It’s the first day of December! I usually like December, most probably because it is a month of celebrations, and usually at Christmas I spend some nice time with my family. And talking about holidays… I hope all of you who celebrate it had a great Thanksgiving! For me ,this will also be a month of hard work, and I will have my last trip of the year when I’ll go to Brussels for United XR Europe. Hopefully we’ll meet there!
Top news of the week
Pico to launch a Vision Pro competitor in 2026
Zhenyuan Yang, Vice President of Technology at Pico’s parent company ByteDance, unveiled some of the plans for Pico for 2026. The company is focused on developing headsets’ technologies and is planning to launch a Vision Pro competitor next year.
The new device will even have a custom chip developed by Pico itself, a product the company has been in the making since 2022. The new chip will be like the R1 chip in the Vision Pro and will help in delivering very low latency (around 12ms) passthrough. The headset will pair this chip with a custom microOLED display, which is said to approach 4,000 PPI. The new headset will have 45 PPD at the center of the lenses: this means that the clarity of the images will be very high. According to a report by The Information, this headset should weigh as little as 100g, because the battery will be external to the headset.
If this report is true, it seems that next year we are going to have two interesting Vision Pro competitors: one from Meta and one from Pico. And if things keep being like in the past, I bet they will be very similar on the technical side. Competition is good for our ecosystem, and I’m happy to see Pico is still very committed to XR.
More info (Pico to release a Vision Pro competitor — Road To VR)
More info (Pico to release a Vision Pro competitor — Upload VR)
Other relevant news
The best offers for Black Friday/Cyber Monday
We are still in the long Black Friday weekend, and there are many interesting offers related to XR devices. Quest 3 is available for $200 at Costco, PSVR 2 can be bought at $300 through an Amazon Deal, Galaxy XR costs $1620 if you are in the education business, and there are also many games and interesting applications (like Pencil) that are heavily discounted on the Quest store!
What are you waiting for? The time to buy a VR headset or a VR game is now!
More info (The best VR deals for this CyberMonday)
More info (Quest 3 offer for Black Friday)
More info (Galaxy XR discounted for education professionals)
More info (Horizon Store discounts)
More info (Suggestions on the best deals on the Horizon Store)
More info (Pencil is available with a 45% discount)
Fluxpose nails its Kickstarter campaign
Fluxpose is an interesting tracking solution for virtual reality:
- The trackers are very small
- It does not need any external hardware (base stations or webcam)
- It works both with PCVR and standalone headsets
- Since it uses magnetic tracking, it is tolerant to visual occlusions
- It offers precise tracking
- It is a pretty open system
It has also been tried by various VR professionals, and all of them came out with a good impression of it.
That’s why when the company opened its Kickstarter campaign, it was able to be funded in a super short time, and now it is beyond the $2M of funding. This is a great story that shows that if you propose an interesting product, you can make good business in VR. It also confirms that while the PCVR market is rather small, its people are more open to spending money on good products and to support promising startups.
Anyway, since I’m not a hype-machine, I still have to mention a couple of caveats about this story:
- Magnetic tracking is cool, but it is also subject to interference if there are metals nearby
- $2M seems a lot of money, but for a company that should make hardware, they are not. It’s, in my opinion, just enough to let them start a business, show traction, and try to raise more money from VCs
- The full gadget costs $700. I’m sure it is an amazing product, but it is also very expensive: it seems to me a premium product for premium people. The average consumer may be more interested in something like the Pico Trackers, which cost around $60 and still deliver a decent full-body tracking experience.
In any case, I’m very happy to see this startup having some success, and I wish them the best of luck. And if you are interested in this product, check its Kickstarter campaign.
