This has been a pretty interesting week for me, having spoken at XR Safety Week and Stereopsia, and having published two cool articles about creating innovative SteamVR controllers and using Application SpaceWarp in Unity to almost double the framerate of your application. But now, before starting the new week, it’s time to look back at the most important news of the previous one! Top news of the week (Image by Meta)Horizon Worlds goes open beta Finally, after two years in the works, Meta has decided to open the gates of its social VR space Horizon Worlds (previously known as Facebook Horizon). Or at least, sort of: the experience is still in beta (so this is officially an open beta stage) and it will be accessible without an invite only in the US and in Canada. Ah, and you must be 18+ years old. The North-America-only limitation is quite a bummer for us Europeans, but
It’s hard to believe it, but it has been a year since Lens Fest 2020. This annual event is when Snap reaches out to the developer community. That includes Snapchat lens creators as well as those who create experiences for other apps and websites using Snap’s camera API, camera kit. Last year, the Lens Fest saw major updates to Snap’s creator software, Lens Studio, as well as a focus on creating lenses with social impact. So, what did this year’s three-day-long event bring? A Whole Lot of Energy Lens Fest isn’t just a developer’s conference. Because anyone can be a lens creator, the event is an opportunity for Snap to celebrate all of the people that contribute to their platform – professionally or otherwise. “Lens Fest is our annual, global event that highlights innovation and creativity from every corner of the lens creator community,” Snap co-founder and CTO, Bobby Murphy,
HTC is opening a non-fungible token (NFT) store soon that its says will host all forms of digital art, including AR, VR, and XR pieces.
The store, which will open on December 17th, is set to first offer NFTs featuring the works of Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939), which is being offered as a part of a collaboration with the Mucha Foundation.
Here’s a video in Chinese about the show, displaying some of Mucha’s iconic art.
The store is said to offer complete control over the number of NFT editions and the format of the sale, with both fiat and crypto currencies accepted as payment.
HTC says a new NFT series will come to the store each month until April 2022, which will conclude with what it describes as “a special auction.”
For those of us in the VR space, all of this may seem a bit out of left field for the company, which over the years has built itself a significant niche in creating enterprise VR hardware. HTC is no stranger to jumping on the crypto bandwagon though. In 2019 the company released Exodus 1, a blockchain-focused smartphone that acts as a hardware wallet for storing cryptocurrency among other things.
How NFTs fit into all of that, well, there’s no telling how deep of a commitment the store actually represents. The company’s VIVE Arts initiative has been involved in bringing art-themed content to Viveport, but moreover it bringing VR to cultural institutions in limited-time exhibitions at the Tate Modern, London’s Royal Academy of Arts, Taipei’s National Palace Museum, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris, Washington D.C.’s Newseum, and St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum since its founding in 2017.
Granted, NFT auctions are a far cry from bringing art to the masses—they primarily function as crypto-investment vehicles—although the earning potential for both the creators and buyers can’t be overstated.
The storied Christie’s auction house oversaw the sale of one NFT for $69 million back in March, something many NFT creators have hoped to replicate. Whether HTC makes those sort of headlines isn’t certain. At least Alphonse Mucha didn’t exclusively paint bored apes.
