UK Theme Park Announce Their First VR Roller Coaster ‘Galactica’
Alton Towers, one of the UK’s leading theme parks, has announce they’re to launch their first virtual reality roller coaster called ‘Galactica’, to open in April.
Leap Motion’s ‘Interaction Engine’ Aims for Effortless VR Input
Leap Motion continues to refine their hand-tracking tech for intuitive controller-free interactivity. The company’s latest focus has been on an ‘Interaction Engine’ which usurps standard physics engines when it comes to defining interactions between user input and virtual objects.
Personalized Products Using Computer-Aided Manufacturing and VR Design
Greg Howes is the founder and CEO of the high-tech building company IDEAbuilder, and he’s on a mission to disrupt the $8.5 trillion annual building industry using immersive technologies to bridge design & fabrication directly with consumer demand. He uses computer-aided manufacturing and robotics to fabricate buildings, and he’s been investigating how AR, VR, and MR can help to revolutionize the process of communicating ideas around space. Greg predicts that the combination of computer-aided manufacturing with immersive technologies has the potential to more directly connect the supply and demand of manufacturing resulting in a trend towards more customization and personalization of all types of products and services.
Vive Pre-orders to Open February 29th as HTC Pivots From Smartphones to VR
Speaking with The Telegraph, HTC CEO Cher Wang confirms that pre-orders for the company’s Vive VR system will open February 29th. Wang also indicates that HTC is turning its focus primarily to virtual reality.
Gamified VR Physical Rehabilitation with VRecover
Michael Aratow is a clinician and health care executive who founded VRecover, which is health care startup making physical rehabilitation exercises more engaging with VR. He says that rehab is like homework, but that sometimes up to 90% of people don’t actually do the exercises. VRecover is betting that gamifying rehab exercises within immersive VR environments will help accelerate the healing process while making it more fun to do.
Hands On: SMI Proves that Foveated Rendering is Here and it Really Works
SMI, a company working in the field of gaze detection for over 20 years, hit CES this year with an application of their latest 250hz eye tracking solution coupled with a holy grail for 2nd generation virtual reality – FOVeated rendering.
Leaked $800 PlayStation VR Price Was an Error, Says Sony
With rather curious timing, a day after Oculus Rift pre-orders became available, Amazon Canada let slip a listing for Sony’s PlayStation VR headset.
Oculus Founder: “pre-orders are going much better than I ever could have possibly expected”
With the Oculus Rift’s seemingly high $599 price tag coming as quite a surprise to the VR community, one might be tempted to think that it would put a major dent in pre-orders. Indications from Oculus suggest it may only be a vocal minority who have been turned off by the cost.
HTC Shows Vive Pre Working Great for Seated VR at CES
While the HTC Vive is known for its ‘room-scale tracking space, the company maintains that it works just as well for seated VR experiences. At CES 2016, HTC showed just that, using Elite Dangerous running great on the new Vive Pre.
Windlands Now Available on Steam Early Access
Windlands, a first-person exploration game from Psytech Games, is now available for purchase on Steam Early Access. The game is currently on sale for $15.99, and returns to the normal price of $19.99 after January 15th.
Oculus Rift Pre-Order ETA is Now June for New Orders
There’s been a serious demand for pre-orders of the consumer Oculus Rift since going live Wednesday, and if you haven’t thrown your credit card at Oculus yet, you may be waiting until as late as June to get your hands on one.
Nikon’s 4K 360 Camera is Rugged and Ready, But Maybe Not for VR
Nikon, the Japanese multinational giant known for everything from simple point-and-shoots to some of the most sophisticated optics on the market, has built a 360 action camera capable of up to 4K UHD video and still images, dubbed KeyMission 360. Although footage from the camera appears to be good quality, albeit with a few stitching issues to sort out, the test footage raises some definite concerns about 360 action cams in general.
Hands On: Audi’s Stunning Next-gen Showrooms are Powered by Vive and Rift
We went hands-on with Audi’s new room-scale VR showroom experience that the company is hoping will add new dimensions to the car buying experience whilst also introducing entirely new demographics to VR.
Hands-on: HTC Vive Pre Brings Notable Improvements to Visuals, Tracking, and Ergonomics
Although the HTC Vive saw a significant delay, pushing its expected delivery date way back from Q4 2015 to April 2016, development of the headset has not stalled. The new Vive Pre, the second Vive development kit, makes improvements across the board.
