The time to harvest for us VR people is now

A few weeks ago, I was discussing with a colleague of mine that I hadn’t seen for months, and while we were updating ourselves about each other’s lives, we started talking about our VR careers. We both are in a better situation than a few years ago, so at a certain point, he told me a sentence that made me think: “I’m finally now harvesting the fruits of the plants I sowed in the past years”. This sentence remained in my head after the call, and from time to time I kept thinking about it. I have to say that also from my personal experience, it is true: now it’s the time to harvest for us VR people. “Let’s take it back all that is ours”, it’s from a TV series spoken in Naples dialectThe Gartner Hype cycle of VR I work in the XR field since 2014, and I’ve

The XR Week Peek (2022.09.26): Pico 4 announced, RTX40 cards revealed, and more!

This is the first newsletter of the Autumn! It is not my favorite season of the year, but it is going to bring with it many cool pieces of VR news, and many cups of hot chocolate, so I guess I will be very happy in the upcoming weeks… Top news of the week (Image by Pico)Bytedance launches Pico 4, directly challenging Meta Quest 2 The announcement of the Pico 4, the first consumer-oriented headset by Bytedance, has been much more disruptive than I expected. With it, Bytedance directly challenges Meta and the Quest 2 with a product that is more powerful, cheaper, and offers a quite good content catalog.  Let’s see some of the specifications: Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2, 8 Cores 64 bit, 2.84GHzRAM: 8GB LPDDR4X, 2133MHzStorage: 128GB/256GB, UFS 3.0DisplayType: 2.56″ x2 LCD displayResolution: 4,320 x 2,160 (2,160 x 2,160 per eye)PPI: 1200Refresh rate: 72Hz / 90HzField of view (FOV): 105° DiagonalIPD:

Coca-Cola Creates Virtual Environments and Assets in Ongoing Campaign

Coca-Cola decided to launch its newest flavor in the metaverse. The result has been a series of immersive experiences including AR games, virtual concerts, and more. While some of the events are live, others run whenever you find the QR code, so it’s not too late to take a look. Exploring Activations, Avatars, and Assets The first Coca-Cola Creations project was a shirt to commemorate the Starlight flavor. From there, the company kicked it up a notch with a line of apparel for AR avatars. The project is a fun proof of principle but it’s relatively limited, as it is only available to owners of Samsung Galaxy line phones. The company’s next AR activation was somewhat more accessible – a series of Instagram filters. This was followed by an ASMR video, (yes, really), the actual product launch, and more apparel. Those who may have already been confused by the

The XR Week Peek (2022.09.19): Pico 4 is launching on 22nd, PSVR 2 gets reviewed, and more! [+ Giveaway]

This is the last newsletter of this Summer 2022! The weather is starting to get cold here, but our XR ecosystem is getting hot, with the upcoming launches of Pico 4 and Quest Pro, not to mention the upcoming NVIDIA GTC where I hope to see RTX40 graphics cards being revealed! Are you excited? Because I am… Top news of the week (Image by Pico)Pico to launch Pico 4 on September, 22nd Chinese manufacturer Pico has just officially announced that on September, 22nd (that is, in 3 days) it is going to launch a new product. The image shows what looks like a quite thin headset, and two arcs that look a lot like the Pico 4 controllers I leaked a few weeks ago.  There is no official news on this device, but the leaks give us some interesting info about it. It should be dubbed Pico 4 and come in two

The 2022 WebXR Brand Summit

This year’s WebXR Brand Summit took place last Thursday, September 15, preceded by a more open-format Town Hall event the week before. Hosted by the same organization that puts on the Polys Awards, the event included roundtables and use cases for how brands are exploring WebXR to increase exposure and services on a more spatial and connected internet. Not Just for Brands Not for the faint of heart, the full live-streaming remote event ran nine consecutive hours. Hosted by the tireless Sophia Moshasha and Julie Smithson with tech support from Ben Irwin, the event included 20 speakers in 11 sessions. If you think that that means it was just people selling sneakers all day, you miss the importance of brands in immersive spaces. “This is where we believe it starts. Brands have made initial investments in this space from the early days. … We owe them a lot of

