Social VR/AR platform vTime released a new update today that includes a few theater spaces where you can chat with friends and watch select sports programming on big screen TVs.
The new theater feature is available on all supported platforms, including Oculus Rift, Windows VR headsets, Google Cardboard, Oculus Go/Gear VR, and AR-capable mobile devices.
Programming is admittedly thin at the moment, which only includes select clips from Manchester City Football Club matches. The studio says however today’s launch is the first in a series of collaborations with a network of eight football clubs, including Manchester City FC, New York City FC, and Melbourne City FC.
Reading between the lines somewhat, it appears the integration is also paving way for more sanctioned content—provided the sports content creates enough draw to the social VR platform. Anyway, Man City fans must be happy to get back into the pub.
vTime is comparatively demure when stacked up next to social VR platforms such as VRChat or Rec Room, which is in part due to its simple UI and always-seated nature of its various platform-curated chatrooms. The same rings true for its two new theater spaces, a friendly-looking sports bar and a large Roman-style amphitheater with a giant screen.
Bigscreen today released an update that brings to the social VR viewing platform a video player that lets you watch your own video files. Yes, even on Oculus Quest.
Bigscreen’s new video player lets you watch your own files alone, or with friends—provided they have the same file stored on their local machine. If your friends do happen to have the same file, Bigscreen automatically syncs everyone in the room so you can watch it together.
Exactly how you obtain those files is up to you; the new update is only a video player and not a file sharing service per se.
Bigscreen’s video player supports both 2D and 3D movies (side-by-side and over-under), and is said to support most of the common file types. At the time of this writing, the video player doesn’t support 180/360 content, or DLNA/Plex, although it’s currently being considered for a future update.
You’ll find the video player there starting today; it works cross-platform across all supported headsets, including Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, HTC Vive, and all SteamVR-compatible headsets.
The social VR platform already has robust support for screen sharing, which is accomplished by mirroring the desktop of a host user to anyone in the room. With the recent inclusion of more direct streaming services, which includes both TV and movies, Bigscreen offered up a big slice of functionality to users on standalone headsets like Quest or Go, as well as to users without access to their own premium streaming services like Netflix or Hulu.
Today’s update, while offering a comparatively basic feature, actually puts Bigscreen in a better position to not only compete as a virtual desktop solution (more than it already is), but also to further fill the gaps that platform holders are leaving with their own lackluster native offerings.
There is another side to it, although it remains to be seen whether the worry is founded in reality or if it’s simple speculation at this point—anyway, insert grain of salt here. Bigscreen’s continued deals with movie studios and streaming services may put it in the position at some point in the future to somehow limit the screensharing aspect of its business on PC platform, as individual users can easily stream more movies than they could ever license for their paid (and free) movie viewings. The video player, for ill or good, may be a way for Bigscreen PC VR users to have their cake and eat it too should that particular shoe ever drop—putting the onus on the individual to share files instead of simply mirroring their monitor for all to freely view. Again, that’s a small slice of speculation for the old brainpan.
In any case, the next set of features on the agenda definitely sound exciting: a Bigscreen Friends system, more new environments, a redesigned avatar system, built-in YouTube and TV channels into rooms, and more movie studio partnerships to host 3D movie screenings.
Bigscreen supports Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, all Windows VR headsets, Oculus Quest and Oculus Go. Find out how to download it for free here.
In the face of the ongoing lockdown, vTime today announced its created a private version of its social AR/VR platform, vTime XR, which is designed to help social care continue in the UK for families and vulnerable children.
The project was licensed to London-based social care group The Cornerstone Partnership, which has partnerships spanning multiple UK counties. Established in 2015 by its parent company the Antser Group, Cornerstone has even created its own VR tool for use in child adoption and fostering.
vTime calls it a “closed, safe space for local authorities across the UK to continue their critical work with children and adults throughout the pandemic.”
As a private instance of the entire social platform, vTime says participants will be able to meet privately with families, teams of people, or individuals for things like remote supervision, virtual respite, therapeutic sessions, direct work with young people, and supervised contact.
