Lenovo is targeting its standalone 3dof headset the Mirage VR S3 toward training uses at businesses.
Facebook removed Oculus Go from its business program choosing instead to focus on its Oculus Quest for business targeting a $1,000 price with enterprise-level support. In the United States, the price for a Mirage VR S3 is “under $450” according to a Lenovo representative. It was built in cooperation with Pico Interactive. The headset is also included in Lenovo’s VR classroom effort as well.
The headset is a 3dof system like the Go which means the world feels locked to your head when you lean forward, backward, or to the side. While limiting in terms of interactivity, that sort of system is also easy to setup and use and has made inroads worldwide in some training applications. Its a nice fit, for example, for 360-degree video projects that might be used in a training program. The VR S3 is pitched as featuring integrated audio and “a 4K display for clearer visuals, hands-free control for utilization with or without the provided controller, and an easy to clean, hygienic face plate suitable for mass use,” according to Lenovo.
The system runs Lenovo’s ThinkReality software platform for distributing and managing applications on the headset. The commercial offering includes Lenovo’s Integrated Solutions Support service with access to a dedicated phone line for support with “proactive case management and escalation assistance.”
The Lenovo Mirage VR S3 should be available in Q3 2020 in North America, China, Japan, United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain.
Remember the Lenovo Mirage AR headset from 2017 and the only videogame available for it, Star Wars: Jedi Challenges? If you didn’t drop £250 GBP on the device then possibly not, as it was a bit of a one-trick pony. However, Lenovo isn’t giving up on augmented reality (AR) launching a new Mirage AR device alongside a new smartphone experience MARVEL Dimension of Heroes.
To be clear the headset isn’t new just the AR videogame and the two 6 degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) Universal Controllers that comes in the kit. Going on sale in the US today for $249.99 USD via Amazon.com and Lenovo.com, the new bundle allows you to step into the shoes of six Marvel superheroes – Doctor Strange, Captain America, Thor, Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Star-Lord.
Using those new controllers you’ll be able to punch, slice and blast your way through an original Marvel story in Story Mode, in which the Dread Dormammu, Lord of the Dark Dimension, launches a surprise attack on Earth with his alliance of Super-Villains, including Loki, Ronan the Accuser, Ultron Prime and the Winter Soldier.
As well as Story Mode, MARVEL Dimension of Heroes also features a Survival Mode to fend off waves of enemies and Co-Op Mode, battling evil forces side-by-side with a friend in the same room, competing against each other for high scores.
“Lenovo Mirage AR with MARVEL Dimension of Heroes is another milestone demonstrating Lenovo and Marvel’s shared passion for bringing rich, immersive consumer experiences to life through smarter technology. After years of close collaboration with Disney starting from Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, we’re excited to expand this incredibly fun and interactive experience for more gamers and especially Marvel fans to enjoy,” said Johnson Jia, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Consumer Business of Intelligent Devices Group, Lenovo in a statement.
The new Lenovo Mirage AR headset bundle is compatible with Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, with both titles freely available to download on iOS and Android devices.
And what if you own the previous Lenovo Mirage AR version with the lightsaber? Well, you might have guessed that due to that controller you won’t be able to play MARVEL Dimension of Heroes. Lenovo has said the Universal Controllers will be sold separately but as yet no pricing or availability has been mentioned.
As further details are released regarding the Lenovo Mirage AR headset, VRFocus will let you know.
Sony and Lenovo announced they’ve signed a two-year patent license agreement that will allow Lenovo to base a future VR headset off the PSVR industrial design.
Lenovo says the PSVR design will be used in the making of a new Mirage Solo VR headset.
It’s unclear what Lenovo specifically needs from the four year-old headset design, as the company’s Daydream standalone headset Mirage Solo already utilizes a number of design elements popularized by PSVR, including a remarkably similar halo strap and focus-adjustment mechanism.
It’s more likely however that the patent licensing will allow Sony and Lenovo to more closely share design insights as they both look towards the next generation of devices.
Yao Li, vice president of Lenovo Consumer Tablets and Smart Devices Product and Business Management, says the agreement will allow the companies to “work together to greatly enhance the design sophistication and appeal of the rapidly expanding VR field, and is an outstanding example of how great consumer brands in the VR industry can work together to benefit the consumer VR market.”
Lenovo currently boasts three consumer devices in the area of AR/VR including Lenovo Mirage Solo, Lenovo Mirage AR headset, and Lenovo Explorer, the company’s Windows VR headset.
