Apple’s first new 3D Vision Pro video since launch is only a few minutes long

Tonight, Apple will debut some new Immersive Video content for the Vision Pro headset—the first sports content for the device. It doesn’t seem like much after two months of no new content, though.

Starting at 6 pm PT/9 pm ET, Vision Pro users will be able to watch a sports film captured for the platform’s Immersive Video format. The video will be a series of highlights from last year’s Major League Soccer (MLS) playoffs, and according to Six Colors, it will run just five minutes. It will be free for all Vision Pro users.

On February 2, Apple released what appeared to be the first episodes of three Immersive Video series: Adventure, Prehistoric Planet, and Wildlife. Each debuted alongside the Vision Pro’s launch with one episode labeled “Episode 1” of “Season 1.”

However, it’s been almost two months, and none of those series have received new episodes. The only other piece of Immersive Video content available is an Alicia Keyes performance video that also debuted on February 2. Most of these videos were only a few minutes long.

That means that this short soccer video depicting sports moments from 2023 will be the only new piece of Immersive Video content Apple has put out since the device launched at the beginning of February.

When I reviewed the Vision Pro as an entertainment device, I lauded its capabilities for viewing 2D films and videos, but I also talked a bit about its 3D video capabilities. I said the first pieces of original 3D content from Apple seemed promising and that I looked forward to future episodes. Given that they were labeled just like Apple TV+ series in the TV app, I assumed they would arrive at a weekly cadence. Further episodes haven’t come.

Notably, Apple didn’t include a first-party app for playing 3D videos downloaded from the web with the Vision Pro, though an independent developer filled that gap with an app called Reality Player. There are a few 3D video streaming or downloading services in the visionOS App Store, but the selection is very anemic compared to what you have access to with other headsets.

Apple hasn’t been calling the Vision Pro a VR headset, opting instead for the term “spatial computing”—and that’s understandable because it does a lot more than most VR headsets.

But if you’re looking for new examples of the sorts of passive viewing content you can enjoy on other headsets, the Vision Pro is still far behind the competition two months in.

The device can display a wealth of 2D video content, but this drives home the initial impression that the Vision Pro is meant for viewing flat, 2D content as windows in 3D space. The situation isn’t quite as dire with apps and games, with a handful of new spatial apps in those categories rolling out in recent weeks.

Most apps behave just like iPad apps, with 2D viewports at the content; you can position those viewports wherever you want in the room around you. Most video content is also 2D.

There are situations where that’s neat to have, but it’s surprising Apple hasn’t invested more in actual 3D content yet. In terms of new stuff, this short soccer video debuting tonight is all we have right now.

Listing image by Samuel Axon

https://arstechnica.com/?p=2013280




C-Infinity is a bulky, quixotic solution to VR’s nausea problem

Important note: You (probably) will not look this good when using the C-Infinity.
Enlarge / Important note: You (probably) will not look this good when using the C-Infinity.

Anyone who has spent significant time trying to traverse large spaces in virtual reality knows that it can sometimes be a nauseating experience. The mismatch between a vestibular system telling your body it’s standing still and a VR headset telling your eyes that you’re moving often causes an almost instant upset stomach for many VR users.

For years, VR games and experiences have tried to mitigate this problem with software tricks, such as movement by “teleportation” and “snap” turning that jumps in sharp, discrete angles. But these solutions come with their own problems for games in which smoother walking motion and free rotation are important.

Rather than focusing on software, Neurosync has decided to use hardware to try to solve this problem. The company’s C-Infinity “VR Locomotion Platform” (which is currently wrapping up a successful Kickstarter campaign) promises to “effectively reduc[e] motion sickness while delivering an unparalleled true sense of movement… while also reducing fatigue.”

After trying out a prototype C-Infinity in my home office, I found it largely lived up to this promise in some of VR’s most stomach-upsetting games. But the setup’s overengineered controls and sheer size and cost make it a solution that I can only recommend to a very specific audience.