This article was originally published on roadtovr.com
HTC Vive is getting into VR NFTs. But don’t pick up the pitchforks yet; maybe the idea of a VR NFTs works? Maybe?A blog post today announced the launch of the Vive Arts NFT store. It’s essentially a browser-based sales gallery – the platform will reportedly offer a chance for artists to sell art made in VR and AR as well as other digital works. HTC says creators will be able to decide the amount of copies of a work they can sell as well as whether to accept cryptocurrency or actual currency (for lack of a better term). The NFT Store will be hosting a sales meeting on December 17 in which it will feature NFT-ized works from Czech artist, Alphonse Mucha (pictured below) in collaboration with the Mucha Foundation. Before we make too much fun of the news (tempting as it is), there is perhaps some merit
I guess all companies have finished their important announcements before US Thanksgiving and now we are in a calm moment where there is some news here and there, but nothing incredible. Probably we’ll hear new big shots fired at CES in January 2022. So yes, this roundup won’t be amazing… interesting, but not exciting. I know, I’m too honest… and this is not good for views on my blog. So let’s try to rephrase this last paragraph using the same style used by VR Youtubers in the title of their videos to attract more people: THIS EXPLOSIVE WEEK IN VR HAS CHANGED EVERYTHING!!!!! YOU MUST READ THIS POST!!!!!!!!!! PS I’ll be a panelist at the XR Safety Week today and at Stereopsia (remotely) on Wednesday. If you may be interested, follow me 🙂 Top news of the week (Image by Upload)The Upload VR Showcase has been full of announcements about VR games Upload did it
December, 6th will be the start day of XR Safety Week, an event that aims at fostering a healthy debate on some social themes surrounding XR, and at promoting safety, privacy, inclusion, and accessibility for everyone in our ecosystem. These are themes that have always been important to me, and that in my own small way, I have always tried to talk about. That’s why I will be a panelist at the event this year, and I am spreading the word about it with two posts today and tomorrow to help in making it a success. This is the program of the event, including the days and the tracks: Day 1 – Dec 6. Immersive Storytelling & JournalismDay 2 – Dec 7. Child Safety Day 3 – Dec 8. Diversity & Inclusion Day 4 – Dec 9. MedicalXR and Immersive HealthcareDay 5 – Dec 10. Privacy & Safety and Digital
Some of my favorite memories with my children involve traveling around the United States to visit national parks, historic sites, and science museums. We had an old 15-passenger van that I had purchased for $750 from a non-profit agency and with several rows of seats, each of my kids had plenty of space to spread their toys and art supplies while we traveled. They also had a Leapster, a small educational handheld gaming console that kept them occupied and reinforced basic academic skills for the younger children in particular, but we never had any other gaming consoles until many years later when my oldest son purchased an Xbox for his younger brothers with his first paycheck as a paratrooper for the US Army. Our travels took place many years ago and now our lives are quite different. Just a couple of weeks before the pandemic my van finally died, the
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that you all American friends have celebrated it with your families and have eaten a lot of turkeys (or whatever vegan alternative), enjoying good times with your peers. If you were wondering, we in Italy do not celebrate Thanksgiving, but I would love one year to participate in its celebration hosted by an American family. Who knows, maybe next year 🙂 Before leaving, I have to tell you that in a few days I will be hosted by a podcast organized by Deltatre Innovation Lab, where I’ll meet again my partner in crime at Immotionar! Here you are all the platforms where you can watch/listen to it: Top news of the week (Image by Steam)Enjoy Black Friday deals! Due to Thanksgiving, this week we had almost no really relevant news for the industry. So let’s enjoy the good that Thanksgiving has given to us, that is the sales for Black
I am back in Italy! The trip to the US has been incredibly interesting: I have met many amazing people and tried many innovative devices, so I have been very satisfied with having gone there. I still miss a bit having a walk around University Street in Palo Alto and seeing a lot of young people having fun in the restaurants. I’m sure I’ll return there. But now it’s time to get back to routine work, so let me tell you about the most important news in AR and VR from this week. Top news of the week (Background image from Meta)Meta Quest 2 has sold 10M units, or maybe not The most important announcement of the week has been the one that never existed. Going on the stage at an investor event, Qualcomm CEO and President Cristiano Amon has revealed that Oculus Quest 2 (now Meta Quest 2) has sold 10 million units
The first day of AWE was all about announcements. There was less of that on day two, but AWE isn’t all about announcements, it’s about celebrating XR experiences and learning from XR expertise. Day two delivered these in droves. In addition to even more great expert talks and panel discussions, it was the first day that the Expo floor and Playground were open. Another Marathon Session on the Main Stage Day two started out, like day one, with back-to-back-to-back powerhouse sessions on the main stage: panel discussions on “reinventing the camera” and “XR for brands,” followed by Charlie Fink on “The Race to Build the Metaverse.” Reinventing the Camera Lauren Goode of WIRED hosted a fireside chat with Snap CTO Bobby Murphy and lens creator Brielle Garcia. Goode opened the conversation with a word that we heard a lot on day one but we’ve never heard from Snap. “The
