Every weekend VRFocus gathers together vacancies from across the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) industry, in locations around the globe to help make finding that ideal job easier. Below is a selection of roles that are currently accepting applications across a number of disciplines, all within departments and companies that focus on immersive entertainment.
Don’t forget, if there wasn’t anything that took your fancy this week there’s always last week’s listings on The VR Job Hubto check as well.
If you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – don’t forget you can send us the lowdown on the position and we’ll be sure to feature it in that following week’s feature. Details should be sent to Peter Graham (pgraham@vrfocus.com).
We’ll see you next week on VRFocus at the usual time of 3PM (UK) for another selection of jobs from around the world.
Every weekend VRFocus gathers together vacancies from across the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) industry, in locations around the globe to help make finding that ideal job easier. Below is a selection of roles that are currently accepting applications across a number of disciplines, all within departments and companies that focus on immersive entertainment.
Don’t forget, if there wasn’t anything that took your fancy this week there’s always last week’s listings on The VR Job Hubto check as well.
If you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – don’t forget you can send us the lowdown on the position and we’ll be sure to feature it in that following week’s feature. Details should be sent to Peter Graham (pgraham@vrfocus.com).
We’ll see you next week on VRFocus at the usual time of 3PM (UK) for another selection of jobs from around the world.
Cross-platform social app vTime XRis now available on Quest and Quest 2.
vTime XR is a free app available on a host of devices, including Oculus Rift, Windows VR headsets, Google Cardboard, Oculus Go/Gear VR, Daydream View, and AR-capable mobile devices. Starting yesterday, vTime XR is now on the Oculus Store for the Quest platform.
Unlike the free-wheeling social VR titans VRChat and Rec Room, vTime XR provides curated chatrooms and an intimate, always-seated experience for up to four users. Although decidedly more demure, vTime XR also lets you share 360 photos and watch select streaming content in the theater space launched this summer.
Earlier in the pandemic, the platform apparently struck a chord with users looking for a less complicated social outlet than others currently available in VR, with the Liverpool, UK-based developers vTime reporting a 79% increase in daily new users since lockdown measures came into place in most areas around mid-March.
With the entrance of Quest 2 and the launch of vTime XR on the platform, it’s possible the social app will see even more users looking for quiet respite for what appears to be renewed lockdown measures.
Another social VR network, vTime XR, is coming to Oculus Quest soon.
The app, which dates back to the early days of VR, is now listed in the coming soon section of the official Quest store and arrives on November 5th. We first reported that a Quest version of the experience was coming all the way back in 2019. Clearly it took a little longer than expected for the port to happen.
vTime Quest Coming Next Month
vTime takes a bit of a different approach to social VR compared to its contemporaries like AltSpace VR and Rec Room. Rather than exploring worlds together, users sit in immersive environments to chat and share content. You might, say, plan a meeting in outer space or at the bottom of the ocean. You can even upload your own 360 degree photos to visit or watch set content in virtual theaters.
vTime has been available on other platforms for some time now, including smartphone AR. It’s developed by a UK-based studio that raised $7.6 million in mid-2018 to work on its social VR and AR offerings. It has experience on its side, then, though the social VR scene is pretty well contested on Quest. Alongside other third-party applications, Facebook itself is increasing its focus on the genre with apps like Venues and Horizon. We’ll have to see if vTime can carve out a space for itself alongside stiff competition.
Will you be checking out vTime on Quest when it arrives next month? Let us know in the comments below!
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.
There’s been a lot of news relating to virtual reality (VR) collaboration tools for enterprise of late but VR is also helping other members of society. Today, social network vTime has revealed its working with The Cornerstone Partnership to provide vital social care work with vulnerable children in the UK.
A social enterprise focused on improving the lives of children and families, The Cornerstone Partnership is using an annexed version of vTime XR to offer services whilst the population is in lockdown.
