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Category: virtual reality – Page 34

HP appears to be strengthening its position as a provider of XR software for enterprise companies. Today it announced the release of a mobile device management (MDM) solution that’s designed to make deploying and managing large-scale VR easier.

Called HP ExtendXR, the software as a service (SaaS) was built in collaboration with ArborXR, an AR/VR device management company that came out of the VR arcade space in 2016.

HP says its collaboration with ArborXR is targeting companies who want to more easily scale their VR deployments, but also take advantage of HP’s global support and HP Horizon secure cloud infrastructure.

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Half-Life: Alyx (2020) has been in the wild for a little under two years now, and modders have been busy using it to make cool stuff—just like they did with the original Half-Life (1998). Enter ‘Gunman Contracts’, a multi-chapter mod that scores some serious style points while smartly leveraging Valve’s Source 2 for some John Wick-style action.

Gunman Contracts is set of free mods for Half-Life: Alyx created by Germany-based graphics designer ‘ANB_Seth’.

There’s already two individual chapters available on the Steam, ‘Chapter 1 – The Extraction’, which came out last September, and now ‘Chapter 2 – Art of War’, which released late last month.

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It’s hard to find a single event with a bigger audience than the Super Bowl, which has made it one of the hottest pieces of advertising real estate anywhere. Meta went big this year with a 60 second ad spot that served to both promote VR to a national audience and solidify its rebranding from Oculus Quest 2 to Meta Quest 2.

If you were watching the Rams and Bengals duke it out during Super Bowl 56 on Sunday, you will also have been introduced to ‘Questy’s’ in an ad during the first quarter. The 60 second spot, which centered around a personified animatronic band that once played at a restaurant called Questy’s, was likely the single most expensive VR-related ad ever shown on TV to date.

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There’s a land rush happening — and it’s not in New York City or Beverly Hills.

Early speculators, professional real estate agents, and celebrities are buying up land that doesn’t even exist in the real world. They are investing in metaverse real estate, a concept mind-boggling to most people.

So, what exactly is the metaverse? Technologists say the metaverse is the next level of the internet. It’s a virtual reality platform where people can play games, connect with friends, attend meetings, and even go to virtual concerts. Ever since Facebook announced it would change its name to Meta and focus on building its own digital world, interest in metaverse real estate skyrocketed.

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A report by Business Insider says Microsoft has scrapped plans for its own HoloLens 3 and has instead partnered with Samsung—but that no one really knows what’s going on.

Microsoft has reportedly scrapped its third-generation HoloLens, leaving the company’s “metaverse” plans in disarray.

According to a report from Business Insider, Microsoft killed off the HoloLens 3 in 2021, shifting to a planned device with Samsung instead. The problem? According to the publication, the company’s mixed-reality/augmented reality/virtual-reality division isn’t sure what it plans to do. That’s resulted in employees leaving for Meta and other companies instead.

The company told BI that it remains committed to HoloLens and future HoloLens development. It said the same to PCWorld in a statement. “Microsoft HoloLens remains a critical part of our plans for emerging categories like mixed reality and the metaverse,” the company said. “We remain committed to HoloLens and future HoloLens development.”

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Seattle-based software company Pluto VR has brought its virtual reality streaming platform PlutoSphere into Early Access.

Initially announced in February 2021, PlutoSphere allows its users to stream VR applications to a headset without the need for a local computer, in order to dramatically reduce the cost of entry for virtual reality. Instead of building a new rig around VR compatibility, you can theoretically just get a headset, then run everything from every library you own via data streaming.

PlutoSphere is currently compatible with the Oculus Quest and Quest 2, with plans to support other headsets and mobile devices in the future. It also requires a 5 Ghz WiFi 6 Internet connection, 50 Mbps of bandwidth, a Steam account, and less than 100ms ping to an Amazon Web Services region.

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