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HTC Vive review: Truly immersive VR comes at a cost
The virtual reality wars have officially begun. Last week the consumer version of the Oculus Rift finally started shipping, and now HTC's $800 Vive headset is ready to roll. It's a collaboration between HTC and Valve, and it's also a showcase for Valve's SteamVR platform. In particular, the two companies are aiming for a more immersive VR experience: The Vive comes with motion controllers, and you can turn an entire room into a VR play field. More so than the Rift, the Vive shows us that interacting with virtual environments naturally is a key part of immersion. But unfortunately, you'll have to deal with additional discomfort and a higher cost to achieve that.
Oculus Rift and HTC Vive buyers face shipping headaches
Your gleaming vision of a virtual reality future may have to wait a while. Both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive buyers are facing delays and other headaches that are preventing them from getting their VR headsets as quickly as expected. In the case of the Rift, Oculus is telling pre-order customers that there was an "unexpected component shortage" that's pushing back delivery. The company is promising free shipping to these early adopters as compensation, but they won't get updated shipping statuses until April 12th -- not fun if you were previously poised to get one within days.
Tech journalist Will Smith launches a talk show in VR
When Will Smith (no, not that one) announced he was leaving Tested to start his own virtual reality company last September, it came as a bit of a shock. But sometimes you see something so powerful that you can't do anything to stop yourself from pursuing it. Now Smith has revealed exactly what he's doing: A talk show filmed entirely in VR called The FOO Show. "My goal with The FOO Show is to showcase amazing creators and their works in ways that were never before possible, using virtual reality," he writes on Medium.
Orbital survival simulator 'Adr1ft' floats to Vive in May
Folks who (digitally) lined up to buy the HTC Vive have another game to add to their wishlist: Adr1ft. Publisher 505 Games announced today that the game inspired by its creator's Twitter freakout will hit HTC and Valve's room-scale VR platform this May for $20. It's already available for Oculus Rift and has been confirmed for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, albeit in non-VR form.
Mayo Clinic might have the cure for VR motion sickness
Virtual reality systems are doing an awful lot to prevent nausea, but the fact still remains that some folks are going to get sick no matter how high the content's frame rate is or how low the latency. But Mayo Clinic might have a solution, Fast Company reports. The hospital has developed algorithms that, when paired with galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS), can trick the brain into syncing what you're seeing in VR with physical stimulation within a tenth of a second.
A 'Star Trek' Holodeck in Steam VR was inevitable
Let's face it: if you grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, you probably see virtual reality as just a stepping stone toward the Holy Grail of simulation, the Holodeck. It's no surprise, then, that Reddit users illogical_cpt and Bradllez have found a way to bring the Holodeck to VR. Thanks in part to work from Psyrek, they built a Holodeck grid for Steam VR that serves as an extremely appropriate background while you're between games. It's not going to be as vast or immersive as the "real" thing, and you'll need a compatible headset (like the HTC Vive) to even give this a try. Still, it's a pleasant reminder that science fiction and reality are much closer than they used to be.
HTC Vive developer explains how to livestream 'mixed reality'
Mixed reality games -- which combine VR and AR -- are about to become very mainstream when the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets ship in just a few days. For Twitch streamers who want to do justice to the first wave of such games, there are myriad new technical challenges (and costs). Luckily, the team that brought the us the delightful mixed reality building game Fantastic Contraption has put together a guide on streaming in the new format.
SteamVR recreates your PC desktop in virtual reality
Steam already offered (compatible) VR headset owners the ability to drag their (ugh!) two-dimensional games, kicking and screaming, into virtual reality with courtesy of its Desktop Theater mode. Now it's bringing everything your PC shows into your VR headset. The Steam Desktop overlay pulls your PC desktop into its VR Dashboard, meaning early-adopting users can change settings (or read email?) without even taking their headset off.
Steam is ready to play all your games in VR
Not too long ago Valve announced that it had a way to play all of your Steam games in virtual reality, rather than just those built solely for the medium. Well, it's officially out in beta form and if you're one of the lucky folks who already has an Oculus Rift or Vive Pre, you can take it for a spin right this moment. Valve says that any game that supports Steam Broadcast should work with Desktop Game Theater, but you might have to fiddle with graphics settings on a per-game basis to get everything working properly. Consider it the modern analog of jiggling the handle to get the giant virtual screen working in your VR cave.
How HTC and Valve built the Vive
Long before the Vive was born, both software developer Valve and phone manufacturer HTC were separately looking into virtual reality. In 2012, VR was beginning to creep back into the public imagination. It started in May of that year, when id Software's John Carmack demoed a modified Oculus Rift running Doom 3. The following month, he took the Rift to a wider audience at the E3 games convention. By August, Palmer Luckey launched the Oculus Kickstarter campaign, and it broke records. Almost overnight, the Rift went from an intriguing prototype to a truly exciting reality. But while all of this was happening, Valve was already at work on its own solution.
'Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine' VR experiment revealed
Last week we got an inadvertent early peek at a new Star Wars VR experience from Industrial Light & Magic, and now the full trailer has been revealed. RoadtoVR has the Trials on Tatooine trailer in its full glory, and it's even better in motion than the stills could reveal. You no longer have to take our word for it, this HTC Vive-linked "experiment" is way better than the Jakku Spy app that came out for Google Cardboard last year.
Steam will help you play any game in VR
Sure, SteamVR is making it easy to play virtual reality games. However, you probably have a whole bunch of conventional games in your Steam library -- what about those? Don't worry, you're set. Valve has unveiled SteamVR Desktop Theater Mode, which lets you play any Steam game in VR. Ultimately, it boils down to putting your games on a big, simulated screen. What it looks like isn't clear yet, but it should work with the HTC Vive and any other SteamVR-friendly headset. The Desktop Theater is in early beta testing now, and will get a proper debut at the Game Developers Conference next week.
A 'Star Wars' VR experiment is coming soon to HTC Vive
Last year Industrial Light & Magic teased an HTC Vive VR tie-in experience (the old teaser clip is embedded after the break) to go along with The Force Awakens and to celebrate the launch of its ILM Experience Lab. Apparently its release was delayed along with the headset, but with the Vive due April 5th, it could be arrive at or near launch. Earlier this evening a short YouTube teaser for Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine appeared on the ILMVisualFX YouTube channel before going private, and it showed something that goes well beyond the Jakku Spy experience we saw last year for Google Cardboard. Update: The full trailer has been revealed at GDC, check it out here.
Take out space pirates in 'Gunjack' on Oculus Rift and Vive
Gunjack places you in the gunner seat of a spaceship in the EVE universe, battling interstellar crafts as they attempt to infiltrate the mining vessel under your protection -- all in glorious virtual reality. It launched in November alongside the Samsung Gear VR headset, and now it's heading to Oculus Rift and HTC Vive for $10. Gunjack hits PCs for the Rift when the headset begins shipping on March 28th and it'll come to Vive later in 2016.
Use your fingers to play in Vive's world with the Manus VR glove
The Manus VR glove promises to take handheld controllers out of virtual reality, allowing players to use natural hand and finger motions within immersive, digital spaces. It's compatible with the HTC Vive, taking advantage of that system's Lighthouse positional tracking tech, and pre-orders for its first-ever developer kit open in Q2 this year. The kits cost $250 and should ship in Q3.
Immerse yourself in Vive's VR with two mixed-reality videos
Fantastic Contraption launches with the HTC Vive virtual reality headset on April 5th and it promises to take advantage of the technology's coolest features. It's a full-body kind of game that challenges you to craft objects that can overcome physical obstacles to reach specific points in the world. If that description doesn't excite you, take a look at these mixed-reality demo videos featuring Fantastic Contraption developer Colin Northway and get hype.
You can now pre-order HTC's Vive VR headset for $799
If you passed on the Oculus Rift because you're dead set on owning HTC's Vive VR headset, your time has now come. The company has just opened pre-orders for the $799 bundle (€899 in Europe and £689 in the UK), which includes the Vive headset, two wand controllers, a couple of room scale movement sensors and three VR titles.
Thorpe Park's VR ghost train will open on May 6th
Derren Brown's new ghost train attraction for Thorpe Park is still wrapped in secrecy. We know visitors will sit in a suspended carriage and that the experience will feature multiple HTC Vive headsets. We know that it's a "multi-sensory" ride combining live-action and special effects. But otherwise, the details are scarce. What we have been told today is that the ride will open to the public on May 6th. Better mark those calendars.
HTC's Vive will cost £689 in the UK
At last, we have a UK price for the HTC Vive. We always knew that the VR headset would cost a little more than the Oculus Rift, given the difference in the pair's hardware. The bundled wand controllers and the external sensors for room mapping and location-tracking...it had to add up. But how much? £689.
IBM's supercomputer will power an online, anime VR game
It's a bit odd that no one's thought to fuse the virtual-reality, role-playing game centric anime Sword Art Online into a proper VR experience before now, but that's the future we live in. No worries though, because IBM is using (Japanese) its Watson Cognitive Computing tech and SoftLayer cloud computing for Sword Art Online: The Beginning. It's a massively multiplayer VR game, of course, and perhaps other details will clear themselves up come a Tokyo-based event running from March 18th to the 20th. There, a 3D scanner will put folks' likenesses into the game for use as an avatar, Siliconera reports.