This version still offers access to vTime XR‘s entire feature set so that members can meet privately with families, teams of people or individuals. Services can include 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,” said Helen Costa, co-founder of the Cornerstone Partnership in a statement. “It may also be particularly useful as a means of managing birth family contact where there are ongoing familial or extra-familial safeguarding risks.”
“Virtual reality has been a lifeline for many during the pandemic and we’ve developed a licensable version of vTime XR that allows businesses from the private sector and social enterprises to use the network privately, giving them an immersive and safe meeting space that they’re able to use to stay connected,” says vTime Managing Director Clemens Wangerin. “Helping organisations such as Cornerstone to continue their vital work through our platform demonstrates the power and importance of virtual reality and the deep levels of social immersion that can be achieved through vTime XR.”
Liverpool-based vTime has been one of the longest-running social apps for VR headsets, free for devices like Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality as well as mobile devices. For further updates for vTime XR, keep reading VRFocus.
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.
Stuck indoors? Well, you should know that your VR headset is way more than just a Beat Saber machine. You can actually chat, play, and watch movies with your friends, almost as if the world wasn’t thrust into a global pandemic—or whatever is keeping you from going outside.
Here’s a few choice apps where you can connect with friends, or meet new friends too. Either way, it sure beats FaceTime. Oh, and all of them are free too!
VRChat
The OG of social VR apps is still going strong, even nearly six years after its initial release on Oculus Rift DK1 in 2014. Over time, it’s created a unique culture of weird, organic memes thanks to its open avatar and world creation abilities. You can also connect with non-VR headset owning buddies here, making for an awesome meeting point for basically everyone… except PSVR owners – at least for now.
There’s a lobby now where you can hang out and chat, but really the bulk of Bigscreen’s draw is being able to sit down with friends or strangers and bond over its unlimited viewing capabilities. Anything you can access on your computer and display to your monitor can be shared with anyone, making Bigscreen the gold standard of social viewing platforms. You can also pay to watch movies now too, which is a nice touch if you aren’t already signed up to a streaming service like Netflix or Prime Video.
Chilling and chatting is cool, and you can totally do just that in Rec Room, but this cross-platform beauty unites all of the VR headset-owning community in one vibrant, fun place. There are co-op ‘quests’ to go on, a battle royale shooter, and plenty of reasons to stick around and have fun outside of shooting the breeze with your mates.
NeosVR is like the offspring of an operating system, a game engine, and a chat room; it wants to be the metaverse. That said, it’s pretty technical, but the things you can build there in-game are fantastic. It even has its own cryptocurrency, although the userbase isn’t near large enough to make it functional just yet.
Ok, I said all of these social apps are free, and that’s still technically true with OrbusVR. arguably VR’s most full-featured MMORPG. You can play for free up until level 10, and mix with the entire playerbase in the process. Play as a bard, mage, paladin, shaman, scoundrel and more as you explore the wide open world of Patraeyl.
Mozilla Hubs is a lightweight social program that isn’t actually an app at all, rather a WebXR-based social experience which makes for effortless, one-click creation of virtual rooms which anyone can join—from smartphones desktop browsers to VR headsets—directly from the browser. Just put in your room code for your private chat room and join your friends on any device.
Unfortunately for now it’s only for Rift users, although with completely customizable spaces there’s good enough reason to meet your friends in an Oculus Home space before launching off to other multiplayer games. That is until Facebook Horizons makes its way to the platform, which ought to unite all Oculus users under a single app.
No need to download anything. It’s already baked into the desktop runtime.
SteamVR Home
Like Oculus Home, SteamVR Home isn’t really a traditional chat room, although it has some of the best custom-made spaces out of all social spaces. Where else can you hang out with friends in a preview section of Half-Life: Alyx?