Rest your back

Installing the C-Infinity in your VR playspace is like installing a serious, bulky piece of furniture. Out of the box, it took me about an hour of serious fiddling with wrenches and screws to fit together the massive, heavy pieces that make for what’s likely the world’s most solidly built VR controller.

Oh my aching back.
Enlarge / Oh my aching back.

At the base of the C-Infinity is a roughly 19-by-24-inch platform coated with grippy rubber and angled to make your body lean backward by about 10 degrees or so. That angling helps your upper body settle into a large, height-adjustable backrest, which curves slightly underneath your posterior and provides a bit of vertical support while standing on the base.

While it looks awkward at first glance, it’s quite easy to settle into a comfortable half-standing, half-sitting, half-leaning position with the C-Infinity (yes, the position has three halves; what’s your point?). It’s a design that brings the perspective and freedom of stand-up VR experiences while limiting the fatigue from needing to stand fully upright for longer VR sessions.

Aside from support, the backrest also serves as part of C-Infinity’s control system. A spring-loaded pivot lets you easily twist a few degrees to the left or right, and that movement sends a USB signal that can be used to turn your perspective in the game.

The armrests and backrest give your brain a firm connection back to the "real world."
Enlarge / The armrests and backrest give your brain a firm connection back to the “real world.”

Besides offering a nice, hands-free control addition, this twisting action is a big part of why C-Infinity is less nauseating than simply turning with an analog stick. There’s something about the physical twisting motion that primes your body to be ready for your entire perspective to swing to one side, even without software-based anti-nausea tricks. It’s a bit like you’re leaning to turn on a motorcycle or listing to one side in a theme park simulator.

In practice, though, using a full upper-body twist to control your in-game turning is a hit-or-miss affair. In a game like Doom VFR, I found it quite enjoyable to glance to one side and then give a quick twist to line myself up for more demon blasting. In a game like Windlands, though, the controls felt much too touchy, both starting and ending my in-game turns later than I wanted, resulting in a lot of delayed overturning. In other VR games, the turning controls didn’t seem to work, and I had real trouble figuring out how to manipulate the settings to enable the feature.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=2004935




The Future of Retail Is in Immersive Real-Time 3D Experiences

Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.

You don’t often get to see the future you imagine. But with 3D technology evolving as fast as it has, you’ll soon have the distinct ability to do just that. Opening up new possibilities across industries like manufacturing, government, architecture, energy, and retail, the growth of real-time 3D (RT3D) is enabling companies to turn computer-aided-design and RT3D data into immersive experiences and apps.

RT3D generates interactive content faster than human perception. It immerses people in a digital reality that feels authentic while giving them control over their experience, much like a video game. The appeal is obvious for retail brands: many innovative retail brands are pushing to meet consumer demands for more immersive and interactive experiences. Real-time RT3D immerses people in authentic digital reality while giving them control over their experience.

These RT3D experiences are interactive and immersive, social and persistent — with a multitude of real-world uses in the retail setting. They can help elevate consumer experiences while bridging the gap between online and in-person shopping through the use of things like product configurators, virtual marketing assets, virtual showrooms and stores, brand gamification, virtual worlds, and store and planogram design and planning.

Retailer and consumer goods companies can also streamline complex design, collaboration, and operational workflows with tools to improve productivity and reduce costs. They’ll even reap additional benefits from engaging applications made to enhance training and guidance information, optimize product design and review processes, and visualize company-wide operations with data-connected digital twins.

And if you want to elevate the design and maintenance of your retail spaces, there are tools that allow you to simulate and manage multiple store layouts and merchandising configurations, test product placement for efficiency, and plan collaboratively with teams and vendors.

One way real-time RT3D is changing the face of retail experiences can be seen through what footwear company Deckers is doing with RestAR. RestAR enables fashion brands and online retailers to scan and render physical consumer products in high-quality RT3D using only a mobile device. This tech allowed Deckers to use photorealistic 3D renderings to nearly eliminate the need for physical samples, saving on shipping, travel, and time, among other benefits (not to mention the huge environmental benefit by removing those factors).

