I’m back in Italy, after a crazy week in Finland between MatchXR and Slush. And especially a weekend during which I discovered that my team won a prize at the latest development competition organized by Meta! I’m so excited and happy about that. But now there is no time to be excited anymore; it is time to talk about XR news!
Top news of the week
You can now invite your friends inside Horizon Hyperscape
I’ve already told you how Horizon Hyperscape is an amazing solution that lets you scan a place very easily and then enter a reconstructed version of it in virtual reality. The reconstruction it offers is definitely good, and when I wrote my review piece about it, I mentioned how it could be a great way to share with our peers a special place where we are or have been. Well, from this week, this vision starts to become possible.
Meta is now offering the possibility for multiple players, up to 8, to enter together into a location scanned with Horizon Hyperscape. Meta will create a sort of Horizon Worlds location, where people can meet using their own Meta Avatars. Shared worlds will be locally rendered when run in VR, which will make them lose a bit of the astonishing quality they had when cloud-rendered. But they would still look good, and have the advantage now that they can be shared with other people.
A few years ago, there was an AR startup that tried to make a sort of social media where you shared places instead of posts. I considered the idea genius, and even if the startup failed, I always dreamt about that vision becoming true. Meta Horizon Hyperscape goes exactly in that direction. You can invite some distant relatives into your home and feel close to them; you can save the room you are when you are a teenager, and 30 years later, show it to your children; you can scan a place where you had an amazing experience, and be able to re-enter it one year later with the people that were part of it to celebrate the anniversary. And don’t get me started on celebrities being able to share their places with their fans. The possibilities are just endless. All of us have special memories about certain locations, and now Horizon Hyperscape lets us save them and share them with the people we love.
I personally think this is a game-changer, something that long-term will become a killer feature of VR. And it’s crazy how little attention is being given to it…
More info (Horizon Hyperscape became multiplayer)
More info (Locally rendered vs cloud rendered locations in Hyperscape)
Other relevant news
The 8th Wall shuts down
I… don’t even know how to tell this news. The 8th Wall, probably the most famous solution for WebAR, has shut down. The service won’t close overnight, but there will be a gradual shutdown, with the hosted experiences still being live until 2027.
This is a huge pity. The 8th Wall was able to offer very solid tracking across all platforms, and for many years, it was an almost obligatory choice for anyone wanting to do WebAR. That’s why the company was purchased by Niantic. And together with Niantic, The 8th Wall was even able to demo VPS fully running on the Web.
I have even personal memories related to this company: if I remember well, after Charlie Fink wrote his article on The 8th Wall back in the days (it was 2018), I started interacting with him on social media and then wrote my review about the same product, which he appreciated and reshared. I guess our friendship more or less started with that.
It is not clear what caused the end of The 8th Wall, but I have an idea. I think it was a combination of factors. The 8th Wall was probably the best solution on the market, but it was also incredibly expensive: I had a few WebAR projects canceled by potential clients because they could not afford its license. In the beginning, it was the only solution in the market, but lately a few credible competitors have surfaced, not to mention opensource alternatives like AR.js. AR and XR in general are not in their best moment. And Niantic lately has been acquired by a Saudi company, and from it spun Niantic Spatial, with the mission of creating large world models. And I guess that both the gaming company and the AR+AI ones are not that interested in WebAR experiences for brands.
Whatever the reasons, this is still very sad news for the whole industry. I wish the best to the members of The 8th Wall team, they all did a good job.
Lynx to launch its new headset on January 21st
With a LinkedIn post, Stan Larroque, the CEO of the French startup Lynx, has announced that his company is going to launch its new upcoming standalone headset on January 21st, 2026. The announcement will happen at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, during SPIE Photonics.
The company already teased that this headset will have a pretty wide field of view thanks to the optics designed by Hypervision, and I am actually very curious to try it. The company has also mentioned multiple times that it learned from all the mistakes of the first product, so hopefully this time the launch will go smoother than with the Lynx-R1.
Good luck to all the Lynx team!
Discover the Black Friday discounts!
This is the week of Black Friday, and we have started seeing interesting offers related to XR devices. Meta Quest 3S is as low as $200 at Costco, and PlayStation VR2 has the crazy low price of $300. Discover this and other discounts in the links below. It’s time to buy a new headset!
More info (Meta Quest 3S costing $200 for Black Friday)
More info (PlayStation VR2 costing $300 for Black Friday)
More info (RayBan Meta getting -20% discount for Black Friday)
More info (A collection of Black Friday discounts found on Reddit)
News worth a mention
New TCL display may support a new generation of mid-range headsets
TCL has just announced a new display that the company says is the highest density RGB OLED-on-glass display in the world, and has a 120Hz refresh rate ideal for VR. This new panel could power clear and sharp headsets with rich colors, deep contrast, and true blacks, but without the sky-high prices you get with micro-OLED. This may lead to a new generation of high-quality headsets with a price that is midway between the Quest 3 and the Galaxy XR.
