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HTC’s standalone VR is available in the US, starts at $599
Almost a year after it was released in China, the HTC Vive Focus is finally available in the US and Europe, making it a total of 37 markets (including Japan recently). There is a catch, however, in that these headsets are geared more towards enterprise customers on this side of the world. The kit will sell for $599, and by paying an extra $150, it'll come with the Vive Enterprise Advantage service package, which includes commercial licensing, dedicated support, tailored hardware warranties, batch configuration feature and more.
HTC's standalone Vive Focus will soon get 6DoF VR controllers
While Facebook's Oculus Quest won't arrive until the spring of 2019, its seemingly beefier inside-out tracking plus 6DoF controllers may already pose a threat to HTC's Vive Focus, as well as to other Vive Wave-based standalone VR headsets -- including Pico's Neo (whose ultrasound-based 6DoF controllers are still missing) and the more recent G2. As such, HTC's first order of business is to release a developer kit for adding not one, but two 6DoF controllers to substitute the Vive Focus' single 3DoF controller -- one that relies on software to simulate a 6DoF feel, but also often requires re-centering.
Hands-on with Oculus Go: Comfy, wireless VR
Oculus Go might be the virtual reality industry's best chance at pushing the medium into the mainstream. Tethered VR devices are unwieldy and generally require a beefy PC rig to run properly; mobile headsets offer a taste of what full, immersive VR has to offer, but they're limited by smartphone specs and battery life. Standalone headsets are the future of VR, and while the Oculus Go isn't the first device in this category, it's an accessible and high-quality option backed by the marketing power of Facebook. Oculus Go is a $200 headset rumored to hit the market at Facebook's F8 conference in May, but the company is showing it off, for the first time, on the GDC show floor -- and we've already gone hands-on.
Standalone Oculus Go headset could debut at Facebook's F8 event
Last year Oculus teased its standalone "Go" VR headset saying it would go on sale for $199 early in 2018. Now Variety cites unnamed sources claiming that it will debut at Facebook's F8 conference May 1st. That should provide the kind of stage Zuckerberg, Barra & Co. would like for their first mass-market virtual reality product, although it does mean we have a few more weeks to wait before it arrives.
Flying with a VR headset isn't as dorky as it sounds
As a somewhat regular flyer, I had always been intrigued by the concept of wearing a head-mounted display for some immersive in-flight entertainment. However, I never really found the "cinema" part of existing "personal cinema" headsets pervasive at all. Watching a tiny video through those headsets is like sitting in the last row of an empty theater. I'm not going to pay $800 for that. Then came the smartphone-powered VR headsets, but their three-degree-of-freedom (3DoF) tracking for just the head was never precise enough for prolonged usage. It wasn't until the Vive Focus, HTC's $630 standalone 6DoF VR device for China (about $100 of which goes to local taxes), that I finally decided to give virtual reality a chance to prove itself as a worthy alternative to those in-flight touchscreens. Luckily for me, my wife didn't forbid me from bringing this bright blue headset to our vacation, as long as it would fit into my carry-on.
Facebook's Hugo Barra says standalone headsets are key to social VR
Even though Oculus didn't have an official presence at CES this year, its leader, Hugo Barra, made a surprise appearance at Qualcomm's press conference to make an important announcement: Xiaomi would be its global hardware partner for Oculus Go, its first standalone VR headset. What's more, Xiaomi would also be making a special variant of the Go, the Mi VR Standalone, especially for China. In an interview with Barra following the press conference, he explained the reason for the push in standalone headsets: social VR.
Lenovo's robust lineup of new devices sets the stage for 2018
A standalone Google Daydream VR headset. One of the first Google Smart Displays. An eSIM-ready convertible. Those are just a few of the products Lenovo launched here at CES 2018, and the year's only just beginning. We spoke with the company's director of worldwide consumer-product marketing, Wahid Razali, about the most intriguing of Lenovo's new devices and tried to get a hint at what's coming next. See for yourself what we learned in video above. Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.
Pico's standalone 6DoF VR headset is compatible with Vive Wave
You might have missed the original Pico Neo VR headset back in April 2016, but the name is popping up again thanks to its re-release. Following the HTC Vive Focus, the new Pico Neo unveiled earlier today is yet another standalone VR headset with six-degree-of-freedom (6DoF) tracking, and thankfully, it looks a lot better than its predecessor. Much like the Vive Focus, what we have here is a dual-camera inside-out tracking system powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 (so it's likely based on the same development kit) with the same three-hour battery life, but it features a narrower 101-degree field of view instead of 110, and it packs a pair of 90 Hz 1,440 x 1,600 LCDs instead of AMOLED.
