Apple today announced its 2.0 version of visionOS, which is bringing alongside it a number of new features including a wider and higher-resolution version of Mac Virtual Display.
The feature, which is set to launch sometime later this year, will let users dramatically increase their work areas as they connect Vision Pro to Mac.
The company says the “ultra-wide display that wraps around you” will allow for resolutions “equivalent to two 4K monitors, side by side.”
Content is said to “stay sharp wherever you look” thanks to dynamic foveated rendering performed on the Mac itself.
While Apple hasn’t said as much, the promo video released in during the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote showed a simple UI toggle to go from ‘Normal’ to ‘Wide’ and ‘Ultrawide’ modes when using Mac Virtual Display.
It’s not certain when the feature update will arrive, although as the company is gearing up for its big Vision Pro international release starting this month, it’s a good bet it will be one of the first updates to arrive to the company’s $3,500 mixed reality headset.
Apple launched pre-orders for Vision Pro in a number of Asian countries two weeks ago, and customers there are seeing units ship starting today. Today also marks the next slate of regions to get a crack at pre-orders too, with shipment coming in mid-July.
Apple today launched pre-orders for Vision Pro in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the UK; availability is set to begin on July 12th in those countries.
The company also revealed local pricing in those regions, with the cheapest 256 GB variant fetching $5,999 (AUD), $4,999 (CAD), €3,999 (EUR) and £3,499 (GBP). The original article announcing Vision Pro’s international launch follows below:
According to Chinese language outlet VRtuoluo, mainland China customers are being offered 30-minute trial slots at Apple’s China-based stores, which covers all 16 provinces and cities covered by the company. On-site demos start there from its June 28th launch date.
Apple first confirmed it was launching in mainland China in late March, underlining the company’s unique access to that country’s domestic market, which behind the US and EU, is the world’s third-largest consumer market.
Notably, Meta was hoping to collaborate with Chinese tech giant Tencent to bring Quest to China late last year, however talks reportedly stalled, ostensibly making Meta’s access to that country as a non-starter. Today, Meta’s social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, are all blocked there.
Meanwhile, Vision Pro is also coming to Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore today, with similar trial and pre-order schemes available through the official Apple Store in those less strictly-controlled regions. The original article announcing international availability follows below:/vc_column_text]
Original Article (June 10th, 2024): Previously only available in the United States since its initial launch in February, Apple says it’s now bringing Vision Pro to mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the UK, which includes keyboard support for major world languages used in those countries.
Apple says users in mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore can pre-order Apple Vision Pro on June 13th, with earliest shipments coming June 28th. Customers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the UK can pre-order on June 28th, with availability beginning on July 12th.
Dual Loop band | Image courtesy Apple
Apple says Vision Pro will include DingTalk, Douyin VR Live, Migu Video, Taobao, Tencent Video, and Weibo in China; apps from Yahoo! JAPAN, LIFULL HOME’S, U-NEXT, and Nikkei in Japan; and Singtel CAST, StarHub TV+, and mewatch in Singapore.
Upcoming apps also include MUBI and Soul Spire in the UK; Canal+, Foxar, OQEE, and SeLoger in France; BILD, OTTO, and ZDF in Germany; Classix and Sportsnet in Canada; and Domain in Australia.
This follows earlier reports in March that Apple would indeed be launching in mainland China in addition to a number of the countries mentioned above. In practice, this gives the Cupertino tech giant a critical reach beyond Meta, which is barred from operating its apps and services in mainland China.
Batman: Arkham Shadow is coming exclusive to Quest 3 sometime later this year, and today we’re getting a peek at the story behind what’s shaping up to be VR’s biggest full-fledged Batman game, and next big first-party exclusive from Meta.
Following the release of Batman: Arkham Shadow‘s teaser trailer in May, developers Camouflaj and Oculus Studios today revealed we’re in for an epic battle to prevent the “Day of Wrath,” set to take place on the Fourth of July.
But first, here’s how the studios describe it at length in a new blog post:
It’s the Fourth of July, and Gotham City is besieged by a new threat: the mysterious Rat King and his cultish devotees. Public officials have been abducted, including Batman associates Commissioner Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent. The Rats have pledged to execute them in one week’s time for “crimes committed against the people of Gotham City.”
As widespread rioting engulfs the city, Batman races to prevent this so-called “Day of Wrath,” but it all goes wrong.
Set between the events of Batman: Arkham Origins and Batman: Arkham Asylum, you’ll experience the origins of such iconic characters as The Scarecrow, Harley Quinn, and more, as Batman grapples with the contradiction at the core of his identity—the use of force in pursuit of peace.
