drop – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

January 7, 2018

Take In The Web In 360 Degrees With Early Access VR Browser ‘Drop’

We might not have holographic displays we can swipe around the room with gestures just yet, but Drop is taking us a step closer to the dream. Drop is a 360 degree web browser that you’ll be able to control in real time while dragging tabs around the room, and browsing in a fully immersive 3D environment. It’s absolutely exciting, and takes us one step closer to the dream of a fully mixed reality (MR) experience.

Speaking of mixed reality, Drop hope to make the software available to Windows Mixed Reality users before the end of 2018, meaning you’ll be able to see the web browser windows and tabs surrounding you while you can also interact with the real world; perfect for multitasking.

But that’s not all, Drop confirmed to Venture Beat that the software will make it’s way to augmented reality (AR) platforms, and in time, will hopefully replace smartphones and tablets entirely. Bold ambitions, but it’s exactly the kind of vision a burgeoning startups need.

“We want to create that first piece of hardware that replaces the smartphone and becomes as ubiquitous as the smartphone,” said Russell Ladson, Drop Software’s CEO. “But we know that for us, that’s a 7-10 year vision type of thing. We just felt that it made sense to start here today with the early adopters, the early enthusiasts, and start understanding the space from there.”

If you’ve got a HTC Vive head-mounted display you can start using the early-access version of Drop right now to get a good idea of what experiencing what 360 degree web browsing is like. The Windows Mixed Reality version is also sure to be popular with online professionals.

Though, don’t get too excited about swooshing tabs around with your arms. Sadly, Ladson reports that they found it’s not the best browsing experience; “We built an initial version of Drop using hand gesture technology and a keyboard, and we found that—the idea of using hand gestures in the environment makes sense when it’s a one-off action, but it can’t be the primary part of the interface, because of arm fatigue.”

For more on fancy or productive ways to get working and browsing the web, make sure to stay on VRFocus where we have all the latest info on mixed reality and more.

January 1, 2018

Drop Is A VR Productivity Environment For HTC Vive

Drop Software Inc. wants to change the way people access information in virtual reality. Its flagship VR title, Drop, provides a 360-degree environment that folks can use to browse the internet. It raised a seed round of an undisclosed amount in August, drawing investments from HTC as well as firms such as Macro Ventures, Autochrome Ventures, and Backstage Capital. Drop is available on the HTC Vive headset.

“If I told you to open your MacBook right now the first thing you’d do is open Safari or Google Chrome or something along those lines,” said Drop Software’s CEO and co-founder Russell Ladson in a phone call with GamesBeat. “We’ve done it on desktops. We’ve done it on mobile phones. For our team, we asked ourselves, ‘What does this look like in VR?’”

Ladson says that users spend an average of 26 minutes inside Drop, typically performing actions such as sending emails, watching videos, and reading articles. Its audience is primarily folks who use their VR headsets six to eight hours every week. Some of its users have called it a “virtual Pinterest board,” referring to how they can visually organize content around them in a 3D space.

Drop has had to tackle a few issues in the course of developing its user interface, a few of which it’s still working out. Ladson says that input is a big challenge, particularly because the team doesn’t believe keyboards are the best way to interact with a virtual environment.

“We built an initial version of Drop using hand gesture technology and a keyboard, and we found that—the idea of using hand gestures in the environment makes sense when it’s a one-off action, but it can’t be the primary part of the interface, because of arm fatigue,” said Ladson.

Other issues include readability of websites and figuring out how to optimally use the 360-degree environment. In Drop, users can point at a window and pull it toward them, enlarging it so it’s easier to read. When they’re done, they can toss it away and it will poof out of existence.

“The tutorial is the first thing you have to use before it even allows you to search in the environment. It’s almost mandatory,” said Ladson. “The reason we did that was because people wouldn’t necessarily know, once they did a query, that all they had to do was point the laser pointer at that web link, and that panel will fly out to you.”

Drop isn’t the only virtual browsing space out there. Earlier this year, Oculus announced a new Dash interface for its Rift headset, which can run PC applications. It also has developed the Oculus Browser, which enables folks to surf the web and look at 3D content. Google also released a version of its web browser Chrome that is VR-capable.

“That’s what we’re seeing right now in this idea that VR does have this amazing use case, to be a productivity suite, a place where I go and I lock in for the first two hours of my work day,” said Ladson. “That’s where I get everything done. That’s going to change the way that people work. I think we’ll move from this idea of how open floor plans became so popular to everyone having some type of VR station. Especially as more standalone headsets become available on the market.”

It’s not just VR, either. Drop is talking to some companies that specialize in augmented reality and exploring how it could create a similar browsing environment for AR. It’s also interested in incorporating other technologies, such as AI assistants that use voice, such as Amazon’s Alexa.

