Category: Google

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Vacation Simulator Developer Teases Quest Hand Tracking Support

A new teaser video suggests that hand tracking support could be added to Vacation Simulator on Oculus Quest.

Devin Reimer, CEO of Google-owned developer Owlchemy Labs, posted a video to Twitter showing a scene from Vacation Simulator, except with the player using hand tracking to make a peace and thumbs up sign. In a reply, Reimer mentioned that this was definitely not the Valve Index hand tracking at work. While there’s no indication of any release date, overall this looks like a pretty strong indication that Vacation Simulator on Quest and Quest 2 might receive an update that adds in hand tracking as an input method.

We’ll of course need to see details on exactly how much of the game is transferable to controller-free hand tracking. Owlchemy’s games are so familiar and any quality loss to the stability of gesture recognition would likely be instantly recognizable. Not a lot of games have added hand tracking support since the feature’s launch, with Richie’s Plank Experience, Waltz of the Wizard, Virtual Desktop and others being some of the exceptions.

Both of Owlchemy’s ‘Simulator’ games are now available on Oculus Quest and they were recently enhanced for Oculus Quest 2. Improvements for both titles include some visual upgrades, removing foveated rendering and support for 90Hz on Quest 2, which is rolling out now as part of the v23 update.

Vacation Simulator also recently received the free Back to Job expansion, which adds in several mechanics from the original Job Simulator game into Vacation Simulator.

Job Simulator and Vacation Simulator are available on most VR platforms. You can read our review of the latter here.

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Still Use Google Daydream? Don’t Get Android 11

If, by some chance, you’re still using the Google Daydream VR platform, you won’t want to update your phone to Android 11.

As spotted by Android Police, Google’s official support pages for its ill-fated mobile VR platform confirm the latest version of the operating system ends support for Daydream. “The Daydream VR app is no longer supported by Google and may not work properly on some devices running Android 11 or later,” the page reads. “Many of the third-party apps and experiences within Daydream may still be available as standalone apps in the Google Play store.”

Depending on your phone, you may still be able to access the platform itself, but don’t expect any new updates.

Google Daydream Dead

Though sad, this should hardly come as a surprise to anyone. Daydream launched a few years back with ambitions of becoming the premier destination for mobile VR experiences. Google launched its own smartphone viewer, Daydream View, and partnered with companies like Samsung to add support for the platform. But progress seemed sluggish, with the Google Play Store showing tiny download numbers for many apps.

The penultimate nail in the coffin came last year when both the Google-made Pixel 3a and 4 released without support for the platform. If you still want to access and use Daydream apps in 2020, your best bet may be to hunt down one of the Lenovo Mirage Solo standalone headsets, though those go for a heavy price.

Daydream’s death has left a void in Google’s VR strategy, frustrated by the fact the company is behind some of the best content on headsets. The Google-made Tiltbrush continues to be supported, releasing on Quest and PSVR over the past few years, and Job Simulator developer Owlchemy Labs is Google-owned. Where the company goes next with the tech remains to be seen.

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Vacation Simulator Back To Job Update Arrives September 10 For PC VR And Quest

Vacation Simulator will see its free Back To Job expansion arrive on September 10th on SteamVR and Oculus Quest. The update is scheduled to launch on PlayStation VR in October.

The new update merges some of the game mechanics from the original Job Simulator with the expanded world of Vacation Simulator. The VR games from Google-owned Owlchemy Labs are among the most well known VR titles because they serve as fairly straight-forward playgrounds to introduce people to the mechanics of VR headsets with tracked hand controllers. Vacation Simulator features a range of activities divided into zones you can visit centered in beach, mountain, and forest environments. The original Job Simulator featured four jobs including office worker, auto mechanic, chef, and convenience store clerk with a number of activities and challenges faced within each job. With Back To Job, the “gig economy” has now made its way to Vacation Simulator because “all bots have gone on vacation and no one is left to job, so it’s time for the human to enter the on-demand workforce to make the perfect vacation for bots. Time to job, again.”

Owlchemy Labs originally announced the expansion in June during our UploadVR Showcase event.

We’re looking forward to seeing what Back To Job brings to Vacation Simulator. We’ll have gameplay and impressions for you soon so check back on UploadVR.com for the latest. Also, if you haven’t played Owlchemy’s VR games yet, Job Simulator and Vacation Simulator are bundled together in a sale on Oculus Quest through September 11th. The pack discounts the games by 30%.