Of course, this is just what has the potential of happening. We have no information, not even rumors, about a new type of mid-range headset that may come in the future.
Nexus NX1 may be the most complete solution for robots teleoperation
1HMX has launched Nexus NX1, a complete solution for robot teleoperation. The system is a combination of Virtuix Omni together with FreeAim Shoes for locomotion, a VR headset for immersion, 72 degrees of freedom (DoF) body and hand tracking, and HaptX Gloves for haptics and force feedback. It is a complete solution that mixes locomotion, hand operation, haptics, and immersive reality in one single package, not to mention the SDK for the integration with VR and robotics platforms. The price is not disclosed, but I guess it is very high. I know this is an enterprise solution, but I was thinking that it would be incredibly cool if something like this were available also for home usage…
Meta SAM 3D reconstructs objects from a single image
Meta has just released two interesting AI models: SAM 3D Objects for reconstructing physical scenes and objects from a single photo, and SAM 3D Body for estimating human pose and shape from an image. Both models can be tried in the newly released Segment Anything Playground. Thanks to these models, potentially every object for which we have only one picture could be easily ported to 3D and XR: this can be very important, for instance, for stores like Amazon that want to migrate to XR.
Meta upcoming headset may mount a Snapdragon XR2 Gen3
According to the usual SadlyItsLuna, the upcoming headset by Meta, codenamed Puffin/Loma/Phoenix may run the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 3 chipset and feature eye tracking and face tracking. If it is confirmed, it would be a very interesting headset. A Quest 4 may happen in 2027.
A rare picture of a Quest with an unlocked bootloader
Someone on Reddit bought a used Quest Pro and found it with the unlocked bootloader. What did the community suggest he do with it? Install SteamOS, of course!
Discover the new Humble Bundle
The Beyond Virtual Realities bundle on Humble Bundle will let you own 10 interesting VR games for less than 16€. Check it out!
Deadpool VR is out, and it is quite cool
Deadpool VR has finally been released, and many people have started playing with it. The reviews about it are definitely positive, but not super enthusiastic. It seems that the game is able to create the Deadpool vibes very well, but for instance, the combat feels a bit boring and repetitive. It is still incredibly fun, though, thanks to the jokes that Deadpool constantly cracks.
More info (Deadpool VR has been released)
More info (Deadpool VR review — Road To VR)
More info (Deadpool VR review — Upload VR)
Some news about content
- Boxing game Thrill Of The Fight 2 is now out of Early Access and features a single-player campaign
- Reality TV show Ninja Warrior is getting a VR game next month on Meta Quest headsets. The game is out on December 18th for $9.99
- EA Sports will release a paid 2026 season expansion to F1 25 instead of a new title, with a “reimagined” game to follow in 2027. VR support for 2027 is not clear, yet
- Mixed Reality roguelite Healer launches on December 11 for Quest 3/3S
More info (Thrill Of The Fight 2)
More info (Ninja Warrior)
More info (F1 26)
More info (Healer)
Some reviews about content
- Little Planet is a social simulator where you design a city, and then you live in it. It reminds a lot of Animal Crossing, and the result is pretty nice
- Hotel Infinity takes inspiration from Tea For God and delivers an experience that truly exploits room-scale VR in a fun and original way
- Roboquest VR takes what was already a great flatscreen roguelite experience and transforms it into a new VR classic.
More info (Little Planet VR)
More info (Hotel Infinity)
More info (RoboQuest VR)
Other news
PimaxMagic4All is a tool by the usual Mbucchia that adds eye tracking to many SteamVR games
Apple announces that a documentary about the Real Madrid football team is coming
Meta releases tools to more easily make UIs in WebXR
VR, which causes motion sickness to some people, may be used to reduce motion sickness in astronauts
(Thanks Tom Ffiske for the tip)
Walkabout Minigolf may be the first Android app published on Steam
Rokid releases new smartglasses made in collaboration with eyewear brand BOLON
DPVR launches six different models of smartglasses
It is now possible to make content for Fortnite using Unity
I just discovered that “roguelite” and “roguelike” are not exactly the same category of games
News from partners (and friends)
No news in this section for this week, so I just wish you a wonderful week ahead!
Maybe a Rickroll
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
I love all VR headsets
Funny link
Competition is good
Funny link
Apple reacts to Steam Frame
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 8th Wall)
Disclaimer: this blog contains advertisement and affiliate links to sustain itself. If you click on an affiliate link, I’ll be very happy because I’ll earn a small commission on your purchase. You can find my boring full disclosure here.
Related
