Lucas Matney
Lucas Matney is a Writer at TechCrunch focused on covering the latest augmented/virtual reality tech, gadgets and audio tech. He’s currently studying at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University where he spends most of the time in his classes tweeting and blogging.
If you’d like to contact Lucas and tell him about the cool stuff you or your client is working on, reach out at: [email protected]
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Latest from Lucas Matney
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This Disrupt hack brings hand-tracking to the Gear VR
One of the biggest limitations of mobile VR at the moment is the lack of input. Google Cardboard is gathering some fixes via sensors from companies like PMD, but Angel Say wanted to make that solution available on the more high-powered Gear VR platform so at this weekend’s TechCrunch Disrupt NY Hackathon he strived to bring hand-tracking to the Gear VR. Samsung’s Gear VR… Read More
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I’ve got a few questions for virtual reality filmmakers
So, I’m sitting aboard a flight to Boston at the moment. I just finished a bout of midterms at Northwestern University that allegedly went well enough for me to make it through undergrad. I have an $8 beer in my hand that Spirit Airlines is using to subsidize their garbage service, but more importantly, I’m grappling with a lot of questions surrounding reality and… Read More
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Oculus snags Fitbit exec Hans Hartmann as new COO
Oculus is bringing a new COO aboard as it perhaps looks to double down on tightening things up logistics-wise. Fitbit COO Hans Hartmann will be jumping ship and joining the virtual reality company owned by Facebook, according to a tweet from Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe. Hartmann, who was with Fitbit since 2011, will be replacing founding COO Laird Malamed, who Iribe says will be “taking… Read More
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NextVR gets ready to drop the bass with live VR concerts
After dedicating tons of energy (and loads of bandwidth) to live streaming sporting events in stereoscopic VR, NextVR is moving to its next major market: live virtual reality concerts. NextVR has announced a major partnership with Live Nation to live stream “hundreds” of concerts and events to their virtual reality platform. This high-profile partnership continues to show just what… Read More
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Slack integration in AltspaceVR lets you keep working in every reality
Virtual reality can often be escapist in nature, but sometimes you just gotta get shit done. HTC has started looking at this with Call Services on the Vive so you can keep track of your texts while in VR, but for workplace communication not much has surfaced. Onstage today at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality conference, Altspace CEO Eric Romo announced that his company would be integrating… Read More
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Dive head-first into the cosmos with SpaceVR
One of the major promises of virtual reality is the ability to find yourself transported to exotic locations. Nothing is quite so exotic as the final frontier. SpaceVR wants to launch high-definition 360-degree cameras into space so that users can experience the majesty of the cosmos on their virtual reality headsets. The small 5-person company just raised a $1.25 million Seed round led… Read More
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Minecraft on Gear VR is available now for $6.99
Get ready for lots of virtual cubes in virtual reality! Minecraft: Gear VR Edition is now available on the Oculus Store for $6.99. The blocky blockbuster was met with major fanfare when it was revealed last month that it was landing on the Gear VR. I had a chance to try it out and wasn’t overtly impressed, but it is undoubtedly a major development to have such a triple-A title landing… Read More
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Samsung’s Gear 360 camera is going on sale in 2 days and we still don’t know how much it costs
Update: Samsung has reached out saying that the United States is actually not one of the “select countries” where the Gear 360 will be launching on April 29. Blargh. Samsung unveiled the Gear 360 virtual reality camera last month at Mobile World Conference. People were generally impressed, but without a price tag most withheld judgment. Well today onstage at the Samsung… Read More
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The first official Snowden trailer is a bit over the top, also has a bit of Nic Cage
After months of anticipating what the hell Nic Cage was going to be doing in the new Snowden movie, we finally get to see him in the first official trailer! Sadly, Cage’s role is only that of a random NSA guy urging Snowden to “find the terrorist in the Internet haystack.” This is the first we’ve seen of the new movie chronicling the plight of Edward Snowden since… Read More
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HTC announces $100M Vive X virtual reality accelerator program
