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Google hires Vive and Oculus developer to bolster its VR team
If you want to see the potential of virtual reality, check out SoundStage: a virtual reality music sandbox app for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Google just snapped up developer Logan Olson for its VR team, further proving the company's continued interest in becoming a true player in the space.
HTC launches a monthly subscription for Vive VR apps
Virtual reality is still in its infancy, so it's no surprise that most apps for the HTC Vive are smaller, experimental and ultimately expendable experiences. If you're a new headset owner, it can be hard to know which games are worth buying, or to get a good sense of what the medium has to offer without spending hundreds of dollars. To help, HTC is launching the Viveport Subscription, a scheme that offers five VR apps for $6.99 per month. You choose from a pool of 50 and can rotate your selection every four weeks, keeping your library and knowledge of the platform fresh.
How one artist is reinventing the music album with VR
Nick Koenig is no stranger to musical innovation. The artist, better known as Hot Sugar, has been dabbling in the art of associative music since his teens. As he describes it, the technique involves taking found sounds and "manipulating them into more." Basically, he can turn just about anything into music. Now with The Melody of Dust, a new project coproduced with Viacom NEXT and premiering at SXSW this week, he's taking that concept into virtual reality. We've seen music videos and other experiences in VR -- most famously from Bjork, one of the most tech-savvy artists working today. But this is notable for being the primary method of hearing an album, instead of a separate VR project. And no, it's not as easy as just hitting "play."
Lowe's is using AR and VR to make how-to easier
Last year home improvement chain Lowe's teased what it was doing with Google's Tango augmented-reality technology, and now the company is ready to debut the next wave of its high-tech initiatives. First up is the outfit's new In-Store Navigation app, which it says is Tango's first retail indoor-mapping application. To use it, you'll need to snag a Lenovo Phab 2 Pro from an employee. Then you can use the slate to navigate around the store and hopefully find exactly what you're looking for in no time flat. It's something Lowe's showed off recently in tandem with a VR project to illustrate how tech can make DIY easier.
NVIDIA's upcoming tool will analyze your VR setup
The setup for your HTC Vive or Oculus Rift VR headset can make the difference between soaring or puking, but how can you tell if it's good? NVIDIA is going to release a new tool called the FCAT VR that will take some of the guesswork out of system testing. It tracks four key metrics that can lead to high latency, stuttering and other issues: frame time, dropped frames, warp misses and synthesized frames.
'#Archery' is a quirky VR party game for the HTC Vive
I wasn't expecting to start my day using a bow and arrow to shoot ice cream cones at kids, or riding on the back of a pickup truck slinging newspapers in a suburban neighborhood. But thanks to #Archery, a virtual reality game from indie studio VRUnicorns, I was able to do just that using an HTC Vive headset. The title, which hits Steam Early Access on March 30th for $10, features a handful of main levels and mini games within each one of those. My experience consisted of scenarios like what I mentioned above, where I took charge of a digital bow and arrow to fire different objects at characters around the environment.
Vive Studios' 'VR Sports' is exactly what it sounds like
The unmitigated phenomenon that was the Nintendo Wii had an everlasting effect on any medium with motion controllers: If you have hardware that can track hand movements, it needs to have its own "Wii Sports" game. Enter Vive Studios' latest virtual-reality game, VR Sports -- a lighthearted but surprisingly realistic-feeling ping-pong and tennis simulator. On March 15th, the game kicks off Vive Studios' spring lineup of VR games, which also includes a WWII defense shooter and a port of Sixaxis' virtual-reality CAD program.
HTC's Vive Tracker and Deluxe Audio Strap cost $100 each
HTC launched a pair of desirable accessories for its Vive VR headset at CES 2017 in Las Vegas last month, and now we know when they'll arrive and for how much. The Vive Tracker, a 3D tracking device that you can attach to your wrists or any objects you want to use in VR, will cost $100 (£100 in the UK) and arrive to developers only starting on March 27th. The Deluxe Audio Strap, which adds some much-needed comfort to the otherwise fabulous headset, will also cost $100 and £100 in the UK.
Valve launches SteamVR support for Linux
Valve has been giving Steam users Linux love since 2012, and it's not stopping with VR. The company just launched SteamVR for Linux, letting developers create Linux content for the HTC Vive VR headset, trackers and other hardware. The program is in beta, meaning developers must use an NVIDIA developer beta driver that's built on "Vulkan," the successor to OpenGL. You're limited to "direct" mode, meaning you can only display images on the headset and not a desktop display at the same time.
Google's mixed reality tech shows faces behind VR headsets
YouTube has already perfected the art of mixed reality videos that show the VR world and the real world at the same time. A great example is the video of Conan O'Brien's virtual trip to outer space taken when he visited YouTube's VR Lab. The video platform's technique still can't capture the whole picture, however, since VR headsets get in the way. Google Research and Daydream Labs had to team up to solve the problem, and they did just that with the help of machine learning, 3D computer vision and advanced rendering techniques.
