Category: rave

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Wave Shuts Down Live VR Music App: ‘Artists Need Audiences To Thrive’

Early live VR music app Wave is shutting down its VR-only software on Steam and Oculus.

The startup pivoted toward gaming and live-streaming a couple years ago but kept its original VR software, the Wave VR, running “just because the community in there has made such inspiring stuff,” according to a note posted on Friday to the company’s Twitter account. The note signed by Wave CEO and co-founder Adam Arrigo said the app was built on Google’s Poly 3D object hosting service, which is also shutting down at the end of June.

“As much as we’d love to, we aren’t able to spend the resources to build a new backend pipeline, since we are already spread so thin trying to accomplish our current set of non-VR objectives,” the note says. “Even though this means the Wave VR shows will come to a pause, we think this is the best decision for the long term future of the Wave community, and we promise to do everything we can to one day bring back this experience in an even more evolved form.”

The note mentions the startup’s pivot happened because “artists need audiences to thrive, and we realized VR just wasn’t there yet, and there was a bigger opportunity for artists outside headset.”

The “pause” is a loss to fans of the Wave VR who found the performances in there to be a unique experience akin to a concert or rave. You can check out the replies to the note on Twitter from fans reminiscing about meeting new people because of the software, or those who are sad because it was their favorite app.

Do you have any memories of spending time in the Wave VR app? Let us know down in the comments below!

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Social on Mobile and VR Combine in a Rave

Whether its a developer or manufacturer in virtual reality (VR) one thing they’re all trying to showcase are the social aspects of the technology. From Facebook Spaces, to AltspaceVR, vTime, Pluto VR, Geekzonia and many more, there’s a growing list of applications that’ll let users chat and hang out with each other in VR. But what about those just on mobile devices? Rave looks to bridge that gap between the two.

Available on iOS, Android and now Google Daydream and Samsung Gear VR, Rave enables all users to talk and watch videos together, no matter which platform they’re on. The app allows content to be streamed from a number of sources, including YouTube, Vimeo, Reddit, Viki, Google Drive, and Dropbox.

Rave -vr-press

“VR is an exciting new frontier for media consumption,” says Rave CEO Dr. Michael Pazaratz.  “It’s amazing to watch videos on a 65″ virtual screen, but feels too isolating”. So Rave has created a solution by combining the to worlds together, allowing VR users to watch with their friends on mobile.

“Adding social features to VR is key for the growth of the industry,” adds Pazaratz. “Linking mobile with VR opens up so many interesting options to expand the community.”

Rave can currently be downloaded for free on both mobile headsets. The company also plans to release the app for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive in the future.

For any further updates on Rave, keep reading VRFocus.

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This Video In ‘Bigscreen’ Will Immediately Make You Want A VR Dancing Game

This Video In ‘Bigscreen’ Will Immediately Make You Want A VR Dancing Game

There are few songs in the history of the human race that can elicit a universal response. When people hear the piano at the beginning of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” for example, it’s impossible to not excitedly belt out, “Just a small town girl!” once Steve Perry’s angelic voice flutters into the speakers. I’ve never heard Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” and thought anything other than, “Welp, here we go again.” These are certain laws that we all must abide by as a species.

One other song that evokes a similar hive mind reaction is the infectious Haddaway hit, “What Is Love?” The echo of his voice sends shock waves into the hearts and minds of anyone that hears the track, and if you’ve seen A Night at the Roxbury, then the iconic head bob will instinctively follow. It cannot and should not be prevented. This addictive dance is at the heart of the below video, recorded from inside the social virtual desktop sharing application, Bigscreen.

In Bigscreen, you can resize and shape your monitor to be however you want. Throw it up on the wall for a massive theater experience, or sit at a virtual desk on the moon. Bring your friends in with you and share your screens together and even access the entirety of your computer from within virtual reality, streamed to everyone else in the room. It’s a fascinating program that works surprising well for productivity, team meetings, and even virtual LAN parties.

But as you can see in the video above, it can be used for so much more. The detailed avatars let people bring their hands and facial expressions into VR, which allows for immersive crowd-sourced moments like this.

After seeing this dance party, we reached out to Hayden Lee for more information — he’s one of the developers working on Bigscreen and posted the video to a VR Facebook group. He explained that it was created using a glitch of some kind that allows a single user to control two avatars simultaneously inside the room, which results in the synchronized dancing you see above. Either way, it’s pretty hilarious and awesome.

We know that Ubisoft is reportedly working on a Just Dance VR game and other social apps like Wonderland will surely encourage other such whimsical behavior, but this video just goes to show how badly we really, really want to play a dancing game in VR. It’s a whole lot harder to be embarrassed if you can’t see everyone else’s actual faces laughing at you, right?

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