by 
Welcome back to Spatial Beats. This week we look at WWDC takeaways, PSVR showcase, Tribecca’s immersive slate, and some fresh funding for spatial players. Let’s dive in…
The Tribeca Film Festival’s always impressive immersive offering is back in hybrid form. The six VR pieces in their Storyscapes competition are presented in the physical world at the festival’s Varick St. location, but the majority of the Immersive offerings are in the PC VR platform Museum of Other Realities, which has hosted Cannes Interactive and other festivals during the pandemic. This year Tribeca’s also offering a number of AR pieces, some location-specific to Manhattan, but many free and available anywhere to anyone with a smartphone. Tickets here. Stay tuned for our annual Tribeca awesome list.
Red 6 Raises $30M in Series A funding to further its delivery of Augmented Reality military training. The Santa Monica company had previously received a $1.1 M contract to develop an AR system to train pilots in air-to-air combat, something which has not changed since WW1.
Eyeglasses with Auto Focus. Pixieray Emerges From Stealth With $4.4M Seed Funding to Develop Adaptive Eyeglasses. The two things all-day-everyday AR glasses would need for me to wear them would be vision correction and telepresence. Check one. Shipping in 2023.
Apple’s WWDC was on Monday. CEO Tim Cook took the stage and presented to an audience of adoring cartoon avatars. As predicted, no word on AR or VR glasses, but the company introduce new 3D scanning technology. C/Net’s Scott Stein says the groundwork for glasses can be found in plain sight.
Sony showcases upcoming VR titles for Playstation VR. While Oculus makes all the noise, Playstation VR, the leading home VR system, showed off an impressive line-up of new games. The company announced an upgrade of their VR system coming next year. Unless they eliminate the wire that tethers it to the gaming console, it’s hard to see how they’ll hold their dominant position in the consumer market.
The richest man in the world is going to outer space in his own rocket. What could go wrong?
Mursion (a foreshortened form of Immersion) is used as an immersive VR training and development tool. It uses human simulation specialists who, as avatars, work with participants in diverse training scenarios using AI to create a whole cast of virtual characters. Thanks to a convergence of motion capture, computer vision, GPT-3 natural language processing, AI-assisted body language, and voice morphing, the company is able to put humans in the tech stack.
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.
More from AR Insider…