Google's VR painting app lands on the Oculus Rift
Tilt Brush, Google's virtual reality painting app, is available today on the Oculus Rift, complete with a few tweaks to make your 3D art take shape as naturally as possible. Tilt Brush landed on the HTC Vive in April 2016 and it's generated some awe-inspiring work.
Sony files patent for Vive-style PSVR tracking device
Sony is experimenting with its own Vive-style VR tracking device, according to a patent filing from June. The document hints at a tracker working similarly to HTC's current virtual reality tech. Functioning as an external projector, the device would use lights and mirrors to map the player's real world movements straight into PSVR. While Sony's VR offering currently uses a camera to detect light from the player's headset, the existing tracking limits users to an incredibly small space. With light often interfering with the PS4's camera, if this new tech makes it to production it could not only give gamers more mobility but also potentially provide a more accurate and immersive PSVR experience.
Valve is working on three 'full' VR games
Valve is still making video games! But they're probably, almost certainly not Half-Life 3 (I know it's hard, but we have to let it go.) During a media roundtable, Valve founder Gabe Newell confirmed that the company is working on three new titles for VR. Not just little experiments either, like the room-scale mini-game collection The Lab. Real, proper video games. "When I say we're building three games, we're building three full games, not experiments," he said, according to Eurogamer. Few other details were disclosed, such as whether the team was working on new or existing IP.
'Adr1ft' developer joins a VR startup, leaves old studio behind
If you were hoping for a sequel to Adr1ft, the game about a zero-gravity escape from a destroyed space station high above Earth, you might want to place those expectations elsewhere. Head of Three One Zero and lead developer Adam Orth (above) says that his old studio had "run its course," in an interview with VentureBeat. Now? He's working with VR startup First Contact (ROM Extraction) where the team is "advancing the medium [VR] with every single thing they make." While console versions never saw VR support, Adr1ft was available on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift headsets.
Developer combines HoloLens and Vive for 'shared reality'
As fun and immersive as virtual reality is, watching your friend play around in a completely computer-generated environment doesn't have quite the same impact when watching it on a flat monitor or TV screen. But now, thanks to the vivid augmented reality of Microsoft's HoloLens and the developer-friendly HTC Vive, virtual and augmented reality can be easily combined so observers can share in the VR experience.
Vive Video puts a personal home theater in HTC's VR headset
We've seen VR video theaters for Oculus and PlayStation VR, but now HTC has an upgrade in that department. Vive Video supports all kinds of media: 2D, 3D, 180-degree or full 360-degree, with options to make the environment as much of a realistic theater or distraction-free cinema as you'd like. Also, thanks to those positional sensors, wearers can move around in the surround videos and watch as it adapts to their perspective. Vive owners have already had the Vive Home Cinema app and any number of third party players to choose from, but this one looks a little more polished. The app is available in the Viveport app store, and comes with a teaser for the Invasion! 360-degree video.
'Knockout League' brings cartoony boxing to virtual reality
The Nintendo Switch has Arms and now the VR-minded folks at Grab Games and Vive Studios have dropped Knockout League onto Steam's Early Access label. The arcade-y boxing game's in-development version only has four cartoony pugilists for now, according to VentureBeat, but each one has a different fighting style. And some aren't even human. Like Sir Octopunch, a mustachioed octopus with a stance like an old timey English boxer. Sure!
Trump at 2AM: The new Oval Office in virtual reality
Donald Trump stands before me with a grim look on his face, lightly leaning against the Oval Office's Resolute desk. Moonlight pours in through the office's rear windows as a phone quietly rings. It's 2am, and something has happened -- and a new President holds the weight of the world on his shoulders. I'm looking at this surreal, frozen scene through the lens of an HTC Vive. It's a free virtual reality experience called "Wide Awake," and it tells a simple, concise story: no matter who Donald Trump was before or what you may have thought of him, he's now the guy who answers the phone when shit hits the fan.
Watch HTC Vive's wireless VR adapter and object tracker in action
Virtual reality has plenty of hurdles to surpass before it reaches mainstream acceptance, among them is the need to be tethered to a computer for high-quality VR. So it's no surprise that wireless VR tracking is a big focus for the HTC Vive this year. And on top of that, the Vive Tracker will also let developers easily bring just about anything into VR worlds. We had a chance to test out both new devices at CES this year, and while they're in fairly early stages, it's clear they'll fundamentally change the VR landscape this year.
Next for HTC Vive: Wireless VR and tracking for everything
After living through the VR frenzy of 2016, it's almost hard to believe that HTC's Vive Pre debuted at CES just a year ago. Since then, the company released the consumer edition of the headset and reorganized all its Vive business under a subsidiary. Now that it's laid the groundwork for its VR ecosystem, HTC is looking to make it flourish by focusing on developers and fine-tuning its user experience.