Notably, we thought we’d be facing off against the Ratcatcher (aka Otis Flannegan) who isn’t canonically referred to as “The Rat King,” so it seems there’s a mystery there yet to uncover. As seen in the trailer, The Rat King looks nearly identical to how the Ratcatcher is portrayed in the comics, including his iconic gas mask.
Whatever the case, we’re in for what promises to be a new VR-native blend of the series’ patented exploration, stealth, and free-flowing combat, which will take us across Gotham to fight various baddies with Batman’s Grapnel Gun, the Batarang, throw smoke bombs, and the ability “glide” behind unsuspecting enemies by grabbing your cape.
The studios say Batman: Arkham Shadow will also include plenty of crime scenes to scour for clues, puzzles to solve, hidden collectibles to uncover, and iconic locations to explore, which is set to include the Monarch Theatre and Bowery.
Developed by Meta’s Camouflaj and Oculus Studios, and created in partnership with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC, Batman: Arkham Shadow is slated to launch exclusively on Quest 3 sometime in late 2024. In the meantime, you can wishlist the game here.
It was also announced that we can expect a gameplay reveal during Gamescom 2024 which will be held in late August.
Bonelab (2022), Stress Level Zero’s sequel to physics-driven VR shooter Boneworks (2019), just got a massive update which brings more than a year’s worth of enhancements to Quest 3 in addition to a ton of new content for Quest and PC VR headsets alike.
The studio detailed the changes in a lengthy update, revealing a series of core developments created over the past 18 months. Stress Level Zero says these have enhanced performance and introduced a number of overall improvements to the game, calling them “extensive under-the-hood changes.”
The ‘Patch 4’ update, which is now live on Quest and PC VR headsets, includes a few key areas of improvement: enhancements to the player rig, SDK updates, and overhaul to the Zone System, and an expansion of spawnable assets for level creators. This follows Patch 3, which was released in beta in February 2023, and subsequently never went public.
As for Quest 3, the game now has 4x anisotropic filtering, improved foveated rendering, and a “greatly” increased texture cache. You can take a closer look at each at the bottom of the article.
Notably, the massive Patch 4 update comes on the tails of a mod from ‘volx64’ that brings the entirety of Boneworks into Bonelab, letting you play Stress Level Zero’s PC VR-exclusive game on Quest for the first time (and for free).
Player Rig Improvements: The player rig has significantly progressed to become more physical, more performant, and feel better to control. Particular attention was paid to mantling, interaction with levers and lockers, small pops when interacting, aiming guns, recoil, adding a physical neck, and physical twist bones on the upper arms, lower arms, and thighs.
SDK Updates: Patch 4 comes alongside a large update in the MarrowSDK geared specifically towards Mod Level creation. Place spawnables with ease now using the dynamically loaded Spawner Preview Meshes! No more VOID meshes everywhere. This will even work with Pallets created by other users.
Zones: The Zone System has been completely rebuilt, refactored, reworked, retooled for level creation, Marrow Entity tracking, and performance optimization. This enables modders to more seamlessly create high quality levels with more complex player involvement. For additional information please see updated Marrow SDK documentation!
Spawnables: Spawnable dynamic objects (Marrow Entities) fill the library of items you are now able to utilize in your level creation. By referencing the Bonelab pallet of spawnables in your mod project, you can now place and spawn almost any Bonelab object the same way we can. Since these items are all Marrow Entities, they are tracked and dynamically culled per zone for optimization.
Additional Changes: A multitude of further changes have been made to things such as Spawngun UI, organization, quality of life improvemens, grips, and level adjustments. Tons of further optimizations have been made to rendering, loading, asset streaming, interactive set pieces, colliders, occlusion, nav-mesh, textures, sounds, lightmaps, shaders, materials, fog, static batching, memory use, asset file size, etc. This all comes along with an overall massive polish pass and too many bug fixes to count ranging from logic errors, collider issues, incorrect scales, UI bugs, objects double spawning, objects becoming broken from spawning, texture mistakes, incorrect references, mysterious cursed anomalies, and blown-out lightprobes.
Mod.io subscription downloading: You can now connect to your mod.io account and directly download all subscribed mods. Note: this will only download mods compatible with this MarrowSDK version and above. You can still manually install older mods but they will likely have problems if they haven’t been updated.
Skatrix Pro, the Vision Pro skateboarding app from legendary skater Rodney Mullen, has just been overhauled to deliver even more convincing mixed reality gameplay thanks to its new 2.0 update.