Within the next few years, many top brands will provide shopping experiences powered by real-time RT3D. Today’s shoppers are craving these sorts of next-gen experiences. With an RT3D-first approach, brands are becoming empowered to take control of their strategy to win in this new era of the metaverse to meet their shoppers’ highest expectations.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/science-technology/the-future-of-retail-is-in-immersive-real-time-3d/464456




Meta Quest 3 hands-on review: VR rejoins the real world

Look into my eyes... all three of them.
Enlarge / Look into my eyes… all three of them.


You’d be forgiven for not realizing that the Quest 3 is actually the fourth headset in Meta’s popular Quest line. In fact, Meta would probably prefer that everyone forget about last year’s ill-considered Quest Pro, which paired a handful of minor improvements with an absolutely massive $1,500 starting price. Even a quick price drop to $1,000 couldn’t save this over-engineered stopgap gadget.

What a difference a year makes—or three years, for VR aficionados who wisely stuck with 2020’s Quest 2 until now. The Quest 3 offers distinct improvements over previous Quest headsets in the areas that matter most (resolution, form factor, etc.) without many of the Pro’s more expensive, heavy, and least necessary indulgences (eye-tracking cameras, rechargeable controllers, charging dock, etc.). The Quest 3 also offers a usable (but rough) suite of new mixed-reality features, providing an intriguing glimpse of a world where VR content is routinely layered over our view of reality.

Most importantly, the Quest 3 does this all at a mass-market price (starting at $500) and in a way that ensures continuity with Quest’s existing software. While there’s nothing here that will usher in the long-sought virtual reality revolution, this is the kind of incremental improvement the space needs if it’s going to continue to increase the size of its niche.

The most comfortable Quest yet

At first glance, the physical design of the Quest 3 doesn’t look like it should lead to a different fit and feel than the similar-looking Quest 2. After spending a good deal of time in the new headset, though, I was surprised at just how much more comfortable it was for long sessions.

Much of this comes down to the Quest 3’s use of lenses with pancake optics, which allow for a much thinner display housing that rests in front of your eyes. This redistributes the weight of the headset much closer to your face, which means the center of mass doesn’t pull your head forward nearly as much. This rebalancing also means a headset with roughly the same weight as the Quest 2 can sit securely on your face without the need to tighten the head strap in a death grip around your skull, leading to noticeably less pressure on the area around your eyes and sinuses.

The Quest 2 (left) has a 40 percent thicker profile than the pancake-optics on the Quest 3 (right).
Enlarge / The Quest 2 (left) has a 40 percent thicker profile than the pancake-optics on the Quest 3 (right).

Speaking of the head strap, the redesigned one that comes with the Quest 3 is a huge improvement over the flimsy thing that was packaged with the Quest 2. The new design offers good, firm support for the headset’s weight with just enough elasticity to stretch a bit around your skull as you put it on. I’m also a fan of the new fit adjustment system on the back of the strap, which allows for loosening and tightening by gently sliding two bits of gently grippy fabric to either side.

Altogether, these changes make for a much more comfortable experience than wearing the Quest 2 (which I always felt was threatening to slip off my head when I used its original head strap). I’ve used the Quest 3 for numerous multi-hour sessions without any significant discomfort or eyestrain, especially for less active (e.g., seated) situations.

The design still presents some problems during VR workouts, though, where the lens housing traps heat and moisture in a way that leaves the front of my face drenched in sweat after even moderate activity. During these exercise sessions, I missed the open-bottomed, forehead-mounted design of the Quest Pro, which allows for free airflow across more of the face.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1975955




“Project Moohan” is Google and Samsung’s inevitable Apple Vision Pro clone

An AR headset sits on a stand in a public viewing area.
Enlarge / This is Apple’s Vision Pro headset. It looks a bit like a particularly bulky pair of ski goggles, with the materials and design language of Apple’s AirPods Max headphones.
Samuel Axon

Poor Google. The company is about to get lapped in the AR/VR space by Apple’s Vision Pro headset, despite dabbling in the AR/VR/XR space for over a decade now. A new report from Business Insider details how Google has fallen so far behind, telling the familiar modern-Google story of a rudderless company with constantly changing priorities and absentee leadership. The report describes employees who were “frustrated” at Google’s lack of progress when the Vision Pro was unveiled and provides a glimpse of what Google’s current (again, constantly changing) plans for an AR product are.

