Sony patents Vive-like tracking tower for PSVR

There's no indication if/when it'll be added to PlayStationVR. Maybe it's this gen or maybe it's distant future gen. Either way, moar room scale please.

" It is basically outlining a similar device to what the Vive utilises — a beam projector that determines the player's position in the play-space based on light and mirrors (similar to the way sonar works). For those who do not know difference between an external system such as then HTC Vive, compared to what PSVR has built in; it all comes down to immersion. At present, the PSVR employs a built-in system that relies on light from the headset and the PlayStation camera to place the player in the virtual world, offering little mobility for the player."

On today’s Good Mythical Morning, using the power of virtual reality Link is convinced he’s a mannequin. Watch as Rhett takes advantage of Link’s paralysis by exposing him to phobia triggers. Source: https://youtu.be/tn2nsJAfDfQ

Also, OMG how do I make my headset do this to people?

"We're working on new ways to bring your hands in virtual and augmented reality. Wearing these gloves, you can draw, type on a virtual keyboard, and even shoot webs like Spider Man. That's what I'm doing here." - Mark Zuckerberg

Source: https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10103490859636101

WebVR is now on Chrome for Daydream

When you're on your phone and at a site that has a WebVR element, you can navigate that element with your finger on the screen - or - if you have a Daydream-ready phone and you're using Chrome browser you can drop your phone into your Daydream headset and navigate the element that way. If you don't have the right model phone, "We want to bring VR to everyone on any device, and in the coming months we’ll add support for more headsets, including Google Cardboard."

"For a fully immersive experience, use Chrome with your Daydream-ready phone and Daydream View—just browse to a VR experience you want to view, choose to enter VR, and put the phone in your Daydream View headset. If you don’t have a headset you can view VR content on any phone or desktop computer and interact using your finger or mouse."

The official announcement states that Matterport, Sketchfab, and Within have all enabled WebVR content to coincide with the announcement.

Oculus is closing 40% of its Best Buy demo stations

They're closing 200 of 500 locations. They'll still sell the Rift, they just won't demo it.

"The scaling back of Facebook's first big retail push for VR comes after workers from multiple Best Buy pop-ups told BI that it was common for them to go days without giving a single demonstration. An internal memo seen by BI and sent to affected employees by a third-party contractor said the closings were because of 'store performance.'"

And "'We’re making some seasonal changes and prioritizing demos at hundreds of Best Buy locations in larger markets,' she said. 'You can still request Rift demos at hundreds of Best Buy stores in the US and Canada.'"

How the Washington Wizards use VR

It's for more than just video games.

"It's more like building muscle memory, but for your brain. Kind of like, OK, if you see it, your brain is going to register it. And then, when you shoot live, you're going to think about it and see yourself shooting and making. You know you can do it."

Six Flags and Samsung converting VR coasters to MR coasters

Six Flags and Samsung have renewed their partnership. To express it two coasters are getting a mixed reality upgrade. On February 20 the Kong ride at Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, California and on February 25 the New Revolution ride at Magic Mountain in Valencia, California will both open to the public as the world's first mixed reality coasters. The mixed reality experience is called "Galactic Attack" and it sounds rad:

"When riders board the coasters and don their Samsung Gear VR headsets, they will be introduced to the device’s passthrough camera functionality, instantly making riders aware of their surroundings, by allowing them to see the “real world,” including the person seated next to them— along with virtual content. As they get settled into the ride, a heads up display overlay on the passthrough camera view will show data like current status of weaponry, time codes, fuel cells, and a countdown clock. Cresting the lift hill, a massive, swirling wormhole comes into view. As riders drop at high speeds, the mixed reality view changes to a completely immersive, virtual reality environment and a fighter spaceship cockpit materializes and envelops the riders into a tunnel of light. At the bottom of the first hill, riders are launched into the middle of a space battle, coming under attack from flying drones firing lasers and missiles. After swinging through tight channels, narrowly dodging drones and artillery fire, riders are brought into one of three drone bays, each of which offer a completely different gaming experience and three different endings."

