The Oculus Rift is set to get quite the upgrade later this year with the launch of Oculus Touch, the headset's own motion controllers, paving the way for room-scale experiences that will bring the Rift more in-line with what the HTC Vive offers. It's going to be pricey though if …
Read More »Steam Enhanced VR Launcher opens up per app supersampling
Supersampling in virtual reality can make a tangible difference to the perceived detail of your VR gaming experience, but depending on the game it can be rather resource intensive. Fortunately someone has made a new launcher just for Steam VR games and it offers a number of per-app features that make …
Read More »Samsung welcomes VR competition, wants to raise awareness
Samsung has actually been at the forefront of consumer VR for a few years now with the GearVR and for a while, Samsung enjoyed a fairly open playing field. However, other companies are starting to catch on with virtual reality for smartphones, with Google gearing up to launch Daydream VR …
Read More »A wireless HTC Vive prototype could show up this year
One of the big problems Virtual Reality headset builders are currently trying to tackle is the sheer amount of cables involved. This is especially important for room-scale devices like the HTC Vive, which wants wearers to be moving around a room, rather than staying in one place. However, it looks …
Read More »Jesus VR claims to be first feature length VR movie
It was going to happen at some point: someone was going to claim to be the first to make a feature length VR movie. While Jesus VR is technically a 360 degree movie, rather than a VR film, it's still set to debut at the Venice Film Festival and will be …
Read More »Oculus VR on why it delayed the launch of Touch controllers
One of the big reasons we opted to recommended the HTC Vive over the Oculus Rift in our testing earlier this year, was because of the wand motion controllers. It turns out though that the Rift could have shipped with them, but Oculus wanted to give developers more time to …
Read More »One of the minds behind Rick and Morty is making VR Games
Rick and Morty co-creator and voice actor, Justin Roiland, has announced that he's starting his very own virtual reality game development studio, along with Epic Games alumni, Tanya Watson. It's called Squanchtendo and we know this because “Little Splzooshly,” the new studio's mascot, told us all about it in a …
Read More »Smelling South Park farts, with the Nosulus Rift
Ubisoft had a surprisingly successful game on its hands with South Park the Stick of Truth, so it's doing it again with the Fractured But Whole. To provide a special promotional opportunity at Gamescom however, it showed off the game with a unique peripheral: the Nosulus Rift, which lets you …
Read More »Facebook/Oculus deny Zenimax copyright claims
In the ongoing legal battle between Facebook owned Oculus VR and id Software parent company, Zenimax, the VR firm has denied all allegations that it breached Zenimax copyright and non-disclosure agreements in creating the Rift headset. It has also called Zenimax's tactics misleading, unjust and lacking in good faith. Oculus …
Read More »Zenimax accuses Carmack of theft, updates Oculus lawsuit
It looks like things are getting uglier in Zenimax's lawsuit filing against Oculus. The complaint was first filed back in 2014 and this week, things seemed to escalate, with Zenimax claiming that John Carmack stole documents and custom dev tools when he left id Software to join Oculus, the update …
Read More »Get ready, here come the VR gun peripherals
As much as the HTC Vive's wand controllers are a good amalgamation of what it's like to hold a gun, thanks to their shape and trigger design, it's not quite the same as peripherals of gaming's past. Looking to change that is The Persuader, a realistic looking M1A1 Thompson that holsters …
Read More »Windows Holographic environment coming to your VR headset
Although not expected to show up until next year, Microsoft will introduce its Holographic environment designed for the Hololens, to just about every Windows 10 user with a VR headset. It blends 2D and 3D apps together in a virtual environment, to make Windows efficient in a virtual space. Along …
Read More »The Oculus Rift hits UK shops next month with £549 price tag
Now that Oculus has officially cleared its backlog of Rift headset pre-orders, the company can begin to expand beyond its online store. From next month, you will be able to pick up the Oculus Rift at various shops in the UK, allowing you to skip the shipping time and take one …
Read More »Microsoft Hololens now available in ‘Commercial Suite’
Microsoft's Hololens has been available to early adopters for a while now – with a hefty $3,000 price tag to boot. Now though it's set for commercial availability, with Microsoft shipping it out to business as part of its new “Commercial Suite” package, which a number of new features designed …
Read More »Minecraft finally coming to Oculus Rift
Although an unofficial version of Minecraft – Minecrift – has been available for free download for some time now, the official release of Minecraft for the Oculus Rift is coming next week. Better yet, by the end of the year Touch support will be implemented too, delivering hand tracking to …
Read More »Making music with paintings: the TiltBrush music video
