Category: Huawei

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China’s Largest Telecom Forms Metaverse Industry Alliance, Including Xiaomi, Huawei, HTC & Unity

China Mobile, that country’s largest wireless carier with over 940 million subscribers, has formed a metaverse industry alliance including some of the biggest names in China-based tech.

As reported by Shanghai Securities News (Chinese), China Mobile announced during Mobile World Congress Shanghai what it calls the ‘China Mobile Metaverse Industry Alliance’, something the company says will be “the world’s strongest metaverse circle of friends.”

At MWC Shanghai, state-owned China Mobile announced the first batch of 24 members of the alliance, including Huawei, Xiaomi, HTC Vive, Unity China, NOLO, XREAL (formerly Nreal), AI company iFlytek, video streaming platform MGTV, and cloud streaming platform Haima Cloud.

Image courtesy China Mobile

Main objectives include improving the state of metaverse development in China, sharing resources to deepen cooperation between the companies, and developing a “win-win concept” to share the new dividends of the digital economy. China Mobile additionally announced a member alliance fund that will support outstanding metaverse projects as well as R&D for both hardware and XR content creation.

At the MWC Shanghai press conference, Zhao Dachun, deputy general manager of China Mobile, said that the metaverse represents a new opportunity for trillions of yuan (hundreds of billions of USD) and “an important carrier to accelerate the construction of digital China and realize the digital economy.”

China Mobile isn’t new to the space. In 2018, China Mobile partnered with HTC to “accelerate the proliferation of 5G infrastructure and devices in China” and provide HTC with greater push to get its VR devices into more retail channels.

In 2021, the company launched its own XR interoperability standard called GSXR (General Standard for XR), which included support from many of the companies listed above in addition to Pico, Rokid, Oppo, Baidu, Tencent, China Telecom, and Skyworth.

Migu, China Mobile’s streaming content subsidiary, has also recently built a new ‘Metaverse Headquarters’ in Xiamen, China. There, the company says it will leverage 5G and XR technologies to help build Xiamen into “high-quality, high-value, modern and international” city with digital intelligence, China Daily reports.

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Huawei Motion Controller Patent May Point to Greater VR Ambitions

Chinese tech giant Huawei isn’t new to virtual reality, although it’s certainly not the first name you think of when it comes to VR headsets. Historically, the company has pitched its VR headsets more as smartphone accessories à la Samsung Gear VR. A patent registered with the Chinese intellectual property office (CNIPA) showing a very Oculus Touch-like motion controller may point to the company’s growing VR ambitions however.

Huawei is certainly feeling the pressure of reduced smartphone sales due to US sanctions and a ban on packaging its hardware with Google services. Could Huawei be focusing more on VR to boost revenue?

A CNIPA patent, numbered CN306513655S, was uncovered by Chinese language site ITHome (via Notebook Check). It shows an Oculus Touch-style motion controller with a characteristic ring embedded with LEDs for 6DOF optical tracking.

Granted, a patent doesn’t guarantee the company is actively developing a new VR headset, however if Huawei is looking to create its own 6DOF native VR headset, it would make sense to lay down multiple patents before it does so. We’ll be keeping our eye on Huawei in the coming months as live events like MWC 2021 inevitably pick back up in the wake of the prolonged pandemic.

Image courtesy CNIPA, ITHome

At the time of this writing Huawei offers one consumer VR headset, the smartphone-tethered Huawei VR Glass. For now, it’s only sold in a single flavor: a 3DOF headset and single controller, which ostensibly offers a similar experience to Oculus Go or Samsung Gear VR. You can also add in Nolo’s CV1 tracking basestation and controllers, although the same is true for nearly all 3DOF headsets.

A new version of Huawei VR Glass was revealed last year, showing an attachable 6DOF optical tracking module and 6DOF motion controllers. Those devices however were created by the China-based creator Camsense, and not Huawei itself.

The post Huawei Motion Controller Patent May Point to Greater VR Ambitions appeared first on Road to VR.

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Neue VR-Brille von Huawei mit 6DOF-Tracking

Tower Tag auf Steam

Auf der CES 2019 zeigte Huawei eine VR-Brille, welche zwar sehr klein und handlich, jedoch nur mit 3DOF-Tracking ausgestattet war. Dieses Modell hat nun ein gründliches Update erhalten und bietet nun 6DOF-Tracking, Motion Controller und bleibt seiner schlanken Linie treu.