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Google Sheets And Excel VR Spreadsheets Are A Thing Now

If your dreams occasionally involve spreadsheets that extend endlessly in all directions, good news: Researchers have developed a virtual reality spreadsheet interface that could expand Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel files from flat screens into 3D spaces. Rather than being nightmare-inducing, it could actually make spreadsheet apps more usable than before.

While traditional spreadsheets have been limited by the boundaries of 2D windows and displays, the research team envisions VR opening up adjacent 2D workspaces for related content, then using 3D for everything from floating menus to cell selection and repositioning. In one example, a VR headset mirrors the view of one spreadsheet page displayed on a physical tablet, while two virtual sheets sit to the left and right, permitting drag-and-drop access to their cells, as an overview hovers above.

Alternatively, tablet-surrounding areas could display useful reference materials, expanded views of formulas, or the full collection of a spreadsheet’s pages displayed as floating previews. Another possibility is a single spreadsheet page that stretches far further than the 30-degree diagonal field of view occupied by a typical tablet on a desk, utilizing more of the ~110-degree fields of view supported by VR headsets.

Fans of the film Minority Report and portrayals of similarly holographic future 3D interfaces will appreciate the team’s use of a floating pie menu — complete with a drop shadow on the spreadsheet — for selecting features and functions, as well as spherical rather than flat buttons and other visual elements that appear to leap off the flat pages. The 3D spreadsheet workspace could also be extended with floating desktop objects, such as a virtual trash can, to make disposing of unwanted content more intuitive.

Interestingly, the project’s research team includes members of the Mixed Reality Lab at Germany’s Coburg University, as well as a professor from the University of Cambridge and two principal researchers from Microsoft — mixed reality expert Eyal Ofek and UX engineer Michel Pahud. But their work isn’t limited to potential Microsoft applications: Dr. Jens Grubert, one of the paper’s authors, tells VentureBeat that the cross-organizational team includes “long time collaborators” and actually used Google Sheets rather than Excel for the backend.

In addition to an HTC Vive Pro VR headset and Microsoft Surface Pro 4 tablet, the researchers employed a spatially tracked stylus, enabling precision direct input for spreadsheet interactions while adding the freedom of in-air movement within a 3D space. Unsurprisingly, the VR spreadsheets can be used on existing commodity PC hardware, and the virtual UI was created with the Unity engine. Sheets pages are rendered within Chromium browser windows to match the resolution and size of the Surface Pro 4’s screen.

Full project details are available in the “Pen-based Interaction with Spreadsheets in Mobile Virtual Reality” research paper. If you’re interested in deeper dives, you can see a video of the project here, as well as a broader exploration of the team’s VR-tablet research here, ahead of their presentation at the IEEE’s International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, being held online from November 9 to 13.

This post by Jeremy Horwitz originally appeared on VentureBeat.

The post Google Sheets And Excel VR Spreadsheets Are A Thing Now appeared first on UploadVR.

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Google Acquires North, the Startup Behind ‘Focals’ Smartglasses

Google today confirmed in a blog post that it’s acquired North, the Canada-based smartglasses maker behind Focals. The acquisition price wasn’t disclosed, however early reports suggested it was around $180 million.

Founded in 2012, North (ex-Thalmic Labs) first set out to create Myo, a gesture-based armband. Pivoting from Myo and rebranding to North in 2018, the company then released Focals, which focused on creating a stylish, unobtrusive pair of prescription-compatible smartglasses.

“Over the last while, it became clear that aligning with Google would significantly advance our shared vision,” North said in a news brief.

The company says that it will be winding down support for its 2018 Focals smartglasses, and that Focals 2.0 is effectively cancelled.

North seems to be making a clean break with its legacy product, Focals 1.0. Starting July 31st, 2020, users won’t able to connect or use Focals or access their North accounts. The Focals app itself is also going to be removed from both Google Play and Apple’s App Store.

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Refunds are being offered, as the company says in an FAQ that “[f]ull refunds will be given for all paid Focals orders starting June 30th, 2020 using the original payment method.”

The acquisition seems to have been a fairly quick deal, as North was talking up Focals 2.0 up until March 2020, advertising its prospective 2020 ship date.

This, you might conclude, may mean that Google is getting ready to completely integrate the IP somehow into its own Google Glass project, which has reemerged to serve the enterprise sector. It may equally as well rebrand Focals 2.0 as a Google device targeted at fashion-conscious consumers.

Is Google heading back into consumer smartglasses territory with its latest acquisition? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

The post Google Acquires North, the Startup Behind ‘Focals’ Smartglasses appeared first on Road to VR.