The main challenge it has to solve is distribution, which Ladson says it’s approaching by talking to more hardware providers. Not only will that get Drop in front of more users, but it may help with monetization down the line. Most browsers bring in cash by signing deals with search engines, as Mozilla did with Google in the early 2000s. By the end of 2018, Drop is planning to roll out to the Rift as well as Microsoft Mixed Reality headsets.

“We want to create that first piece of hardware that replaces the smartphone and becomes as ubiquitous as the smartphone,” said Ladson. “But we know that for us, that’s a 7-10 year vision type of thing. We just felt that it made sense to start here today with the early adopters, the early enthusiasts, and start understanding the space from there.”

This post by Stephanie Chan originally appeared on VentureBeat.

Tagged with: drop

March 1, 2017

GDC 2017: HTC ‘Doesn’t See The Need to Cut the Price of Vive’ After Rift Drop

In an official statement, HTC is addressing today’s news that Oculus is dropping the price of its Rift VR headset and Touch VR controllers. In an email to UploadVR, a representative for the company explained that:

We don’t feel the need to cut the price of Vive, as we’ve had incredible success, and continue to see great momentum in market. We’ve built a strong ecosystem made up of Viveport, Vive X, Vive Tracker and Vive Studios, and remain laser focused and are not changing our strategy of delivering the best and most comprehensive VR product to both developers and consumers.

The Vive currently costs $800 for a system that includes a headset and a pair of tracked controllers. Until today, the Rift headset was $600 and the Touch controllers were $200. Now, consumers can get Rift and Touch together for $600 which is a significant undercut to HTC.

From what third party analysts have indicated, the Vive does seem to be outselling the Rift by thousands of units. Those reports remain unconfirmed officially by either company.

Time will tell if the Rift’s new price will help them close this reported gap.

Tagged with: 2017, drop, GDC, price, response, rift, Vive

March 1, 2017

GDC 2017: Oculus Slashes Hardware Prices – Rift and Touch Together Now $600

Facebook is announcing a $100 price drop for both its Oculus Rift headset and Oculus Touch controllers, bringing the “all-in” price for the system to around $600.

The $200 price drop represents the strongest attempt yet by Facebook’s Oculus to push high end VR firmly into mainstream. The price of the Rift is being brought down to $500 from $600, while Touch now costs $100 (a pair of the controllers previously cost $200).

“Less expensive hardware means more people have more money to spend on content and more people in general come in,” said Jason Rubin, the company’s head of VR content, in an interview with UploadVR. “This is 101 for expanding your ecosystem.”

Rift was originally launched at the end of March last year bundled with only an Xbox controller. In December the company added the more immersive Touch controllers to bring player’s hands into VR. Oculus hardware is sold at cost, according to the company, but since the hiring of a new Chief Operations Officer, Hans Hartmann, last year, those costs reportedly have come down.

“His job has basically been to go and work our supply chain,” Rubin said of Hartmann’s role. “We didn’t have that at Oculus when we first came out. We came out with a product that was done by a bunch of engineers who said ‘what does this cost?’ We heard an answer from the manufacturers and we paid that cost. But Hans’ entire career has been going back to manufacturers and saying ‘come on’… we didn’t’ have that capability until Hans came in.”

A decrease in component prices for Oculus is “part of the difference in price,” according to Rubin.

“A year is when we always intended to take a serious look at price,” he said. “We figured for the first year price wasn’t going to be the biggest determining factor [for consumers]…We think at this point price is a major factor so it’s the right time for us to focus on this…We are very comfortable with this price. It’s sustainable.”

When asked if the price of Rift or Touch could continue to fall, Rubin said “I think this is a pretty compelling price drop and we aren’t going to be dropping it again in the next few months. This is the kind of thing you look at every six months to a year.”

The change widens the price gap between the Rift and HTC Vive, which was its chief competition for much of last year. Vive was priced at around $800 from the start and included hand controllers and sensors for room scale VR, but lacked some of the comfort niceties of the Rift. For example, the Rift included integrated audio and a nice head strap that made it easy to get into VR quickly. The Vive, by default, uses ear buds that introduce extra wires into a setup. HTC announced this week is will be selling an accessory that essentially matches these Rift features for an additional $99.

The HTC Vive VR headset

The Rift can also run software from both the Oculus Store and Steam, which makes it versatile from a content perspective while Vive owners use a hack to access Oculus Store content. The Rift, though, suffered from tracking issues in the largest setups when it debuted its Touch controllers. The company believes it solved many of those issues with its latest software update this week.

If you purchased Touch in the last 30 days, Facebook is offering $50 in Oculus store credit to ease the blow of the price drop for recent buyers.

“The price of these VR headsets are going to come down. It’s just something we’re going to have to deal with,” Rubin said, adding: “We are not replacing the Rift in the next year or two. This product is going to be with us for a while.”

Tagged with: drop, GDC, oculus, price, rift, touch