Neue VR-Brille von Huawei mit 6DOF-Tracking

huawei-vr-glass

Huawei kündigte die Brille in der vergangenen Woche auf dem Cloud Summit der World VR Industry Conference in Nanchang an. Viele Informationen gibt es leider nicht, aber immerhin einige Bilder und Videos, die zeigen, wie platzsparend die Brille aufbewahrt werden kann. Klingt zunächst vielleicht banal, die Idee ist aber so simpel gut, dass sie hervorgehoben werden sollte. Eventuell werden wir ein ähnliches Design zukünftig bei weiteren Anbietern finden.

Gizmo China berichtet, dass Huawei das Kit bis Ende des Jahres an die Entwickler ausliefern wird, bevor es etwa im April 2021 auf den Markt kommt. Ob die Brille jedoch auch in Europa auf den Markt kommt, ist fraglich, da die erste Version des VR-Headsets auch nur im asiatischen Raum erschien.

Hauwei VR Controller

Der Vorgänger bietet eine Bildschirmauflösung von 3200 x 1600 Pixeln mit einer Pixeldichte von bis zu 1058PPI, einem Sichtfeld von 90 Grad und einer Bildwiederholrate von 70/90Hz. Darüber hinaus wiegt es etwa 166 Gramm, die Bügel sind faltbar und es hat eine IPD-Anpassung von 55 bis 71 mm. Ob sich diese Spezifikationen auch mit dem neuen Modell decken werden, ist aktuell noch unklar.

(Quelle: Gizmo China, Upload VR)

Der Beitrag Neue VR-Brille von Huawei mit 6DOF-Tracking zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

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Huawei’s Upgraded VR Glass Has 6DOF Tracking And Neat Storage

In 2019, Huawei revealed a sunglasses-style VR viewer called VR Glass. The slim form factor was powered by a tethered smartphone or PC and preceded other ultra-slim VR designs we saw at CES 2020, but it only had 3DOF tracking. For the follow-up, the company is claiming to make a big leap.

The new Huawei VR Glass jumps to 6DOF tracking. Think of it as similar to the jump from Oculus Go to Quest; 3DOF (or three degrees of freedom) allows you to spin and tilt your head in VR, but only with 6DOF can you physically move it through virtual space.

Huawei VR Glass Gets A Refresh

Huawei announced the glasses at the World VR Industry Conference Cloud Summit in Nanchang, China this past week. We’re a little light on information, but pictures of the device show a design very similar — if not identical — to the previous model with a new set of cameras attached to the top.

Accompanying the new headset is a pair of 6DOF controllers that look very much like Oculus Touch controllers. There is one key difference, though, and that’s in the tracking ring. A pair of divets allow you to stack the controllers on top of each other and then place the VR Glass over them for neat storage. Bet Facebook wish they’d thought of that, eh? Check it out in a video below.

It’s not clear if the new Glass has any other upgraded specs, though the original featured 1600×1600 resolution per eye.

Gizmo China reports that Huawei will ship the kit to developers by the end of the year before a consumer release around April 2021. No pricing yet but the original Glass cost around $425 in China. But don’t bet on ever getting to try them for yourself; the original VR Glass didn’t release in the west and it doesn’t look like this version will either.

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JDI’s Small VR LCD Enters Mass Production, Could Mean More Compact Headsets Soon

A 2.1 inch made-for-VR LCD panel, the same likely used in Huawei’s ultra compact VR Glass, has now entered mass production.

The size of current VR headsets is primarily dictated by what field of view current lenses can achieve (without uncorrectable distortion) with a given panel size. The smaller the panel, the more difficult this is.

The Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, HTC Vive Pro, and HTC Vive Cosmos all use dual panels between 3.4 and 3.6 inches diagonal. Other headsets like PlayStation VR and Oculus Rift S use a single panel, but these panels occupy essentially the same total space.

The HP Reverb was formerly the most compact position tracked PC VR headset, using 2.96 inch panels.

