the user.

While WebXR apps could, of course, always be accessed through the Oculus Browser, putting them in the Quest store could make them much easier for users to find—an issue which has plagued WebXR content since its inception. Having them in the headset’s usual app library will also make WebXR apps feel much closer to ‘first-class citizens’ compared to native apps.

Given that Oculus will be hosting these apps in the Quest store or App Lab, we expect that any web apps distributed this way will be subject to the same content and technical guidelines required of native apps. But hey, they can’t stop you from pulling up even “rejected” web apps right through the Oculus Browser.