HTC

HTC Vive became an enterprise product while you weren’t looking

A lot has changed at HTC in the decade since a small team broke off to form its mixed reality division. In fact, it’s a fundamentally different business in several meaningful ways. For one thing, yo

A brief history of VR and AR

By the time Howard Rheingold’s “Virtual Reality” was published in 1991, the Sensorama was already a “slowly deteriorating” relic stashed away in a cabana next the pool at its invento

Apple’s AR/VR headset reportedly being pushed out due to ‘huge pressure to ship’

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Apple is building a mixed reality headset that’s set to ship this year. The company’s MR (AR+VR) hardware ranks among its longest-lasting rumor cycles. S

The mixed messaging of mixed reality

I vividly remember my first Vive experience. It was many CESes ago. I was managing a different site. Budgets were tight and I had the most on-the-ground experience, so I went solo. I had a different k

HTC’s global head of Product on VR’s ‘race to the bottom’

It was the year of XR. But then, they all seem to be, these days. Strong presences from Meta, Magic Leap, Sony and HTC led the way at this year’s CES, with hundreds of startups picking up the rear.

Ready Player Me, a platform to build dynamic cross-game avatars for virtual worlds, raises $56M led by a16z

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg was roundly mocked for the bad graphics in his preview of a new expansion of Horizon Worlds, Meta’s metaverse effort. His quick response promising better avatars for t

HTC looks to the metaverse for answers

LG officially pulled the plug on its smartphone division in April of last year. It was another signpost in a dramatically changing mobile market that had left the electronics giant behind. HTC tends t

Hong Kong’s offline and virtual events platform EventX closes $18M Series B

As countries ease up on COVID restrictions, activities are going back in person. But the virtual event space continues to attract investors, at least in Asia. Hong Kong-based events management platfor

Mozilla is shutting down its VR web browser, Firefox Reality

A top VR web browser is closing down. Today, Mozilla announced it’s shutting down its Firefox Reality browser — the four-year-old browser built for use in virtual reality environments. The

Is China building the metaverse?

A heated debate is going on about the race between the United States and China to dominate in AI. But perhaps the more strategic question is whether China is building the metaverse.

HTC reveals the $499 Vive Flow, a tiny VR headset with some big tradeoffs

Today, HTC has revealed their latest consumer-focused headset, the $499 Vive Flow. It’s designed for portability with a compact design and 189 gram weight, though there are some big caveats, whi

NextMind’s Dev Kit for mind-controlled computing offers a rare ‘wow’ factor in tech

NextMind debuted its Dev Kit hardware at CES last year, but the hardware is now actually shipping, and the startup shared with me the production version to take a test drive. The NextMind controller i

Tokyo-based virtual reality game developer Thirdverse gets $8.5 million Series A

Thirdverse, the virtual reality game developer behind “Swords of Gargantua,” has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by JAFCO, with participation from Presence Capit

Gogoro’s new e-bike brand Eeyo will launch in the US first

Gogoro, the Taiwanese company known for its electric scooters, announced a new ebike brand that will go on sale in the United States first. Details about the ebike, called Eeyo, haven’t been release

Los Angeles-based Talespin nabs $15 million for its extended reality-based workforce training tools

It turns out the virtual and augmented reality companies aren’t dead — as long as they focus on the enterprise. That’s what the Los Angeles-based extended reality technology develope

HTC debuts ‘Project Proton’ concept Vive headset

Like practically everyone else in the mobile world, the cancellation of MWC on extremely short notice left HTC in the lurch. While the company has moved much of its efforts away from smartphones in ge

HTC had a terrible 2019

HTC can’t seem to catch a break. The once-king-of-the-hill smartphone vendor, which had a terrible 2018, continued to bleed last year, according to financial disclosures it made on Monday. HTC repo

Nodle crowdsources IoT connectivity

Nodle, which is competing in the TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin Startup Battlefield this week, is based on a simple premise: What if you could crowdsource the connectivity of smart sensors by offloading it

Google reportedly in talks to acquire Fitbit

According to Reuters, Google parent Alphabet is looking to acquire publicly traded wearables company Fitbit. Reuters says the deal is still being negotiated and could still fall apart, but if it came

HTC releases a cheaper blockchain phone

Whatever you might say about HTC (and believe me, there’s plenty to say), at least the company takes some fascinating chances. As newly minted CEO Yves Maitre admitted to me at Disrupt a couple of w
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