In the past 100 years, Lowe’s has transformed from a small-town hardware store to a large-scale retailer of building and home improvement products. Now a giant in the industry, it is at the forefront of home improvement, serving millions of customers across the United States and Canada. It is also delivering trailblazing solutions that help metaverse developers and enhance customer experience within and beyond the home improvement industry. From the Real World Into the Metaverse The company’s growth is propelled by its relentless pursuit to constantly meet the changing demands of its consumers. To adapt to the digital shift, Lowe’s leveraged modern technologies to deliver personalized digital experiences to its customers. Lowe’s Measure Your Space and Holoroom How To use augmented and virtual reality to enhance the home improvement and shopping experience. Now, Lowe’s is extending the same support it has given its customer builders in the real world to
Volumetric video brings former comedic actor and current Ukrainian President to life on your coffee table.With the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia putting a strain on Ukrainian resources, President Volodymyr Zelensky has begun reaching out to the global technology community for support in rebuilding the county’s digital infrastructure. And what better way to capture the hearts and minds of Europe’s top tech investors and corporate leaders than with a cutting-edge presidential address?Recently, Ben Nunez, co-founder and CEO of Evercoast, a company specializing in volumetric video capture, visited Kyiv to record an official presidential address from the man himself using the company’s proprietary cloud software platform. The result is a hyper-realistic 3D digital human complete with animation as well as audio.“Ukraine is a chance for a global digital revolution,” said Zelensky in the speech; “a chance for every technology company and a chance for every visionary to show their value,
Locate one of Niantic’s AR viewfinders to unlock fun experiences using the company’s Lightship VPS technology.The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event that has been showcasing creative excellence in communications, advertising, and connectivity between people and brands since 1954. In addition to celebrating hard work and creativity, the event includes big networking opportunities and award ceremonies as well as a swanky opening and closing gala.Each year in June roughly 15,000 industry leaders from 90 countries make their way to France to join in the festivities. This year, organizers plan on augmenting the festival with a slew of interactive AR experiences that attendees can discover throughout the festival area and unlock thanks to a new partnership with Niantic.As a partner, Niantic will lean on 8th Wall technology, which was acquired by Niantic back in March to deliver captivating WebAR experiences you can access on your smartphone without
A new squad-based online battle game called World of Mechs is coming exclusively to Meta Quest 2 on May 26th, and it’s promising a bevy of mechs to pilot.
Developed by Studio 369 and funded by Meta’s Grant Program, World of Mechs lets you choose from 32 different mechs for online team battles that pits you against teams of four. The game is also said to include five maps, four multiplayer modes, and a 20-mission single player campaign.
The developers say the game will include missiles, jump jets, radar jammers, landmines, and the ability to physically ram other players. Check out a quick peek at some of the gameplay below:
“World of Mechs delivers the feeling of thrashing across city blocks in a 10-ton robotic steel gladiator while launching a salvo of barrage missiles on the opposition,” says Studio 369. “Feel the adrenaline rush of leading a flanking charge with weapons ablaze and jump-jets engaged. Blast off into the single-player campaign to take down menacing bosses, walk away with their mechs, and become the world’s most-feared ace pilot.”
Studio 369 is made up of industry veterans previously from Activision, Epic Games, Paramount Pictures, Skybound, and Sony. Prior to founding the studio its members worked on a host of games including Fortnite, H1Z1, The Walking Dead, Star Trek, and Gears of War 3.
Besides World of Mechs, the studio is also currently developing a blockchain-based play-to-earn MMO for flatscreen PC and mobile called MetalCore, and a unnamed “AAA” game for PS5, Xbox and PC.