Google’s wheel-spinning in AR and VR is up there with instant messaging and payment platforms as some of the worst-run projects at the company. Hardware projects Google Glass, Cardboard, Daydream, Tango, and Iris have all come and gone. Software projects like ARCore, a VR UI for Android, the painting app Tilt Brush, and several AR Google Maps features are all dead or haven’t gotten much traction. Acquisitions of companies North and Raxium haven’t produced any results. Google’s 12,000 layoffs this year have cut into some of these projects, and AR leadership has been rocky, too, with Google Head of AR/VR Clay Bavor leaving Google in February. A few months later, Google AR OS Senior Director of Engineering Mark Lucovsky quit the company due to “the recent changes in AR leadership and Google’s unstable commitment and vision,” and apparently this was part of a larger talent exodus.

The BI report details how Google’s latest dead project, Iris, “was beset by a constantly shifting strategy and lack of focus from senior leadership.” After “conversations with seven current and former employees close to Google’s AR efforts,” Business Insider quotes a few of those anonymous employees, with one saying, “Every six months there was a major pivot in the program.” At one point, Google was working on a pair of custom silicon chips for the glasses’ display and compute power and then gave up on the idea of custom chips. That work was apparently near completion, with one person saying, “I think it’s weird when you convince yourselves you need to build custom silicon, and then you go and do that—and then flush it down the toilet.”

Display problems led the team to switch from regular eyeglasses to sunglasses and then back again, and the team couldn’t settle on a color or monochrome display. Google showed off a pair of Iris glasses at Google I/O that could translate spoken language, then quickly canned the idea. You might think Bavor leaving in February would be good, considering how little traction the AR division managed in the marketplace, but apparently the executive’s departure created a “state of chaos” in the division.

Google’s next AR pivot is a partnership with Samsung, another company that has dabbled in AR/VR for years yet has no current product line. Google, Samsung, and Qualcomm have already vaguely announced an Apple-fighting mixed-reality partnership in February. Plans to actually launch a headset were reportedly delayed in the wake of the Vision Pro unveiling due to the headset not being competitive. The new launch target is sometime around summer 2024, but the report says that “some employees are skeptical [that] will be enough time to launch a product that will wow the public.”

According to the report, Samsung wants to follow its usual strategy and “build a headset device similar to Apple’s Vision Pro.” The project is apparently codenamed “Moohan,” and if you couldn’t already guess from this lineup of companies, it will run Android. Despite acquiring hardware companies like the Micro-LED manufacturer Raxiom and smart glasses-maker North, Google now wants to “pivot to software” and follow the Android model.

The partnership with Samsung makes Moohan the most likely project to actually hit the market, but Google still has two other competing XR projects. Raxiom also is apparently still around and works under Paul Greco, Magic Leap’s former chief technology officer. Iris’ software work has moved to “a new team” and is being turned into a software project codenamed “Betty” that Google wants to pitch to other manufacturers. Samsung doesn’t want any of these other parts of Google or other hardware competitors to be privy to its Vision Pro clone, so the three teams are all firewalled off from each other and have to compete for resources.

One current employee described the situation as “a weird bureaucratic mess.”

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1962511




Devs find that Vision Pro can’t do true room-scale VR, but that’s no surprise

Recent discoveries by developers working with Apple’s visionOS software development kit have revealed that Apple isn’t going for room-scale VR with Vision Pro—something that will potentially frustrate users hoping for a high-end VR headset to compete with offerings from Meta and others.

