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Welcome back to Spatial Beats. This week, we look at new VR mounts and locomotion inputs, the ongoing Apple/Epic saga, and hands-on with Huawei’s VR glasses. Let’s dive in…
Virtuix, maker of the dish and harness VR locomotion system Omni, announced it has raised $19M for its Omni Pro home platform. Users wear overshoes with ball bearings in the soles and run on a hard plastic dish. The player is held in place by a rigid harness. Compatible with over thirty games, the Omni Pro system is $2,000.
The lower-cost locomotion option, Cybershoes, is now on Amazon for $349. Together with cyberchair and cybercarpet (included), Cybershoes allows gamers to walk and run in virtual reality. It’s compatible with many Steam games, and today introduced Quest games In Death: Unchained and The Wizards – Dark Times.
Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing. Adi Robinson of the Verge has been keeping us up to date.
Exclusive hands-on with Huawei VR glasses 6DOF devkit Tony “Skarred Ghost” Vitillo. His key findings: “The headset is not a standalone, but it is an all-in-two: to work it must be connected to your phone or your PC. Since it features no computational unit and no battery, it can be smaller and lighter than “shoebox” headsets like the Oculus Quest. Thanks to the use of pancake optics, the screen can be closer to the lenses, for a very compact design. This comes at the expense of the FOV, which for this reason is smaller than the one of the other headsets.
The Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference begins June 7th. Apple always buries an easter egg or two in the invitation. XR pundits swear the glasses mean something. Mostly expect to hear the mac version of inside baseball. The keynote is 10am PST June 7th.
The VR/AR Global Online Summit returns June 2-4th. This is its second year virtual following a surprisingly strong online conference last spring, which had 14,000 attendees. The event will open with leading voices in the VR and AR industry speaking on the theme “The Time Is Now.” Speakers including Ted Shilowitz, Kent Bye, Mike Boland, Amy Peck, Anne Ahola Ward, Tom Ffiske. Tickets are $44 for VRARA members and $55 for non until June 1.
VRTO 2021 presents the Flotilla. The International Symposium on Immersive Media Arts & Technologies running June 2-8th. This unique event is known for its interactive sessions & workshops, networking, & virtual world-hopping to custom spaces curated & crafted by international thought leaders. In addition to Micro-Summits on the Digital Asset Economy, advancements in Virtual Production & Humans, and Accessibility considerations, VRTO will bring together top developers of popular titles like Audio Trip, BoomBox, Until You Fall, and Synth Rider.
New Apple Watch Feature Could Form the Basis of the Company’s XR Input Strategy (Road to VR). Editor Ben Lang explains how the new watch feature “assisted touch” may have a role in its development of an OS for XR glasses.
The future of remote work is a lot like living in a video game (Mashable). XR reporter and editor Joseph Volpe reports on his experiment with his remote team of tech reporters as they regularly convene in Mashable’s custom VR office space in Spatial.
Nine things we learned from the Epic v. Apple trial (The Verge) A fascinating look at the economics of the game business.
This Week in XR is now a podcast hosted by Paramount’s Futurist Ted Schilowitz and Charlie Fink, the author of this weekly column. You can find it on podcasting platforms Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube. Watch the latest episode below.
Charlie Fink is an author and futurist focused on spatial computing. See his books here. Spatial Beats contains insights and inputs from Fink’s collaborators including Paramount Pictures futurist Ted Shilowitz.
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