Released as a day-one app for Vision Pro earlier this year, Skatix Pro now boasts full-room mixed reality gameplay in addition to a skatepark builder, improved hand input gestures, and nuanced environment sensing.
In practice, this lets Skatrix Pro players go beyond skateboarding in a floating volume in AR space for an even more realistic skate session, letting you ollie, kickflip and grind your way around your whole house.
“Immersive gameplay transforms the user’s real-world surroundings into a dynamic skatepark environment, allowing for interaction with virtually any object, shape, or terrain,” developer Reality Crisis says in a blog post. “This enables players to skate and perform tricks on real elements around them, merging digital game content with physical spaces to create a unique skateboarding experience.”
As Vision Pro lacks a dedicated motion controller for input, Skatrix Pro was designed around both eye and hand-tracking, letting you do things like look at any ramp, rail or a place on a floor that you want to skate and then tap your fingers together to send your skater there. Then simply pinch and swipe to do tricks with the app’s virtual 3D joystick controls.
To bring Skatrix to Vision Pro, developing studio Reality Crisis used Niantic’s Lightship platform, including Lightship Visual Positioning System (VPS). The studios say in an announcement from earlier this year that Reality Crisis and Niantic are looking to both co-publish and co-market the Skatrix franchise over the next seven years.
You can nab Skatrix Pro exclusively for Vision Pro over on the App Store, priced at $20.
HTC Vive announced it’s offering a new hardware bundle for its Vive XR Elite headset that brings some handy new accessories to users for free, which are designed to enhance the headset’s ergonomics and increase user comfort.
The accessory pack includes an improved Vive Face Gasket, a mixed reality Face Gasket for better peripheral vision and ventilation, a Deluxe Strap for better weight distribution, and Temple Clips for a more secure connection to the battery mount.
Image courtesy HTC Vive
HTC is offering these free accessories from now until July 3rd, 2024, which you can nab as an existing owner by following this link, where you’ll be prompted to register your Vive XR Elite’s serial numbers.
Released in February 2023, Vive XR Elite is the company’s flagship standalone XR headset, which supports both native Viveport content and PC VR content via SteamVR.
Priced at $1,000, new customers who order by June 30th, 2024 will also get $100 off content in addition to five VR games, which include The Break-In, Hubris, Primal Hunt, Sushi Ben, and Unplugged VR. You can grab the deal over at HTC Vive’s website.
To learn more about Vive XR Elite, check out our initial hands-on, which dives deeper into some of the ergonomic woes HTC is likely looking to fix with this new accessory pack.
Wevr, the veteran XR studio behind one of VR’s earliest and most recognizable VR demo, announced it’s now secured $3.5 million in new funding from HTC Corp. and Epic Games.
It’s been almost a decade since VR enthusiasts first got a chance to don the pre-production version of HTC Vive at GDC 2015, where they likely went face-to-face with a giant blue whale in Wevr’s iconic VR demo theBlu: Whale Encounter.
Of course, Wevr has done much more beyond that iconic first episode in its theBlu series, having worked on a number of immersive experiences over the years including Gnomes & Goblins, Harry Potter VR, and Reggie Watts Waves VR. You’ll probably recognize more than a few in the studio’s sizzle reel below:
Now HTC and Epic are adding to their investment in Wevr as the company announced it’s expanding its cloud-based development platform Virtual Studio and real-time 3D production capabilities, which the company says will help them meet new demand for brands to create XR content.
According to Crunchbase data, this brings the studio’s lifetime investment to $42.3 million, with its $25 million Series B investment arriving in February 2016.
“Wevr is an incredibly creative company with a command of XR technology. They are the ones to beat in this space,” said Cher Wang, CEO of HTC Corp. “We share the founders’ mission and passion for creating high quality spatial content and bringing immersive experiences to the next level on premium XR systems.”
Additionally, Wevr announced that industry veteran Tim Dillon has joined the leadership team as EVP Business Development, who brings his extensive experience in interactive and immersive media, experiential and emerging technologies, including at Media Monks and Moving Picture Company (MPC).
Founded in 2010 and originally known as WemoLab, Wevr has worked with a number of brands on location-based XR entertainment, including Warner Brothers, Google, Samsung and Universal, having collaborated with Jon Favreau, Deepak Chopra and Run The Jewels.
Meta is releasing an update for Quest 3 that aims to fix one of the most irksome issues with the headset’s passthrough function: its terrible visual warping.