HTC is devoting more and more resources to virtual reality as it looks to outrun its mobile demons and catch the VR wave before everyone else. Today at a press conference in China, HTC announced that it will be devoting $100 million to a new virtual reality accelerator program for developers called Vive X, VR Focus reports. Applications are live now over on HTC’s site. The accelerator… Read More
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Obama spends a little time in the ‘brave new world’ of virtual reality
When you’re the leader of the free world who has been keeping an eagle eye on liberty and domestic surveillance for the past 7-8 years, sometimes you just want to take a look at a new version of reality. Read More
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Hear Dave Cole, co-founder of NextVR, discuss the future of VR live entertainment at Disrupt NY
When you can’t make it to the game in real life, the experience offered by virtual reality live streaming can get you closer to the action and more connected to the players and fans than anything else out there. Dave Cole, who co-founded NextVR in 2009, will be joining us in Brooklyn at Disrupt NY to chat about immersive stereoscopic live streaming and whether anyone is really going… Read More
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Verizon’s AOL’s Huffington Post acquires virtual reality studio RYOT for $10 to $15 million
The Huffington Post, owned by AOL, owned by Verizon, is buying a virtual reality studio called RYOT to build VR content production on the site, according to a blog post from site co-founder and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington. Sources have confirmed to us RYOT’s purchase price was in the $10 to $15 million range. The company had secured a little more than $3 million in Series A… Read More
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Verizon and Hearst team up to buy Complex Media
Chalk this up as the latest major bet on the importance of mobile video for the future of digital media. Verizon Wireless and Hearst Corp. are set to jointly acquire Complex Media. The “video-first” lifestyle site, focused on pop-culture trends and general entertainment, will continue to operate independently, albeit with Verizon and Hearst now each owning 50 percent stakes in… Read More
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Huawei unveils its own mobile VR headset
Another handset maker is getting into the headset game. Huawei announced its entry into the world of mobile virtual reality today with multiple versions of a Gear VR-like headset simply called “Huawei VR” Engadget reports. Huawei unveiled Huawei VR at a Shanghai launch event for the P9 and P9 Plus smartphones today. The headset is almost entirely a clone of the Gear VR in that… Read More
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GREE launches $12M fund for early stage VR content startups
In an effort to foster growth in early-stage virtual reality content companies looking to build momentum, today GREE announced the $12 million GVR Fund. The fund is primarily aimed at VR content companies, and Teppei Tsutsui, Managing Director at GREE VR Capital, tells me that he’s hoping to have the fund approach gaming and non-gaming VR companies fairly evenly. “Our… Read More
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Lytro’s 755 megapixel Cinema light field camera is going to kill the green screen
Lytro is taking its rich, volumetric 3D camera capture technology into the world of TV and film. The company’s light field solution is a truly beautiful technology that may eventually be in every camera we snap a shot or video with. The tech essentially uses data on all of the available light in a photo to separate objects by depth and store them in a three-dimensional grid. In… Read More
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Sen. Franken wants to know what Oculus is doing with its Rift user data
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) has some questions for Oculus. The U.S. senator sent a letter this morning to Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe to inquire about how his virtual reality company is utilizing and sharing customers’ personal data. While Sen. Franken called VR technology “an exciting development,” he also expressed concern with how the company is collecting users’… Read More
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Reddit introduces user-blocking tool to fight harassment and trolls
Reddit is looking to shape itself a bit more around the needs of the individual user in order to make the community more accepting as a whole. Reddit users will soon be able to block and mute other users on the site so they can customize their experience, The New York Times reports. Reddit co-founder Christopher Slowe detailed the changes in an announcement on the site this morning. Read More
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VideoStitch unveils the Orah 4i, a tiny 360 live streaming 4K camera
There’s no shortage of 360 cameras on the market these days. If you have a desire to shoot immersive video and possess a ton of disposable income then there’s nothing stopping you! The issue is what happens to that content after it’s captured. I’d say 90% of the photos I take on my DSLR never make it off my camera to be seen by someone else. That problem is only… Read More
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