My experiences with the passthrough camera have all been nauseating, so hopefully they've improved since my last trial. I think Six Flags is going to wring more money out of me this year.

The PSVR blues

When Sony announced PlayStation VR last year there was a lot of noise from the peanut gallery about the number of launch titles and after-launch support. The concern was that there wouldn’t be enough content to justify buying the goggles. Sony promised there’d be enough and I think they delivered. Between launch and Christmas there was plenty of content released – at least enough to keep me going into January. I still have titles on my wishlist that I haven’t bought. Since Christmas, though, there’s been a lull in new titles. The peanut gallery is making noise again. Terms like “dead” and “abandoned” are being used by some. The more prolific VR news sites have started publishing pieces trying to reassure fans that Sony isn’t walking away from PSVR.

I bought my Gear VR before Samsung gave it their major consumer push. There wasn’t a lot of content in the days before the push. In the Gear VR subreddit people talked about the upcoming push and what it would mean for more content and the positive commenters were right. There has been a steady stream of new apps ever since. Not every week has a lot, but averaged over time there’s a good pace of new content and that pace continues even still. The keep calm side of me is comparing the current PSVR lull to the Gear VR lull of autumn 2015. Keep Calm Roy knows there are some major titles in the works and that quality takes time. He’s also read that the 2016 holiday season was really more about selling PS4 Pro and to expect a distinct PSVR push later in 2017 when supply can meet demand. Keep Calm Roy has previously lived through content lulls and growing pains. The frustrated side of me is saying there are no comparisons; Sony has made its major consumer push. They’ve advertised and made a great fuss to put PSVR into peoples’ homes. I watched a weeks’ long parade of titles appear in their app store followed by a few stragglers – just like I saw on Gear. There’s supposed to be a short quiet and then the steady stream begins. Only the steady stream hasn’t begun. Why not? Where did it go? Sony isn’t saying. I’ve been concerned that PSVR wouldn’t get all of the little oddities that appear in the Steam and Oculus stores and now it feels like that’s all that PSVR is squeezing out. Just this morning I read that Oculus Rift has a long runway full of titles they’re releasing this year. Conversely I’ve also read that PSVR is doomed because they haven’t announced their runway. All that Frustrated Roy wants is some communication from Sony.

Boiling this all down I think that my frustration is, in large part, because I’m comparing an apple and an orange. It makes sense to me that since Gear and PSVR are both VR headsets that they should have similar content pipelines. The apple here is a smartphone app store and the orange is a console app store. It’s easier and cheaper to develop for smartphones. People have reduced expectations of what a smartphone app can do relative to a console application. The two big smartphone app markets filled quickly when they opened. The companies behind them boasted of their growth and size. Consoles want big and bursting app stores, too, but the expectations put on their content has them fill at a slower rate. There’s a greater emphasis on AAA titles and games that last for hours and days. These take longer to produce. It’s been a long time since I’ve owned a console. I’ve never bought one at launch. I’m wanting the PSVR app store to fill at a rate that puts a choke hold on my wallet and it’s not. I think that’s actually okay but not in line with my expectations throughout the month of January. I’m bringing my expectations around, though. Now if only Sony would update me with news I’d be wearing a smile the next time I go under the goggles.

Projection mapping using Vive controller, shared by Reddit user "marpi" with the following explanations:

"I made it in WebVR, it's actually just running in Chrome. I've been doing similar projects before so I had some frameworks ready, but this experiment was a part of a one day hackathon"

"I know exactly where the controllers are in space, by default. I just moved the virtual camera position from the headset to where the audience sits, that's it"

Here's the original (in color)/Instagram: https://goo.gl/MjBA08
Here's the version I've shared/Reddit: https://goo.gl/KDfL6O