As reported by 9to5Mac, Hans Karlsson of creative marketing agency Mimir lamented last week on Twitter that visionOS pulls users out of immersive VR when they move more than 1.5 meters away from the virtual environment’s origin point, saying that Apple has thus “crippled VR” and made it so the platform is only for “couch potatoes.” This wasn’t new information, though; Apple’s documentation for visionOS developers revealed this was the case during WWDC. The documentation reads:

When you start a fully immersive experience, visionOS defines a system boundary that extends 1.5 meters from the initial position of the person’s head. If their head moves outside of that zone, the system automatically stops the immersive experience and turns on the external video again. This feature is an assistant to help prevent someone from colliding with objects.

Around the same time, people discovered that Apple also yanks you out of any immersive environment if you start moving too quickly in any direction. visionOS will show users a message stating that they are “moving at an unsafe speed” and that “virtual content has been temporarily hidden until you return to a safe speed.”

So much for room-scale

Developers of VR apps and games typically sort experiences into three categories: seated, standing, and room-scale. The former two limit users’ movement to just a couple of feet in any direction, while room-scale allows the user to walk around a large space. Some kinds of experiences are only possible at room-scale, so Kerlsson and other commentators on this are right when they say this limits Vision Pro’s prospects as a VR headset compared to some other devices.

These safety features will prevent the porting of some popular action games we’ve seen on PC VR that require walking around the room, as well as experiences that allow you to look at large objects contained completely inside a virtual space, like VR car shows, some museum-like experiences, and so on.

Even in the world of PC VR, though, not all headsets, apps, or games are designed with room-scale in mind. In fact, most people don’t have the space for or interest in room-scale VR, so it has long been a niche within a niche. That’s too bad, of course, because some of the coolest VR games only really work at room-scale.

These safety features—which appear designed to prevent users from crashing into walls and the like—make it clear that Apple has no interest in joining the ranks of room-scale VR solutions with Vision Pro.

The limitation doesn’t seem to apply to AR in the same way

There is one major point I haven’t seen mentioned much in discussions about these limitations, though: when I used Vision Pro at WWDC, I could walk around and interact with objects more than 1.5 meters away from my origin point in AR. The way the safety features work, they end or pause any fully immersive experience when you leave the contained space. But during the Vision Pro hands-on demo, I walked at least two or three meters away from the couch where I started to take a closer look at a dinosaur on a wall on the far side of the room with no interruption.

Vision Pro’s central feature is a knob that allows you to adjust your immersion levels, but there are constantly things that take you out of full immersion, whether it’s safety features like these or a person coming up close to you to talk to you. Even when you’re going into an immersive experience, the real world is ready to intrude at any moment—and it will. In that sense, it’s not a very good device for leaving the world behind in favor of immersive fantasy.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1950366




Meta beats Apple to the mixed-reality punch with $499 Quest 3 coming this fall

Meta has lifted the lid on its Quest 3 headset. Starting at $499 for 128GB, the device aims to push users beyond virtual reality, carrying a heightened focus on mixed reality. We’re not getting full details until the Meta Connect event on September 27. But Mark Zuckerberg and friends were happy to preview the headset today, four days before Apple kicks off its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), where it’s expected to reveal its own mixed-reality headset.

Quest 3 specs: What we know so far

Whether you heard it on Meta’s blog, Facebook, or Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s own Instagram, we now have the broad strokes of the next Quest, which Meta says it’ll release sometime this fall.

Meta is promising a 40 percent slimmer optic profile compared to the Quest 2, discounting any facial inserts.

It didn’t specify further ergonomic improvements for the goggles. However, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said he went hands-on with a prototype and that the Quest 3’s strap seemed stronger than the flimsy iteration on the Quest 2. He also claimed that the upcoming headset has a physical interpupillary distance adjuster.

Meta is claiming double the GPU performance of the Quest 2, thanks to a next-generation Snapdragon chip. The Quest 2 uses a Snapdragon XR2, which is based on the Snapdragon 865 architecture. Gurman cited “speedier performance” as one of the biggest takeaways from his prototype demo. Meta is also upping the resolution of the pancake optics displays but didn’t provide an exact spec.