More info (Fluxpose Kickstarter campaign page)
More info (Hands-on Fluxpose)
News worth a mention
Meta Reveals ‘WorldGen’ Tool to create worlds with AI
Meta announced WorldGen, a new AI tool that could soon let you generate navigable 3D worlds in minutes from a single text prompt. I say “soon” because at the moment, the system is not ready to be released: the generated models can only span a maximum of 50 × 50 meters, and all seem to follow a similar structure. But Meta plans to keep improving it and eventually integrate it into the Horizon Worlds Editor, so that to fulfill its promise of letting everyone create his/her own Horizon Worlds experience even without great technical skills. On one side, this looks cool to me; on the other, I fear a system like this can only exponentially increase the AI slop on the metaverse platform.
More info (Meta Worldgen — Road To VR)
More info (Meta Worldgen — Upload VR)
World Labs Marble can generate a full WebXR scene from an image
World Labs is on a similar mission to generate 3D worlds in an easy way, and it has just released a new interesting product to do that. Marble is able to create a full WebXR environment from just an image, and do that in just a few minutes. This means that you can, for instance, take a picture of your childhood home and be able to re-enter that space in full immersive reality. This is impressive, but it comes with a big caveat: if you have just one picture, the AI system has to hallucinate all the parts of the environment that are not visible in the photo.
People who have tried it said that the results are very interesting, and the reconstruction has a quality superior to Niantic Scaniverse.
Meta is preparing to launch the SDK of its smartglasses
Meta has just published a job position for a contractor who should work as a developer advocate to help build the developer community of people working on smartglasses. This means that the company is approaching the launch of its SDK for the Ray-Ban Meta glasses and is interested in building a community out of the devs there. This is definitely a good sign, because it means that there will soon be opportunities for us XR developers in the smartglasses sector.
Smartglasses to detect smartglasses
The craziest project of the week is called Ban-Rays, and it is about creating smartglasses that can detect smartglasses equipped with a camera that are around you, so that you know if someone may spy on you. So these are smartglasses for smartglasses. I’m already working with my friend Dirk on smartglasses that can detect smartglasses that can detect the smartglasses. Smartglasses-ception.
(Thanks Medhi for the tip)
Sweet Surrender post-mortem
The founder of Salmi Games has written a very interesting post on Upload VR where he makes a post-mortem about his studio’s experience in launching its latest game Sweet Surrender on PSVR. It is not a story of success; it is a story of many mistakes, so you can learn a lot from it. I sincerely appreciate Yacine Salmi for writing it and informing the whole community.
Some news about content
- CleanSheet Pro, a subscription-based VR soccer sim for goalkeepers, is now available on Quest. It costs around $30/month
- Starvault, a competitive 5v5 VR shooter with MOBA elements, enters full release today on Quest. This is a very interesting game
- Smash Eat Grow, a free-to-play VR multiplayer playground where you eat opponents to win, enters early access today on Quest. It seems like a game that tries to attract a very young audience
- Action flight sim G-Rebels will get day one PC VR support in early access, and it’s launching early next year
- The realistic surfing simulator, True Surf, is making its Quest debut this December
More info (Cleansheet Pro)
More info (Starvault)
More info (Smash Eat Grow)
More info (G Rebels)
More info (True Surf)
Some reviews about content
- Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked is a good adaptation of Demeo to let people play D&D in it. It lacks a bit of gameplay freedom to really feel like the true D&D (it is still Demeo, after all), but it is definitely a good game
- Inu Atsume VR is basically Neko Atsume Purrfect, but with dogs. It offers cuteness overload for dog lovers, both in virtual and mixed reality
- Horizon Hyperscape in multiplayer is definitely fascinating, but you lose a bit of visual quality of the environments if compared to the single player version
More info (Demeo x Dungeons & Dragons: Battlemarked)
More info (Inu Atsume VR)
More info (Horizon Hyperscape)
Other news
Godot improves its OpenXR support and becomes a better engine to make XR content
Learn more (Road To VR)
Learn more (Upload VR)
Meta started a trade-in program for its smartglasses
HorizonOS v83 adds some improvements to warping and dimming
Interesting hands-on impressions about the Halliday AI glasses from a Redditor
Avatars creator Dulce Baerga needs our help. Let’s support her!