One of the more interesting features to come out of virtual reality development in recent weeks was the introduction of audio-reactive brushes in 3D painting experience, TiltBrush. Users have been experimenting with it since and it's lead to some amazing creations, like this VR painting music video. The song used …
Read More »Valve is opening up to custom VR tracking hardware
It looks like Valve is opening up its room-scale tracking system for all hardware makers to play around with, allowing custom hardware to be built for the HTC Vive headset, which means companies could end up releasing their own custom motion controllers to compete with Valve's own wand-style design, which comes bundled with …
Read More »Intel has built a camera add-on for the HTC Vive
If the in-built front-facing camera on the HTC Vive just isn't cutting it for you then it looks like Intel might have the answer to your problems as the company has developed a camera attachment of its own for the virtual reality headset. Given the amount of buzz around VR …
Read More »Pre-orders now open for new Samsung Gear VR
Rumours circulated earlier this week that Samsung and Oculus had a new Gear VR headset in the works and now those have proved true. Starting late yesterday, both companies made a second edition Samsung Gear VR headset available to pre-order in the U.S. for $100. The most obvious difference with …
Read More »Fastest head tracking in the world: Rio Olympics to broadcast in VR
If you have a virtual reality headset and a few hours during this year's Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero, then you might want to give the BBC's coverage a look. The broadcasting organisation has announced that over 100 hours of the Summer games will be broadcast in 360 degrees, …
Read More »TiltBrush Audio Reactive brushes let you paint your own visualiser
If you thought Tiltbrush was cool before, wait until you get a look at its new audio reactive mode. Now artists can make their virtual reality paintings come alive even more, by making certain strokes react when you're playing music. Ever wanted to create your own visualiser? Now you can. …
Read More »Terry Crews to start Twitch streaming from his dual GTX 1080 machine
Terry Crews might not be the kind of guy you would expect to be getting into Twitch streaming, but that's exactly what's going to happen. He's set himself up with an account and has spent the last few weeks building a monster of a gaming PC, so now he's almost …
Read More »HTC Vive users sure want a lot of accessories
Ever since HTC put up its accessories website for the Vive, offering extra controllers, sensors, nose pieces and foam padding, VR fans have been requesting all sorts of extras and HTC is now finally listening. After it posted a Tweet asking for feedback on what the store should stock, commenters …
Read More »Oculus Rift components cost $200 according to IHS Teardown
The Oculus Rift’s price is once again making headlines this week as a comprehensive component teardown and analysis performed by IHS revealed that the components used to build the headset are worth $200. The CV1 was initially expected to cost in the ‘ballpark’ of $350 but as we found out …
Read More »Next-gen Gear VR may be black, have improved FOV
Samsung is known to be working on a second generation of its Gear VR, smartphone virtual reality headset, but details remain a little thin on the ground. However one rumour suggests it could be ditching the white paint job for a black one and that it will feature a slightly expanded …
Read More »The HTC Vive is getting a £70 price bump in the UK
If you were planning on picking up a HTC Vive headset in the UK at some point this year, then you may want to do it before Monday as HTC has announced that due to Brexit and the subsequent falling value of the pound, the headset will be getting a …
Read More »Valve launched the DotA 2 VR hub right before The International
With The International 2016 kicking off in just a few days' time, Valve has released its promised virtual reality spectator mode for DotA 2. That means if you have a VR headset you can watch the action with others, with an interactive, zoomable map and giant display complete with commentary and …
Read More »Oculus Rift update allows up to four cameras at once
The next update for the Oculus Rift will make it possible to use more than one infrared camera to detect your presence in the real and virtual world, massively improving its tracking accuracy and potentially making room scale much more viable. As expected however, two sensors is likely to be …
Read More »Oculus Rift market share sees growth while Vive stagnates
Earlier this year, the Steam Hardware survey showed the HTC Vive outselling the Oculus Rift by quite a bit, with around 100,000 headsets already out in the wild. However, since then Oculus has sorted out its stock issues, fulfilled all pre-orders and is now preparing to jump into room-scale VR …
Read More »Special Edition DotA 2 HTC Vive now available
If there's one aspect of virtual reality that most people don't care about, it's how they look while they're doing it; we all know we look stupid with one of them on. However if you are worried and want to show your allegiance to DotA 2, you can now buy …
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