No more tracking rings

Looking more like Quest Touch Pro controllers than traditional Quest controllers, the Quest 3’s controllers abandon the “halo” construction that Oculus controllers have used to house infrared sensors since the first Rift. I’ll sort of miss the old look, but this is supposed to make the controllers feel more natural, since most people’s hands lack large, protruding circles.

The controllers also have the same haptic feedback of Touch Pro controllers, which were originally released for the top-of-the-line Quest Pro but were eventually updated to work with the cheaper Quest 2 (Touch Pro controllers will work with the Quest 3, too).

You could go sans controller with the Quest 3, thanks to Direct Touch, but only for basic input, like making menu selections by tapping your finger or typing on a virtual keyboard. Since Meta only announced the Direct Touch in February, we’re still waiting to see what developers may make of it.

Not just a VR headset

As Meta continues trying to get people to care about “Meta Reality,” it’s arming the Quest 3 with a greater mixed-reality focus through both capabilities and marketing. Meta wants people to use the headset to play virtual tabletop games on an actual table, for example, or use an app and the Quest 3 to envision a living room makeover. And Meta’s announcement calls the Quest 3 its first “mass market offering to deliver both cutting-edge VR and MR experiences in a single device.”

“These new experiences go beyond today’s mixed reality by intelligently understanding and responding to objects in your physical space and allowing you to navigate that space in natural, intuitive ways that were nearly impossible before,” Meta’s blog claims, while emphasizing “high-fidelity color passthrough, innovative machine learning, and spatial understanding.”

To do this, the Quest 3 will have two 4MB RGB cameras and, for the first time, a depth sensor. Meta is claiming “10x more pixels in passthrough compared to Quest 2.”

“Due to the dual RGB color cameras, video passthrough on the Quest 3 presented colors more accurately and offered an almost lifelike rendering of the real world. I was even able to use my phone while wearing the headset, something that often feels impossible on a Quest 2,” Gurman said of his prototype demo, calling it a “night-and-day improvement over the Quest 2.”

This all makes the Quest 3 Meta’s most mixed-reality-y headset yet, but it’s far from on par with what we’re expecting from Apple. The Quest 3 is a consumer headset, and Apple’s long-awaited mixed-reality headset is expected to initially target developers and influencers who can help build the platform and more consumer-friendly products in future years. Some, like Gurman, even expect the headset to have a dozen cameras compared to the Quest 3’s dual setup.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1943594




Half-Life Alyx is now fully playable without VR hardware

<img src="https://rassegna.lbit-solution.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/half-life-alyx-is-now-fully-playable-without-vr-hardware.jpg" alt="Artist's conception of VR players watching calmly as non-VR players run to finally try Half-Life Alyx for themselves.”>
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of VR players watching calmly as non-VR players run to finally try Half-Life Alyx for themselves.


When we named Valve’s Half-Life Alyx as one of our favorite games of 2020, we added an important caveat that the game was wholly inaccessible to a “majority of interested players who either don’t own a suitable VR system to play it or have no intention of getting one.” Those non-VR players can rejoice this week, though, as there is now a “NoVR” mod that makes Half-Life Alyx completely playable without a headset.

Since launching on GitHub almost a month ago (and hitting “early access” on ModDB in late March), the NoVR mod has attracted “thousands” of players, according to its creators. But it wasn’t until Script Update #6 this weekend that the “entire game can now be played from start to finish” without a VR headset, the creators wrote.

Installation is as simple as copying a downloaded folder into your Steam installation and adding a short text string to the launch options. And while the mod doesn’t work with any save files created in the VR version of the game, you can use a handy level select to jump to your favorite parts without getting into virtual reality.

The mod’s creators also say that NoVR mode is “much less demanding” than Half-Life Alyx‘s high-end (for 2020) system requirements would suggest. That’s because the game no longer needs to effectively render each frame twice to create VR’s stereoscopic 3D effect. The modded version of the game seems to run just fine on a Steam Deck, too, if you’re looking for a gaming experience that’s about as different as possible from the original, all-encompassing virtual reality design.