News from partners (and friends)
Rheinmetall and Varjo partner for military training
Finnish VR headset manufacturer Varjo has just strengthened its position in the military market with a partnership with Rheinmetall, a leader company in the sector. This is what the press release says about their cooperation:
Rheinmetall, a leader in defense and security technologies and Varjo, the leader in military-grade mixed reality (XR), today announced a strategic collaboration to integrate Varjo’s technology into Rheinmetall’s deployable virtual land training systems, addressing the urgent need to scale training capacity across Europe and NATO. The partnership will entail equipping Rheinmetall’s modular driving and weapons simulation systems with Varjo XR-4 Series headsets, enabling forces to train more troops in more locations, at a pace that matches current security demands.
The two companies will demonstrate joint training solutions at I/ITSEC 2025, the biggest event about innovation in the military ecosystem.
Learn more
Discover FM DUO camera!
Meet the FM DUO, a VR camera that is capable of filming up to 12K @30fps, and 8K @60fps. With built-in RTMP live streaming and 5G connectivity, the FM·DUO will immerse your viewers in real time! The FM·DUO features 2 full-frame CMOS sensors, with 6000 x 6000 pixels each. This allows for high-resolution zooming capabilities. Not only can you narrow in on one subject, but you can also focus on singular details of the subject’s facial expressions, clothing textures, and a multitude of other small details, enabling a much more immersive experience of VR video.
Visit Product Website
Some XR fun
If you know the story about how “survivorship bias” was discovered, you’ll like this post
Funny link
Donate for good
Like last week, also this week in this final paragraph I won’t ask you to donate to my blog, but to the poor people who are facing the consequences of the war. Please donate to the Red Cross to handle the current humanitarian situation in Ukraine. I will leave you the link to do that below.
Let me take a moment before to thank anyway all my Patreon donors for the support they give to me:
- Alex Gonzalez VR
- DeoVR
- GenVR
- Eduardo Siman
- Jonn Fredericks
- Jean-Marc Duyckaerts
- Reynaldo T Zabala
- Richard Penny
- Terry xR. Schussler
- Ilias Kapouranis
- Paolo Leoncini
- Immersive.international
- Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
- Jake Rubin
- Alexis Huille
- Raghu Bathina
- Chris Koomen
- Cognitive3D
- Wisear (Yacine Achiakh)
- Masterpiece X
- Dimo Pepelyashev
- Carol Dalrymple
- Keith Bradner
- Jennifer Granger
- Jason Moore
- Steve Biggs
- Julio Cesar Bolivar
- Jan Schroeder
- Kai Curtis
- Francesco Strada
- Sikaar Keita
- Ramin Assadollahi
- Juan Sotelo
- Andrew Sheldon
- Chris Madsen
- Horacio Torrendell
- Andrew Deutsch
- Fabien Benetou
- Tatiana Kartashova
- Marco “BeyondTheCastle” Arena
- Eloi Gerard
- Adam Boyd
- Jeremy Dalton
- Joel Ward
- Alex P
- Lynn Eades
- Donald P
- Casie Lane
- Catherine Henry
- Qcreator
- Ristband (Anne McKinnon & Roman Rappak)
- Stephen Robnett
- KaihatsuJai
- Christopher Boyd
- Don Williams
- Giuseppe Pippi
- Mark Frederiksen
- Ken Lin
- Sebastien Poivre
- Ixn91
- Sb
- Boule Petanque
- Pieter Siekerman
- Enrico Poli
- Vooiage Technologies
- Caroline
- Liam James O’Malley
- Hillary Charnas
- Wil Stevens
- Francesco Salizzoni
- Alan Smithson
- Steve R
- Brentwahn
- Michael Gaebler
- Tiago Silva
- Matt Cool
- Mark G
- Simplex
- Gregory F Gorsuch
- Paul Shay
- Matias Nassi
And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
(Header image by Pico)
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