“Based on the pilot findings, we believe the tool will be particularly useful for maintaining contact and direct work with adolescents and for carers/residential workers to receive supervision and support in an environment that allows them “virtual respite” particularly where there may be placement stability concerns,” says Helen Costa, co-founder of the Cornerstone Partnership and Group Director for Antser. “It may also be particularly useful as a means of managing birth family contact where there are ongoing familial or extra-familial safeguarding risks.”
Having launched the first iteration of its social network on Gear VR back in 2015, vTime XR has continued with a decidedly different approach to building an immersive social space. Chats are limited in number, and are always seated, meaning new users don’t have to worry about mastering movement schemes to have a chat.
Both its simplicity and implied intimacy seem to be an ideal fit for the task of regular social care. Even then, the company says its experienced a 79% increase in daily new users since lockdown began. When a cherry blossom garden or Victorian train to nowhere is sitting right there in your VR headset, or on your AR-enabled smartphone, it’s no wonder why people are looking for a momentary escape from home.
Wave, the social VR music venue, today announced that acclaimed musician John Legend is putting on a concert next week in VR where he will be transformed into a digital avatar for a live performance.
The concert is taking place on Thursday, June 25th at 3:00 PM PT (local time here). It will livestreamed on YouTube and Twitter, however the studio also says fans will have “the opportunity to socialize and interact with Legend like never before, and all are welcome to join the virtual dance floor.”
Whether that means VR attendees will be in the same ‘room’ as Legend remains to be seen.
Virtual attendees will have the ability to send paid “visual gifts” throughout the concert. All of the concert’s proceeds are said to benefit Legend’s FREEAMERICA campaign, an effort to reform America’s criminal justice system.
Legend’s virtual concert experience is slated to feature new songs from his upcoming album ‘Bigger Love’, which debuts June 19th.
Legend’s VR concert is among a few others in the platform’s ‘One Wave’ virtual concert series, which featured talents such as Tinashe and Galantis.
In a time of conscientious social distancing, virtual reality has made large-format gatherings a possibility, albeit remotely. From live VR concerts in Wave coming from some of the biggest names in music, to HTC’s annual developer conference taking place inEngage, social VR is picking up the slack where video chatting platforms simply don’t cut it. In that spirit, this year’s fourth annual VR Awards, one of the industry’s longest-running award shows, is being hosted entirely in virtual reality via social VR platform VRChat.
Show organizers The Academy of International Extended Reality (AIXR) has partnered with VRChat to bring VR headset and desktop PC users the award ceremony on October 27th, making for a real ‘Inception moment’ if there ever was one.
Like every year since its inaugural award ceremony in 2017, the VR Awards is slated to bring together the industry’s most talented to celebrate achievements across a variety of fields, including VR hardware, games, experiences, film, education, and out-of-home entertainment.
“Our primary goal for this VR Awards was to create the most impressive VR event experience to date. We are proud to be joined on this journey by our industry partners as well as talented creators and VR fans from across the world” said Daniel Colaianni, Chief Executive of AIXR.
To make the special night a success, the AIXR is also searching out Unity developers to help with worldbuilding, avatar creation, 3D animation and modelling. Developer applications to help are now open.
Wave, the social VR platform and virtual music venue, today announced a $30 million Series B funding round, putting its total funding to $40 million to date.
The funding round was led by Maveron with participation from Griffin Gaming Partners. Additional investors include Japan’s NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Avex, Superfly Ventures, Convivialite Ventures, and Raised in Space. Existing investors include RRE Ventures, Upfront Ventures, The Venture Reality Fund, GFR Fund, and GC Tracker Fund, among others.
Entrepreneurs Scooter Braun, Alex Rodriguez, Superfly co-founder Rick Farman, and Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin also participated in the company’s Series B.
Waveputs a heavy emphasis on virtual dance parties and concerts, which comes part and parcel with immersive visualizations and mind-bending locales that simply wouldn’t be possible outside of VR.
Since its founding in 2016, the platform has hosted over 50 artists including Imogen Heap, REZZ, Jean-Michel Jarre and Lindsey Stirling. Wave’s most recent One Wave concert series included artists such as John Legend, Tinashe, Jauz, and Galantis.