The 2nd Annual AR/VR Policy Conference

The second annual AR/VR Policy Conference took place this Wednesday, September 14, in Washington D.C., accompanied by a live stream on YouTube. The event, once again hosted by Information Technology Innovation Foundation and the XR Association, followed last year’s all-virtual event. Registration for both events was free, regardless of in-person or virtual attendance. As a proud media partner of the AR/VR Policy Conference, here’s the ARPost recap – though you can also watch the complete event on YouTube. Welcome and Keynote The marathon session lasted from 11 AM to 5 PM local time, though in-person attendants also had access to a networking social following the conclusion of the sessions. There was also a demo floor for participating companies to showcase their XR for good projects. Elizabeth Hyman’s Welcome Address The AR/VR Policy Conference started off with a welcome address by XRA CEO Elizabeth Hyman. Hyman praised ITIF as a partner

The XR Week Peek (2022.09.12): Meta Quest Pro leaked, Snap working on future Spectacles, and more!

Happy Mid Autumn Festival everyone! This weekend people in China were celebrating one of the most important holidays of the year, and I got as a gift a lot of Chinese food, including some mooncakes, so I was able to celebrate it, too! I hope you had a nice weekend as well 🙂  It’s been a pretty intense week for me: I worked really a lot; I have been banned from Twitter twice in two days because its AI thought that my posts about Pico were porn images (my account has been restored, don’t worry); I’ve seen the posters of the project I’m working on being attached in the metro stations in Paris; I had an emotional interview with the guy that made me start my blog; I survived another Apple event without XR news (which are coming always “next year”); and I ended with the very long review of Pico Neo

AWE EU 2022 Is Headed for Lisbon

Wait, wasn’t AWE a few months ago? It was for America, but it’s the Augmented World Expo – there are three live AWE conferences throughout the year. Next, it’s time for AWE EU. We saw what AWE had to offer in Santa Clara this spring. So, what can we expect when it comes to Lisbon next month? What to Expect If you know the flow of AWE in the States, you’ll spot some similarities and differences. AWE EU still kicks off with Ori Inbar’s keynote. And, according to the current iteration of the agenda, Inbar’s keynote has the same theme as the one we saw in California in June. Further, the legendary AWE Expo Hall is still a part of the European event. And, exhibitors can still win Best of Show awards at the wrap-up ceremony on the last day. However, AWE EU is two days instead of three. Further,

Pico Neo 3 Link Review: A good start for Bytedance in the consumer market

Today I finally review for you the Pico Neo 3 Link! I had a lot of delays in writing this article (sorry Pico, sorry VR community), but I promise you that it will be deep and detailed… as you like the posts on my website 🙂 Pico Neo 3 Link Video Review For the ones of you that don’t like walls of text, I have prepared an extensive video review of the unit, where I talk about all its features, and I compare them with the ones of the Quest 2 and the Pico Neo 3 Pro. If you prefer reading instead, well, go on! Pico Neo 3 Link pico neo 3 link consumer vr ” data-image-caption=”People playing with Pico headsets (Image by Pico) ” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/skarredghost.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Havana-Orange-Fotoproduktion-8-1.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/skarredghost.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Havana-Orange-Fotoproduktion-8-1.jpg?fit=640%2C427&ssl=1″ loading=”lazy” width=”640″ height=”427″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/skarredghost.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Havana-Orange-Fotoproduktion-8-1.jpg?resize=640%2C427&ssl=1″ alt=”pico neo 3 link consumer vr” class=”wp-image-12170″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/skarredghost.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Havana-Orange-Fotoproduktion-8-1.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/skarredghost.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Havana-Orange-Fotoproduktion-8-1.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w,

My (emotional) interview with Tommaso Di Bartolo, the Web3 expert who made me start my blog

Today I publish a very special article. You know that one month ago my blog made its 6th birthday and I promised some special article about it. Well, today I fulfill that promise by interviewing Tommaso Di Bartolo, serial entrepreneur, marketing expert, and mentor, who during the summer of 2016 suggested me to start a blog to promote my startup of that time, Immotionar. We never saw again after that moment, we didn’t even have a real opportunity to speak or to connect in any way. He didn’t even know what positive effect he had caused on me. I recently saw that he joined us in the metaverse field, and so I asked him to speak with him for an interview, because that day, with just two sentences, he changed my life, and I wanted just to say thank you to him. It’s also beautiful that he also joined my