Using passthrough on Quest 3 has been somewhat of a blessing and curse. It’s great to have color passthrough for mixed reality games, and also for just keeping an eye on your surroundings. But ever since it launched in 2023, the headset has suffered some very apparent warping that can cause motion sickness in users since the world isn’t nearly as ‘solid’ as it should be.
Meta is now rolling out its v66 update which looks to fix this in Quest 3—said to improve image quality beyond the company’s big v64 update in April, which brought with it better color accuracy, exposure, contrast, and dynamic range.
The company says in a blog post that the new update “significantly reduce[s] image distortion in Passthrough, so that your hands and other objects look more natural in Mixed Reality. This improvement also reduces the warping effect around these objects while in motion.”
Check out a comparison between the v65 update and the new and improved passthrough in v66:
Meta says users will probably also notice that their virtual hands will now align better with the image of their real-world hands, which has always been a bit of a immersion breaker since the mismatch draws your attention away from MR content.
Additionally, the new v66 update is also slated to include an improvement to how background audio works for 2D apps on Quest, and a new experimental feature that adds a wrist-mounted menu button.
As with all Quest updates, Meta says it’s rolling out the passthrough improvement feature gradually, which may even come as an independent follow-on update after you’ve actually installed v66. In the meantime, make sure to keep your eyes peeled on your hands to see if you’ve gotten the update or not—which should be very apparent.
Palmer Luckey, Oculus founder and creator behind the original Oculus Rift, teased an upcoming announcement that he’s working on a new XR headset.
Luckey says in a post on X that he’ll be talking more about the device at Augmented World Expo (AWE), which takes place in Long Beach, California from June 18-20.
Image captured by Road to VR
Could it be a consumer standalone like Quest? The one ‘ultimate’ PC VR headset to rule them all? A retro-style collector’s device, which might be informed by the Rift creator’s sizable personal VR headset collection? Or maybe a headset that kills the user when they die in VR? He’s actually already built that one, so probably not.
Whatever the case, Luckey told Road to VR that the head-mounted display (HMD) in question will indeed be a VR headset “and more,” however it won’t be shown off “for a while,” as the announcement is intended to precede possible leaks since “it won’t stay secret.”
While there’s no telling precisely what it will be, the announcement (to the announcement) seems to follow a new chapter for Luckey, who has recently dipped back into consumer hardware with the release of a Game Boy-style device, called ModRetro Chromatic, which the Oculus creator calls his “ultimate tribute to the most important handheld console of all time.”
Then there’s the possibility that it’s none of those things mentioned above, and not intended for consumers at all. Following his departure from Facebook in 2017, Luckey founded the defense technology company Anduril Industries, which is involved in creating AI software, autonomous drones, and threat detection systems. The company has also mentioned in the past it’s developed XR software for the battefield, which could mean an Anduril headset could be on the horizon as well.
Whatever the case, we’ll be keeping an eye on Luckey’s X profile in the meantime as we lead up to AWE, which takes place June 18-20.
Palmer Luckey, Oculus founder and creator behind the original Oculus Rift, teased an upcoming announcement that he’s working on a new XR headset.
Luckey says in a post on X that he’ll be talking more about the device at Augmented World Expo (AWE), which takes place in Long Beach, California from June 18-20.
Image captured by Road to VR
Could it be a consumer standalone like Quest? The one ‘ultimate’ PC VR headset to rule them all? A retro-style collector’s device, which might be informed by the Rift creator’s sizable personal VR headset collection? Or maybe a headset that kills the user when they die in VR? He’s actually already built that one, so probably not.
Whatever the case, Luckey told Road to VR that the head-mounted display (HMD) in question will indeed be a VR headset “and more,” however it won’t be shown off “for a while,” as the announcement is intended to precede possible leaks since “it won’t stay secret.”
While there’s no telling precisely what it will be, the announcement (to the announcement) seems to follow a new chapter for Luckey, who has recently dipped back into consumer hardware with the release of a Game Boy-style device, called ModRetro Chromatic, which the Oculus creator calls his “ultimate tribute to the most important handheld console of all time.”
Then there’s the possibility that it’s none of those things mentioned above, and not intended for consumers at all. Following his departure from Facebook in 2017, Luckey founded the defense technology company Anduril Industries, which is involved in creating AI software, autonomous drones, and threat detection systems. The company has also mentioned in the past it’s developed XR software for the battefield, which could mean an Anduril headset could be on the horizon as well.
Whatever the case, we’ll be keeping an eye on Luckey’s X profile in the meantime as we lead up to AWE, which takes place June 18-20.