It’s baked into SteamVR, although you may want to visit the Steam Workshop to browse the available user-built spaces.
vTime
vTime is a bit of a sleeper on this list, as it doesn’t offer screen sharing or madcap user-generated content, but if you’re at all intimidated by any of that and are just looking for a chill place to chat with minimal setup, vTime is a great place to do it. Working somewhat like a social network, you make friends and send chat invites to people, and are then seated for round-table style chat in a variety of slick locations.
AltspaceVR includes live shows, meetups, classes, and is accessible on a number of VR headsets. Although it’s not the most lively platform as it once was in the early days of VR, you the basic functionality is all there, and the community engagement is still impressively high. Check out all the upcoming events here.
Facebook shut down Rooms back in October after just 17 months. Worse, there is no replacement announced for Oculus Go, as Facebook Horizon (what the Rooms team is now working on) is not listing support for the budget standalone headset.
If you picked up an Oculus Go on Black Friday or previously used Rooms, here are three alternatives to Rooms. Note that for all three you need to create a separate account, they do not use the Oculus networking system.
vTime XR
vTime was one of the first social VR apps focused on small group conversations. It initially launched back in 2015 for the Samsung Gear VR, but now supports Rift, SteamVR, Windows MR, Daydream, and Oculus Go too.
vTime is arguably the closest direct equivalent to Oculus Rooms because of its relative simplicity and its focus on simply hanging out.
The app’s avatar system has a useful feature that we haven’t seen anywhere else; it allows you to create an avatar based on your existing Oculus Avatar. This means that after you create an account you can be up and running in seconds. However, the account creation itself can be time consuming.
Bigscreen is a social app with a focus on cowatching content. Through Bigscreen TV and Bigscreen Cinema you can hang out with your friends as if you’re actually together.
Bigscreen’s joining experience takes a bit of effort — the host needs to create a room and then send a “room ID” (via Oculus Chat or another IM system) to others who want to join. Bigscreen plans to improve this system in 2020. You’ll also need to create a new avatar from scratch.
AltSpaceVR, owned by Microsoft, is the closest thing to VRChat available on Go — a kind of proto-metaverse. The main focus of AltSpace is events with large groups of strangers.
If you enjoyed Ready Player One, this is the closest thing you’ll find on your Oculus Go.
AltSpace also supports small scale private sessions. Unlike vTime and Bigscreen, AltSpace offers games and activities such as Cards Against Humanity, Disc Golf, and a Maze. This means if you’re looking for something to do with friends instead of something to watch, this may be the platform to go for.
When it comes to social virtual reality (VR) apps one of the most successful has been vTime which initially debuted on Samsung Gear VR back in 2015. The company has just announced its latest update, adding augmented reality (AR) to the experience to make it cross-reality, whilst seeing a name change to vTime XR.
The addition of AR into the vTime XR system means that for the first time people using VR headsets or smartphones can now connect in one virtual space. vTime XR users now have the freedom to choose the option of AR, VR or 2D magic window mode.
Just as before, VR users will be fully immersed in one of vTime XR’s destinations featuring DTS:X Game Audio support, while AR users will join in by placing a live 360-degree diorama of the destination on any real-world, flat surface. Via their phone display, AR users can interact with their friends and family, and change and scale their view of the destination. They will also have full access to vTime standard features such as avatar customization, image sharing, private messaging, and more.
“Creating the world’s first cross reality social experience was such a unique opportunity for us that we couldn’t pass it up. AR provides vTime with another immersive platform for future innovations, and vTime XR marks the next step in providing our global community with market-leading and highly-engaging communication experiences, regardless of their technology of choice,” vTime Managing Director Clemens Wangerin said in a statement.
vTime XR is available for iOS and Android for free now, with the AR mode on all supported phones compatible with Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore. The app is compatible with Google Cardboard, Oculus Go, Samsung Gear VR, Windows Mixed Reality, Daydream View, and Oculus Rift.
This is just another of vTime’s advancements since the company completed a Series A funding round of $7.6 million USD earlier in 2018. vTime XR has further social VR and AR technologies currently in development when details of those are released VRFocus will let you know.