Over the past couple of years, film festivals have become more accepting of immersive and interactive storytelling mediums, such as virtual reality (VR) and 360-degree film. Further demonstrating just how far immersive cinema has come, the prestigious New York Film Festival will premiere its first VR Cinema experience by showing interactive VR thriller Fire Escape.
Fire Escape draws inspiration from the work of Hitchcock to create a VR experience where the audience is perched atop a fire escape, making choices about which neighbour to spy on, until unexpected revelations come to light.
The cinematic VR experience was created to add and interactive element to the usually passive act of watching a movie. Players watch over a Brooklyn apartment complex from a fire escape, idly texting a friend and watching or listening in on conversations until it transpires that a murder has taken place. From there, the player’s choices become increasingly vital as they become entangled in what could be a dangerous web of crime as suspicion.
Thirty New York Festival attendees will be able to don a Lenovo Mirage VR headset in order to engage with the experience using the Mirage controller. A Q&A session and group discussion with the creators of the experience will be available after the screening.
Fire Escape is the creation of iNK Stories, a creative studio that recently won the Tribeca Film Festival Storyscape Award for Best Immersive and is best known for its work on 1979 Revolution: Black Friday and HERO.
The New York Film Festival is set to run from 28th September to 14th October. A press preview of Fire Escape will be held on 5th October, followed by showings 11th-13th October. Further information and tickets can be found on the New York Film Festival website.
For future coverage of new and upcoming VR projects, keep checking back with VRFocus.
Wer AR-Inhalte entwickeln möchte, der muss zukünftig nicht mehr zur teuren HoloLens, Magic Leap One oder Meta 2 greifen, sondern kann dies auch mit der Daydream-Brille Mirage Solo erledigen. Wie UploadVR mitteilt, wird Google die autarke Brille nicht nur mit 6DOF Controllern ausstatten, sondern auch um AR-Funktionen erweitern.
Mirage Solo bekommt AR-Funktionen
Um die echte Welt darzustellen, soll das Bild der Kamera mit den Tracking-Daten verknüpft werden. Hierdurch soll eine möglichst saubere und reale Darstellung der Umgebung entstehen. Sofern die Mirage Solo im Pass-Through Modus ist, wird aus der VR-Brille eine AR-Brille und virtuelle Objekte, welche ihren Standort beibehalten, können im Raum platzieren werden. Da die Brille außerdem komplett autark ist, stören keine lästigen Kabel beim Gang durch die erweiterte Realität.
Wie gut der AR-Modus funktioniert und wann er für Konsumenten verfügbar ist, verrät Google noch nicht. Entwickler sollen aber schon bald Zugriff auf die Developer Kits erhalten. Die Mirage Solo kann derzeit ab 399 Euro in Deutschland erworben werden. Aktuell lohnt sich die Brille aber in erster Linie für Entwickler, da es nicht viele Inhalte gibt, die vom 6DOF-Tracking profitieren.
Lenovo launched its Lenovo Mirage headset late last year, bringing with it an app which brought one of the most famous and successful film franchises of all time into augmented reality (AR) with Star Wars: Jedi Challenges. The app has seen a few updates since launch, and now players will get a chance to face off against iconic Star Wars characters and take command of a ship and fight in space battles.
The Lenovo Mirage was clearly a device aimed at the hard-core Star Wars fan, bundled as it was alongside Star Wars: Jedi Challenges alongside a lightsaber peripheral. Since then new content has been introduced, including an update that brought with it a host of material from Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
The latest free update will allow players to test their skills against the likes Rey and Jedi Master Yoda while taking on the role of the black-cloaked antagonist, Kylo Ren. The new updates also includes a new real-time strategy-style game which allows players to take part in ship battles, taking control either a Rebel or Empire fleet to do battle against other players in the multiplayer section of the app.
For fans who are interested in going the extra mile, Lenovo are also releasing a limited edition Kylo Ren lightsaber peripheral, replicating the distinctive cross-hilted weapon wielded by Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
Lenovo say the new lightsaber will be available at some point ‘This winter’ and is said to cost $100 (USD), though no price has been confirmed for other regions. This does suggest that it might make a great Christmas gift for a loved one who already owns a Lenovo Mirage.
The Lenovo Mirage AR headset is compatible with a range of smartphone devices, including iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6s, Samsung Galaxy S8, Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, Samsung Galaxy S7, Google Pixel XL, Google Pixel and Moto Z. The device can be found for around £199.99 (GBP).
