Virtual reality
Y Combinator alum Matterport is being bought by real estate juggernaut CoStar at a 212% premium
The transaction represents a premium of a whopping 212% over Matterport’s last closing share price before the deal was announced on April 22.
Meta opens Quest OS to third-party headset makers, taps Lenovo and Xbox as partners
The mixed reality operating system that powers Meta Quest headsets can officially be used by third-party device makers, the company announced on Monday. Three major tech players — Asus, Lenovo…
Meta thinks it’s a good idea for students to wear Quest headsets in class
Meta continues to field criticism over how it handles younger consumers using its platforms, but the company is also planning new products that will cater to them. On Monday, the…
Sony’s PS VR2 is getting compatibility, possibly by end of year
PlayStation VR often gets overlooked in conversations about mixed reality. These days, it seems all anyone wants to talk about is Apple Vision Pro versus Meta Quest. But Sony has…
Soon you’ll be able to play Dungeons & Dragons in VR . . . if you want
Wizards of the Coast and Resolution Games have announced their collaboration to bring Dungeons & Dragons to virtual reality. The decades-old tabletop role-playing game has become increasingly popular over the…
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VR needs to build for its best use cases — not for all-around computing
Apple’s Vision Pro launch resembles its Apple Watch debut in more ways than one, but to me the most telling similarity is in the marketing approach. Apple has striven to distance the Vision Pro from the existing crop of virtual reality (and even mixed reality) devices — many of which are objective failures — by…
I would be lying if I said that mixed reality and generative AI were two of my favorite things. And yet, a Christmas Day TV special made me unexpectedly bullish…
I broke my wrist: Meta Quest 3 and Supernatural helped me through
A few weeks ago, I broke my wrist (in a very stupid way, e-scooters are bad) and the prospect of a protracted recovery period with extremely limited mobility in that…
Xbox Cloud Gaming now available on Meta Quest 2, 3 and Pro
Xbox has brought is Cloud Gaming service to Meta Quest VR headset devices, as both companies said it would at the launch of the latest Quest 3 hardware earlier this…
ByteDance’s Oculus challenger Pico lays off hundreds, halts aggressive expansion
When Pico launched its Oculus Quest challenger in China last year, it did so with great optimism. Light (295 grams) and affordable ($420), the virtual reality headset released by the…
Mark Zuckerberg went 33 minutes without saying ‘metaverse’ at his keynote
When Meta rebranded from Facebook two years ago, the word “metaverse” went mainstream. Even people outside the tech world wondered if we would soon start to socialize via virtual reality…
After more than a year and a half in development, Meta is bringing Horizon Worlds out of the headset. The VR social app has started rolling out for some users…
Meta Quest adds new avatar customization options, an unsend message feature and more
As part of the v57 software update for Meta Quest headsets, the company announced Monday a bevy of new features — including more avatar customization options, an unsend message feature,…
It’s time to beta test Meta’s greatest technological innovation since the News Feed: legs. Now on Meta Quest headsets, you can download an update that lets you walk on two…
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Hidden forces and sliding screens trick the senses to make VR feel more real
The next big thing in VR might not be higher resolution or more immersive sound, but an experience augmented by physical sensations or moving parts that fool your senses into mistaking virtual for reality. Researchers at SIGGRAPH, from Meta to international student groups, flaunted their latest attempts to make VR and AR more convincing. The…
VLGE opens SDK for its no-code virtual world builder aimed at fashion, beauty and art industries
We’ve seen the rise of no-code and low-code platforms being applied to any number of applications and use cases. What would happen if this thinking were applied to metaverse-style virtual…
Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. It seems like the fizzle has gone out of the VR conversation altogether, as every…
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VR is dead
That’s because VR is missing the one crucial thing that could’ve taken it from “cool toy” to “must-have device.”
Mark Zuckerberg’s remarks on China cast shadow over Meta’s VR quest
As Meta sets its sight on introducing its virtual reality headsets to the Chinese market, Mark Zuckerberg’s contentious remarks about Beijing in the past may pose a major obstacle to…
Meta Quest users can subscribe to a new service that gives them access to the top two titles every month. Dubbed Meta Quest+, the virtual reality subscription costs $7.99 per…
How to watch Apple unveil its AR/VR headset, iOS 17 and more at WWDC 2023
Today’s the big day, and we’re expecting big things — well, one really big thing for sure. Apple will kick off WWDC 2023 at 10AM PT Monday June 5 with…
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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 inventor’s West Los Angeles home. Rheingold describes awe — even surprise — that the system was still operable almost 30 years after its introduction. “I was…
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The other DWI: Driving while immersed
I believe that putting virtual reality headsets in cars will kill people. VR is the most distracting medium ever invented.
When you think Canon, you might think cameras, scanners, printers and such. At CES this year, the company did a stride toward the softer side of tech, taking a broader…
Peacock subscribers can now stream content on Meta Quest devices
At Meta Connect 2022, the tech giant announced a three-year partnership with NBCUniversal that would bring Peacock to the Meta Quest virtual reality headset. Today, the streaming app is now…
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A decade later, this VR treadmill is finally ready to ship
As free promotion for hardware startups go, one would be hard pressed to point to something better than a $175 million Spielberg film. “It was actually Warner Bros. that had reached out to us to get two Omnis for use in the movie,” Virtuix founder and CEO Jan Goetgeluk tells TechCrunch. “We shipped them two,…
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Review: PlayStation VR2 is a huge leap that still can’t escape its niche
The PlayStation VR2 is a simultaneously exciting and disappointing development in the virtual reality space. Well-specced, easy to set up and reasonably light and comfortable, Sony’s latest still can’t shake the fundamental issues that have prevented VR from going mainstream: a lack of compelling content and despite a brand new 4K OLED display, distracting image…
Meta Quest users can now tap and swipe in VR without controllers
Today, Meta announced new improvements to the Quest platform as part of the v50 OS update, including an experimental feature called “Direct Touch,” which lets users tap and swipe with…
Former Salesforce exec Bret Taylor is teaming up with Google AR/VR vet Clay Bavor on mystery startup
When Bret Taylor announced he was stepping down as co-CEO and co-chair at Salesforce in November, it was easy to be cynical about him saying he wanted to go build…
Mentions of the “metaverse” were relatively few and far between in Meta’s quarterly earnings call this week — we counted a mere seven mentions compared to 23 for “AI” —…