The company says it’s using the funding to “further fuel [its] ability to go beyond traditional live streaming and serve the next generation of concert-goers.”
The company says the investment will also allow it to create more personalized artist avatars, new virtual environments and formats, and interactive experiences, including “in-game activations and social experiences at the nexus of gaming and entertainment.”
At a special event in Taipei, Taiwan, HTC cofounder and former CEO Peter Chou today revealed the first products from the new startup XRSPACE. It’s serving up both its own 5G-enabled standalone VR headset as well as a new social VR platform which appears to compete with Facebook Horizon.
Chou sees XRSpace serving the upcoming era of widespread 5G; much like smartphones first arrived on the back of the 2.5G network in the early 2000s, the former HTC CEO sees the company’s headset, Mova, and its social VR platform, Manova, taking human interaction “to a new level” and offering more connectivity on a person-to-person level. And XRSpace planning to bring it to the mass market.
XRSPACE Mova
Mova is standalone VR headset that does away with motion controllers, instead offering optical hand tracking which users will use to navigate UI and interact with others online. Like Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Go, the headset only includes a single remote, which appears to have a touchpad and basic button array for basic input.
XRSpace is taking an interesting route with its hand-centric design philosophy, as the company is looking to appeal more to a wider set of users who aren’t necessarily gamepad savvy. Along with optical hand tracking comes room-scale tracking, making Mova closer to Oculus Quest or Pico Neo 2 in function.
Image courtesy XRSPACE
“We want people just to use their hands for main navigation,” Chou says. “We think everybody knows how to use their hands; there’s no learning barrier. Your hands are always with you—you don’t have to carry them. And hands are free.”
Its optical sensors are also capable of room scanning, the company says, making a photorealistic version of your play space by uploading textures and depth data to the cloud for processing.
Hardware specs are still not entirely clear, however Mova is said to offer 5G, LTE and Wi-Fi connectivity built on the back of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset. The company claims a 20% reduction in weight over Oculus Quest, a larger battery, greater DPI display (no resolution just yet) clocked at a 90Hz refresh rate.
The company will first offer a developer kit; there’s no word on pricing yet, although XRSpace says it will reveal more closer to its launch in June. A consumer version of Mova is said to arrive sometime in Q3 2020. You can signal your interest on the company’s website starting today.
Mova Specs
CPU – Snapdragon 845
RAM – 6GB
Connectivity – 5G, LTE, WiFi
Weight – 470g
Battery – 4600 mAh
DPI – 702dpi
Refresh rate – 90Hz
XRSPACE Manova
XRSpace is imagining plenty of interactions to take advantage of Mova’s hand tracking in its “mass market” social VR platform Manova, notably highlighting handshaking, high-fiving, and manipulating objects such as throwing darts and playing basketball.
Manova is looking to offer many of the social VR mainstays too, including a personal cinema, and meeting rooms for remote work, however it also promises a busy city center, night clubs, and multiplayer mini-games. It will also offer premium 2D and 360 video content from its operators and partners.
The social VR platform is said to integrate an avatar creator which lets you make a full-body avatar from a single selfie, something XRSpace Head of Design Chris Lin says will look “just like you.” Avatars, Lin says, include high-quality skin textures, a facial expressions system, and an AI-driven contextual awareness system so your avatar will more realistically react to other users around it. The headset is also said to offer full body tracking, but how that’s possible with front-facing optical sensors, the company has yet to say.
Image courtesy XRSPACE
At this point, Manova feels more like a conceptual wishlist than a functioning social VR platform as such. Many of the activities seen in the announcement video are questionable in their practicality, or even arguably useless in a virtual context. That said, XRSpace has partnered with the likes of Qualcomm, Deutsche Telekom, Chunghwa Telecom, GQ, Vogue, and Getty, and it seems to be grabbing the bull by its horns in a time of remote working, social distancing, and everything in between as the world adapts to the new normal.
For many, remote work may be a new long-term reality. In that spirit, Facebook today announced that it will be introducing more collaboration and productivity apps to the Oculus Store for Quest soon.