For future news on new development in AR and VR, keep checking back with VRFocus.
2017 was a landmark year for virtual reality (VR), with not only the hardware maturing but also a number of huge entertainment properties making their way to the medium. Leading the charge was Bethesda Softworks, with adaptations of three of their most popular videogame experiences. Now, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2018, the publisher has confirmed three more titles are on their way, and this time VR is coming closer to home.
The first VR title confirmed at this year’s event was a brand new standalone experience set within the Wolfenstein universe, Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot. Following a fashion similar to DOOM VFR, Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot takes place two decades since the events of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. It expands on the storyline presented within the bloodline titles while casting the player in a new role: in this case, a fire-breathing Panzerhund and other familiar war machines. The second title, an expansion to 2017’s Prey reboot, presents an interesting new competitive mode, playable against non-VR players. Set to be offered as part of the with Prey: Mooncrash update later this year, Prey – Typhon Hunter pits one player against several others cast as Mimics with nothing more than survival being the objective.
An additional new gameplay mode coming to Prey offers a single-player escape room scenario, called TranStar VR. As one of several TranStar employees the player will be faced with finding a solution for puzzles laid out ahead of them in different environments from the Talos I space station.
While these all sound like incredibly enticing gameplay opportunities and potentially huge boons to the entertainment side of VR, the third title is undoubtedly the most interesting. Presented as a videogame built for smartphones, The Elder Scrolls: Blades is apparently coming to every conceivable format; including consoles, PC and VR. In fact, according to Todd Howard, Director and Executive Producer at Bethesda Game Studios, it would appear that The Elder Scrolls: Blades will hit ‘most every head-mounted display (HMD) aside from PlayStation VR.
“This is an Elder Scrolls game that you can play however and wherever you want,” stated Howard during Bethesda Softworks’ pre-E3 press conference yesterday. “And we are going to bring Blades to every device and system we can; phones, PCs, consoles, also virtual reality on mobile, all the way up to high-end VR on PCs.”
That is of course not confirmation that The Elder Scrolls: Blades won’t launch on PlayStation VR, but the wording seems very specific. Time will tell on that front.
Right now however, what we do know is that with The Elder Scrolls: Blades, VR is being treated as part of the standardised array of formats. Players will be able to enjoy playing The Elder Scrolls: Blades on their smartphone against players in VR, or on their console with VR players. Exactly how this will play out is not yet known, but the fact that one of the biggest videogame producers in the world is looking at VR as a peer to smartphone, console and PC gaming is undoubtedly an exciting takeaway from this year’s E3.
But given last year’s successful VR push it’s no wonder Bethesda Softworks are looking to bring more titles to VR. The publisher has quickly become synonymous with some of the most exciting and enduring experiences available through the relatively youthful medium and in 2018 will be looking to cement that position way ahead of the maturing of VR for mainstream audiences. There’s still a chance that Ubisoft might pull something out of the bag during their pre-E3 press conference later today, but as things stand Bethesda Softworks are looking to take home not only the E3 mantel for VR, but also 2018 as a whole.
Lenovo’s Mirage Solo, a standalone VR headset in the Daydream app ecosystem, has had an official release date and price for some time now: May 5th and $400. Pre-orders are now live for both the VR headset and Lenovo’s VR180 camera.
The Mirage Solo is a standalone VR headset, meaning it has everything on board for VR, and doesn’t rely on a docked smartphone or host PC. Based on Google’s Daydream Android VR ecosystem, the headset’s biggest claim to fame is its 6 degrees of freedom (6DoF) tracking, which allows for room-scale positional tracking.
Much like Vive Focus, which was previously intended as a Daydream headset before HTC decided to use Viveport Mobile and release it first in China, tracking is done through the headset’s front-facing cameras, requiring no external sensors for room-scale experiences.
We went hands-on with Lenovo Mirage Solo back at CES 2018 in January, and while the system clearly has strong fundamentals, the price point puts it in a weird segment that may ward off many. The hands-on article offers a comprehensive look at the headset, so it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re still on the fence.