Lost in translation

[embedded content]
Sample gameplay from Half-Life Alyx played without a VR headset (some story spoilers).

For a game built with VR controls and viewpoint in mind, the Alyx NoVR mod is impressively playable without a headset. Everything from shooting headcrabs to picking up items with the gravity gloves works more or less as you’d expect in a “standard” first-person shooter (though we did have to restart a few times to get some interactions to work during our testing).

That said, the mod uses certain shortcuts and tricks to get around puzzles and moments designed for hand-tracking controls. An early multitool puzzle that involves tracing your hands along electrical wires through a wall is now automatically solved with a simple press of the E key, for instance.

Base functionality aside, even simple interactions lose a little something in the transition to the flat screen. The experience of opening a door, for instance, loses some of its physical immediacy when using your hand to pull a handle is replaced with a simple press of a keyboard button. The same goes for using a keyboard to activate a health kit on the wall rather than sticking your whole arm in and watching it get robotically stitched up in VR.

And as we noted in 2020, a mouse and keyboard can’t effectively simulate “us[ing] one hand to magnetically yank a useful object in the distance while using the other to aim and shoot a gun.”

Those experiential differences aren’t a surprise to at least one member of the Half-Life Alyx development team. In 2020, Valve’s Robin Walker said in an interview with Polygon that he knew even before the game’s release that a non-VR version was “going to happen” eventually. That said, Walker felt that version “will clearly demonstrate to people why we did this in VR… it will be a very crisp way of seeing all the stuff we got for the move into VR.”

Despite the compromises, though, the VR-free version of Half-Life Alyx opens up the game’s stellar storytelling and top-notch environments to a much wider audience. If you’ve been wanting to see what all the Alyx hype is about without taking the full VR hardware plunge, now is your chance.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1930728




Apple’s WWDC 2023 keynote will take place on June 5

A rainbow of color bands above a WWDC logo
Enlarge / Apple’s first promotional image for WWDC 2023.

Apple will host its 34th annual Worldwide Developers Conference at its Cupertino, California, headquarters from Monday, June 5 through Friday, June 9, the company announced on Wednesday.

The conference will kick off with “a special all-day event,” inclusive of the customary keynote presentation and the platform State of the Union talks. The language on Apple’s website suggests that like last year, some or all of those will be presented in prerecorded video form rather than as a live on-stage presentation.

After that first day, Apple will likely host various panels on how developers can work with the company’s developer toolkits and APIs to support new and old features across the various Apple platforms.

Members of Apple’s developer program who want to attend essentially sign up for a lottery to see if they are chosen, as the event cannot host enough people in person to meet demand. That said, the entire conference will also be available online to developers. In either case, the conference is free.

The main purpose of the WWDC keynote each year is usually to announce and explain new features coming to the next versions of Apple’s various platform operating systems—in this case, iOS 17, iPadOS 17, tvOS 17, watchOS 10, and macOS 14.

That’s almost sure to be the case this year as well. Sometimes Apple announces new hardware or consumer services at WWDC, too—but not always.

There have been many reports from reliable sources over the past few months that Apple hopes to provide a first look at its long-delayed mixed-reality headset and related software at this WWDC. If so, we expect that to be a big part of the keynote.

Even if that’s the case, the headset probably won’t be released this June. It’s much more likely that Apple will outline what to expect from a release further down the road (possibly in September alongside the new flagship iPhones, but maybe even later) so that developers can begin work creating applications, games, and experiences for the new platform.

WWDC also coincides with Apple’s Swift Student Challenge, a coding competition for students. The deadline to apply for that challenge is April 19.

Ars Technica will cover the announcements as they come in on the day of the keynote.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1927666




PSVR 2 launch includes only a handful of exclusive titles

<img src="https://rassegna.lbit-solution.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/psvr-2-launch-includes-only-a-handful-of-exclusive-titles.png" alt="Horizon VR: Call of the Mountain is one of the few exclusive titles available for next month’s PSVR 2 launch.”>
Enlarge / Horizon VR: Call of the Mountain is one of the few exclusive titles available for next month’s PSVR 2 launch.