The first productivity apps are said to land on the Oculus Store later this year, including Immersedand Spatialas the company’s flagship examples of full-featured social/collaborative apps specifically targeted at enterprise users.
Immersed is coming to the Oculus Store on Quest this summer, the company says. The app, which emphasizes both solo and collaborative work over standalone VR headsets and PC/Linux/mac, has been available on Oculus Quest since June 2019. The company says more XR platforms are coming soon.
Spatial also offers a real-time collaborative space, however it’s approached the task from the AR side of things first, notably supporting HoloLens (1 and 2) and Magic Leap 1. It also supports web browsers and Oculus Quest, the latter of which is on a request-only basis. Spatial is said to arrive on the Oculus Store “in the coming months.”
It’s clear the company is taking a first big step in bringing these first two apps closer into the fold by pitching them to businesses alongside Oculus for Business, a program targeted at enterprise customers and developers looking to manage VR deployments and create in-headset experiences.
“Apps like these let people experiment with VR productivity solutions on their own—and for companies ready to scale larger, there’s still Oculus for Business to help you get there,” a Facebook spokesperson says.
Comedian, lyrical wizard and beatboxer extraordinaire Reggie Watts is set to return to AltspaceVR on Saturday, May 2nd, for an inaugural live show in his newly unveiled multi-week series called ‘Reinterpreted Reality’.
Watts is returning to the social VR platform tomorrow, thereby kicking off a series of free live shows that will span the next eight weeks.
Shows will take place every Saturday, starting May 2nd and ending on June 20th, starting at 5:00 PM PT (local time here).
Watts is no stranger to the AltspaceVR platform; he’s been showing up for virtual comedy spots since 2016, presenting his musical comedy stylings via his own avatar. Unlike other live concerts in VR, which are more like communal gatherings of livestreamed video, Watts is again showing up in-headset where he’ll be simulcast to an unlimited number of users. The artist’s avatar is replicated across technically infinite numbers of stages, so everyone showing up for Watts can watch it as if they were in the same virtual room together.
AltspaceVR is free, and supports a wide range of devices, including SteamVR-compatible headsets via Steam, Oculus Rift via the Oculus Store, Oculus Quest, and Oculus Go. It also supports 2D mode via desktop, letting most anyone join in for chats, live shows, and community events.
You can RSVP for each event by clinking the links below:
Wave isn’t your garden variety social VR platform. With an emphasis on virtual raves, replete with immersive visualizations and regular live performances, it’s become the de facto concert platform for VR users. Now Wave says it’s bringing more artists this summer via its One Wave concert series, which will include artists such as John Legend, Tinashe, Jauz, Galantis, and more.
The series begins on Thursday, April 30th at 3PM PT (local time here) with a live show from the Church of Galantis. Wave says more show dates will be announced and rolled out over the next several months.
The One Wave series promises to bring more of the platform’s wild visualizations and custom environments, giving VR users access to a concert-going experience that simply isn’t possible outside of VR—especially now that large in-person events aren’t an option.
Performances are said to also stream across other social media and gaming platforms, something the studio says will let fans “socialize and interact with the artists as they perform, cheer as part of a global avatar audience, voting on key show moments, play mini games, and socialize with each other.”
“We are now living in a digital avatar culture. Through our proprietary technology and core gaming capabilities, Wave can go beyond the traditional live streaming concerts and create artist avatars, virtual environments and interactive experiences that truly immerse audiences at the nexus of gaming and entertainment,” said Wave CEO Adam Arrigo in a press statement. “The shows we’ve done with Tinashe, Lindsey Stirilng and Galantis are good examples of how we’ve successfully leveraged these technologies and we are excited to welcome John Legend and others who are joining the platform to elevate how they are creating, distributing and monetizing performances for their fans.”
To top it off, Wave is giving proceeds from the One Wave series to non-profit organizations that are in need of support during the current global COVID-19 pandemic, the studio says.
“The Ad Council will also be providing important public service messaging around mental health awareness and resources as an extension of its COVID-19 response efforts,” the studio says.