Specs
Qualcomm Snapdragon 835
RAM: 4GB
ROM: 64 GB UFS
Card Slot: microSD Card; Up to 256 GB
Single panel 2560 × 1440 QHD LCD display
Frequency: 75Hz
110 degree FOV
Battery Capacity: 4000 mAh (2.5 hours of general use)
Android N Pro Audio, 3.5mm Audio Jack with Dual Microphones
Google präsentierte auf der CES 2018 erstmals die neue stereoskopische 4K-Kamera Lenovo Mirage, die ansehnliche Aufnahmen ohne aufwendige Videonachbearbeitung ermöglichen soll. Zusammen mit dem recht günstigen Preis von 300 US-Dollar könnte sie die Erstellung von VR-Videos in 180 Grad befeuern – nicht jedes Video benötigt eine 360-Grad-Rundumsicht. Die Lenovo Mirage ist ab sofort im amerikanischen Amazon Store vorbestellbar und soll am 4. Mai 2018 offiziell erscheinen.
Lenovo Mirage – Ab 4. Mai im amerikanischen Amazon Store erhältlich
Die neue Lenovo Mirage wurde in Kooperation mit Google entwickelt und bietet eine günstige Alternative zu bisherigen 360-Grad-Kameras, zumal die 4K-Auflösung weit über preiswerteren 360-Grad-Kameras liegt. Diese benötigen für die gleiche Abdeckung eine Auflösung von 8K. Die 180-Grad-Kamera von Lenovo unterstützt das neue Google Videoformat VR180 zur hochauflösenden Darstellung von 3D-Inhalten in VR-Brillen. Zudem lassen sich die Aufnahmen auf einem normalen Flatscreen-Bildschirm in 2D betrachten.
Die 4K-Kamera nutzt zwei 13-Megapixel Kameras mit Fischaugen-Objektiven. Die Aufnahmen sind im stereoskopischen 3D-Format und können direkt per WiFi-Funktion auf YouTube oder Google Photos hochgeladen werden. Durch die Beschränkung des Sichtfeldes ergeben sich zwar Vorteile bei der Auflösung und dem Preis, für manche Szenarien scheidet sie damit allerdings aus. Die Bildfrequenz liegt zudem nur bei 30 FPS.
Die Lenovo Mirage 180-Grad-Kamera soll laut Informationen von Road to VR nicht wie bei Amazon gelistet am 6. Mai, sondern bereits im 4. Mai erhältlich sein. Vorbestellungen der neuen Kamera sind bereits jetzt im amerikanischenAmazon Store für 300 Dollar möglich. Bei Bestellungen nach Deutschland können zusätzliche Kosten entstehen.
Neben dem Modell von Lenovo erscheint ebenfalls bald die 180-Grad-Kamera Yi Horizon, die neben 5,7K bei Fotos und Videos einen 2,2 Zoll Touchscreen sowie eine Livestreaming-Funktion per Knopfdruck bietet.
When the Lenovo Mirage augmented reality (AR) headset launched last year with Star Wars: Jedi Challengesit did seem a bit of an expensive gimmick for £249.99 GBP. Certainly aimed more towards the Star Wars fan than casual players, Lenovo then announced just before Christmas that an update would greatly expand the content on offer. Today that has gone live, with a new planet and characters from Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
This is the first content expansion for the headset available for free by downloading the update for the Star Wars: Jedi Challenges mobile app. The content includes:
New Lightsaber Duel – Players can duel two elite Praetorian Guards featured in The Last Jedi. This is the first time Jedi Challenges players will duel two characters at the same time.
New Planet for Strategic Combat – Three thrilling new levels of Strategic Combat set on Crait, a brand new planet that debuts in the film, will come with the update. Battle new enemies and vehicles including the formidable First Order AT-M6 walker.
New Content in Assault mode – All-new enemies and levels will be introduced, including the First Order Stormtrooper Executioner and Riot Control Stormtrooper.
Introduction of Porgs – Players will be rewarded with fan-favorite porgs in augmented reality.
Star Wars: Jedi Challenges and the Lenovo Mirage AR headset comes supplied with a Lightsaber controller and Tracking Beacon that players use to hone their Jedi talents. Players are guided on this AR journey by the Archivist, who instructs players in the ways of the Force.
Currently Lenovo Mirage AR headset is compatible with a range of Android and iOS devices: iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6s, Samsung Galaxy S8, Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, Samsung Galaxy S7, Google Pixel XL, Google Pixel and Moto Z, with Lenovo stating more will be added.
While the kit originally retailed for £249.99, most stockists are now selling the kit for around £199.99, making that idea of a purchase that little bit easier. For the latest AR updates from around the world, keep reading VRFocus.