Those who purchase the PlayStation VR 2, available next month, won’t be able to play their existing PSVR library on the new headset. But they will be able to purchase more than 30 titles on the headset’s February 22 launch and a total of 37 within a month of that launch, Sony announced today.

The initial PSVR 2 lineup is overwhelmingly a sort of “greatest hits” collection of titles available on existing VR platforms. Almost all of the headset’s launch window titles are also available on SteamVR, the Oculus Quest platform, or the original PSVR.

Of the handful of PSVR 2 exclusives, the previously revealed Horizon VR: Call of the Mountain stands out as a first-person adventure in the vein of Half-Life: Alyx. As far as third-party exclusives, Supermassive’s The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR is an on-rails VR roller-coaster akin to the similar Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, while Fantavision 202X is a fully 3D take on the infamous, fireworks-filled PS2 launch title (and will also work without a headset).

Of the remaining PSVR “exclusives” for the time being, two take the form of free VR-compatible updates to existing flat-screen PS5 titles: Gran Turismo 7 and Resident Evil Village. Then there’s the haunting narrative of Before Your Eyes, which launched on Steam and mobile in recent years but will make its VR debut on the PSVR 2 next month, using the headset’s eye-tracking cameras to monitor the player’s time-controlling blinks.

Say so long to the original PSVR's glowing blue lights.
Enlarge / Say so long to the original PSVR’s glowing blue lights.

While existing PSVR games won’t work by default on PSVR 2, a handful of developers are offering free upgrades for those who purchased games on the older headset: NFL Pro Era, Pistol Whip, Puzzling Places, Song in the Smoke: Rekindled, Synth Riders, and Zenith: The Last City. Those who own Rez Infinite or Tetris Effect: Connected on PSVR, meanwhile, will be able to upgrade to a PSVR 2 version for just $9.99 each.

In addition to eye-tracking and “passthrough” cameras, the $550 PSVR 2 sports a 2000×2400 per-eye resolution, 100-degree field of view, support for HDR colors, and a set of headset motors for tactile effects. The new headset also connects to the PS5 via a single cable, replacing the mess of cables, junction boxes, and external cameras needed for the original PSVR on the PS4.

Here’s a full list of the PSVR 2 launch titles announced so far, including a reference for which other platforms have seen the same games.

PSVR 2 Title PSVR Quest PC VR Non-VR Notes
After the Fall X X X
Altair Breaker X X
Before Your Eyes X “launch window”
Cities VR X
Cosmonious High X X
Creed: Rise to Glory – Championship Edition X X X “launch window”
The Dark Pictures: Switchback “launch window”
Demeo X X
Dyschronia: Chronos Alternate X X
Fantavision 202X
Gran Turismo 7 X Free update for PS5 non-VR version
Horizon: Call of the Mountain
Job Simulator X X X
Jurassic World Aftermath X X
Kayak VR: Mirage X
Kizuna AI – Touch the Beat! X X X
The Last Clockwinder X X
The Light Brigade X X X Purchase includes PS4 and PS5 versions
Moss 1 & 2 Remaster X X X
NFL Pro Era X X X Free upgrade for PS4 owners
No Man’s Sky X X X “launch window”
Pavlov VR X
Pistol Whip X X X free upgrade from PSVR
Puzzling Places X X free upgrade from PSVR
Resident Evil Village X free DLC for PS5 game
Rez Infinite X X X
Song in the Smoke X X X
STAR WARS: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge X
Synth Riders X X X free upgrade from PSVR
The Tale of Onogoro X X X
Tentacular X X
Tetris Effect: Connected X X X X
Thumper X X X
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners: Ch. 2: Retribution X X X “launch window”
Vacation Simulator X X X
What the Bat X X
Zenith: The Last City X X X free upgrade from PSVR

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1911255