Specifications

JDI’s new panel is 2.1 inches, with the following specifications:

  • Panel Type: IPS LCD
  • Resolution: 1600×1600
  • Max Refresh Rate: 120 Hz
  • Subpixels: 3 (RGB)
  • Brightness: 430cd/㎡
  • Response Time: 4.5ms (gray-to-gray, worst case)

The company states that it is “used in VR glasses that have already been introduced to the market”. Given the above size, resolution, and panel type (and that the refresh rate is within the max) the only known headset on the market this could be is Huawei VR Glass.

Huawei VR Glass
Huawei VR Glass

These smaller panels, alongside pancake lenses (a fundamentally different design to all other headsets currently on the market), enable the incredibly small size of the Huawei VR Glass.

However, keep in mind that that product doesn’t have built in positional tracking or cameras. If these panels are used for a position tracked PC VR headset the size would likely be larger. And of course if they were used in an Oculus Quest competitor it would need to be much larger to house a battery and compute hardware.

The relatively standard resolution and use of LCD may make this panel significantly cheaper than high resolution OLED microdisplay alternatives like what Panasonic showed at CES. Huawei’s product is only officially available in China, for the equivalent of roughly $430.

It’s important to note, however, that when we tried Huawei VR Glass at CES we noted that it has a narrower field of view than typical. It may require a larger design to solve this.

Size Matters

Most current VR headsets are not comfortable to wear for extended periods of time. For some, they are even uncomfortable after a matter of minutes. This can be because they push a relatively heavy weight against the sinuses, where humans are particularly sensitive to pressure.

Oculus Quest

The weight’s fundamental cause is the the size of the panels currently available and the lenses used with them. Smaller panels of the same resolution are more difficult to produce, and more difficult to magnify over a large field of view. But JDI appears to have solved the first hurdle and Huawei demonstrated that the second can be shipped too (with a few tradeoffs).

With smaller panels, and suitable pancake lenses, VR could soon start to become a more comfortable medium that people can spend hours in without wanting the bulky heavy box off their face. Current VR might one day be looked back on like we look at the earliest cellular telephones or CRT monitors.

Whether this display system paradigm will stay in the realm of media viewers or come to gaming focused headsets is yet to be seen, but we’ll keep a close eye on JDI and companies likely to use its new panels.

The post JDI’s Small VR LCD Enters Mass Production, Could Mean More Compact Headsets Soon appeared first on UploadVR.

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CES 2020 Interview: Nolo VR’s 6DoF, 5G Vision

It’s almost the end of VRFocus’ selection of CES 2020 interviews which have been running for the past few weeks. The massive tech event which starts early every January in Las Vegas had quite the selection of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) products available. From new hardware like the Pimax 8K headsets to software solutions such as Spatial’s collaborative tool, there were lots going on. Chinese manufacturer Nolo VR was on hand to showcase its latest products, with Senior Sales Director Xi Chen available to explain more about them.

Nolo VR - Huawei

One of Nolo VR’s major show announcements was its 6-degrees of freedom (6DoF) solution for Huawei VR Glass. Called  Nolo CV1 Air, the kit is comprised of a sensor bar which attaches to the top of Huawei’s glasses, an additional sensor which is placed in front of the user (on a shelf for example) and two wireless controllers.

The whole system is designed to support SteamVR and mobile 6DoF gameplay, with the show demo using BoxVR to demonstrate the tracking. From initial inspection, VRFocus found that it worked fluidly enough, even on faster-paced sections.

CES 2020 was filled with 5G talk and the Nolo VR stand was no different. The company also showcased its Nolo N2 VR headset and Nolo CV1 Pro tracking kit. A smartphone VR gaming solution with 6DoF control, it’s designed to provide PC VR quality inside low-cost solution, all thanks to 5G and Cloud VR services. Nolo VR has started cooperation with China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom on these services.

Nolo VR

The Nolo CV1 Pro improves upon the previous Nolo CV1 in a number of ways, providing higher positioning precision, refresh rate, and lower latency for a smoother gameplay experience. In the interview below Chen goes into further detail regarding the new products and what they’re capable of.

For more VRFocus’ CES 2020 coverage why not take a look at the interview with HaptX, our chat with Teslasuit about its new glove, with Spatial regarding its AR collaboration tool, Insta360 and its new ONE R action camera or Pimax with an ever-growing lineup of headsets. For all the latest VR tech news, keep reading VRFocus.