World of Mechs is set to launch on Meta Quest 2 on May 26th, priced at $20. You can wishlist the game here on the Oculus Store. And in case you missed it, here’s the reveal trailer which was published late last year:
This article was originally published on roadtovr.com
The popular artist says XR technology will allow more people to explore their creativity in exciting new ways.Carrie Able is an internationally known XR artist whose work peels back the layers of where art and XR intersect to uncover an unexplored space of creativity that blends VR sculptures, oil painting, and coding. The outcome is a series of one-of-a-kind virtual art that becomes a stream of consciousness while at the same time unintentionally reflecting her own identity.Able is also a well-known musician with an international following who attracts over 71K listens a month on Spotify. Two of her songs have over 1 million streams each while her Instagram page has almost 185K followers. Able’s creative perspective has even caught the attention of Forbes Magazine calling her a “Pioneer in XR Art as a multidisciplinary artist who breaks genres within the field of art”. [embed]https://youtube.com/watch?v=y8wOEZze7HM&version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent[/embed] Just recently, Able traveled to Venice,
The digital venue will feature NFT artwork based on famous works from The Vatican’s collection.One of the most popular art museums in the world is teaming up with metaverse developer Sensorium Corporation to launch an official NFT gallery available in VR and on desktops. Here, visitors will be able to peruse a collection of renowned works of art brought to life in the metaverse.Leading the initiative is Humanity 2.0, a non-profit organization funded by the Vatican dedicated to solving socio-economic and cultural issues through a combination of media and technology. This partnership will bring The Vatican’s art, content, and academic initiatives to VR for the first time, allowing anyone access regardless of their physical location.Created in the 16th century, The Vatican is home to art from a wide range of legendary artists, including Michelangelo, Salvador Dalí, Vincent van Gogh, and Pablo Picasso just to name a few. As for which
Enter the Coachellaverse. Everyone’s favorite music & arts festival Coachella is currently underway in Indio, California. This year’s event is expected to attract over 750,000 attendees as people from around the globe gather to celebrate music, art, technology, and everything in between.This year, Coachella took its first steps towards creating its very own metaverse. Referred to by event organizers as the Coachellaverse, this incredible digital experience allows fans from all around the world to interact with the festival in a brand new way using a combination of immersive technologies. This virtual platform features everything from AR technology and video games to NFTs and an interactive online community where you can connect with attendees, both on-site and at home, as well as with artists, creators, and other surprise guests. [embed]https://youtube.com/watch?v=ukXA44w_U20&version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent[/embed] Coachellaverse is a huge turning point for the annual festival. As hundreds of brands integrate themselves into the metaverse, organizers
Geenee AR’s unique software uses full-body tracking to let you wear NFT clothing and accessories.Geenee AR has partnered with Ready Player Me to help bring your digital identity to the real world. Similar to many of the AR filters you might find on Snapchat or Instagram, the experience uses full-body tracking to layer a virtual avatar, along with accessories such as NFTs, virtual clothing, and other features, over your real-world body in real-time.The best part is no coding is required. You simply drag and drop your Ready Player Me avatar directly into Geenee’s WebAR Builder platform and the software does all the work for you. You’re then free to create fun photos and videos of yourself “wearing” your digital counterpart.In an official statement, Cory Grenier, CEO of Geenee AR said, “No other avatar platform has built a scalable, interoperable metaverse-ready product like Ready Player Me, so it was a natural
HTC shared a curious tease that reveals a new Vive product which appears to be part of a system leveraging the company’s Vive Trackers for virtual productions.
HTC’s Vive brand has been exclusively focused on XR technologies, but late last week the company teased a new Vive product that is likely more tangential to the XR space than part of it.
The new product was shown pictured essentially in full, which gives us some strong hints about what it will do.
Image courtesy HTC
The small box clearly has a display which shows that it can detect three Vive Trackers and four SteamVR Tracking base stations. And while the DisplayPort, HDMI, and three USB ports might suggest this is a compact PC that can handle its own VR rendering, other hints point toward a less powerful, purpose-built control device for detecting, capturing, and relaying the position of the trackers.
Why might you want such a thing? Virtual production—using mixed reality-like technologies for shooting film productions—is the obvious answer. This is bolstered by the ‘Timecode’ and ‘Genlock’ readouts on the box’s display, which are commonly used to keep film and audio equipment in perfect sync.
Positional tracking is hugely important in virtual production, especially for tracking cameras, whether you’re shooting entirely against a green-screen or an LED wall.
In the first case, precisely capturing the movement of the camera makes like much easier in post-production when CGI comes into play. Instead of manually aligning the real shot against CGI elements, the virtual camera can be easily aligned to the real camera to keep everything in sync.
If shooting against an LED wall (a large panoramic display that shows background imagery rendered in real-time at the time of filming), you need to know the precise position of the real camera in order to have the background imagery move realistically in real-time.
Beyond camera tracking, accurate position tracking in production can be used to track props, actors, and more, which makes them more easily replaced or altered in post-production.
Of course, there’s plenty of positional tracking technologies that have been used in the film space for decades at this point… so why would HTC be getting into the game?
Well, compared to most of what’s out there, Valve’s SteamVR Tracking system is affordable, easy to set up, fairly precise, and dang cheap. And HTC is the leading provider of SteamVR trackers, small tracking pucks which are compatible with the system.
For around a thousand dollars—excluding the price of HTC’s new… let’s call it ‘Vive Tracker box’—you can have a reasonably sized tracking volume with four SteamVR Tracking base stations to precisely track three trackers (though hopefully the box will support more than just three, which would make the system easily extensible).
Compare that to something more commonly seen in the virtual production space, like OptiTrack, which can do more but starts closer to $10,000 and can easily exceed $100,000 if you want to increase the size of the volume.
Back to HTC’s new Vive product; it’s already possible to use SteamVR Tracking for virtual production use-cases, but it isn’t exactly a straightforward process. Not only do you need a dedicated PC with uncommon (in the film space) software installed (SteamVR), but you also need a USB dongle for each Vive Tracker that you plan to use.
The HTC Vive Tracker box is probably designed to be a turnkey solution that’s ready to go without any software installation or extra dongles, plus the ability to sync the positional tracking data timing precisely with other production equipment on set.
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The end goal here is not just for HTC to make money by selling the box, but also by selling more of its Vive Trackers. The company’s tracking pucks are popular among hardcore VR enthusiasts who want to do full-body tracking, but that’s a highly niche audience. General purpose tracking, for virtual production or otherwise, is a much larger potential market for HTC to tap, even if it does mean veturing a bit outside of what has been the usual wheelhouse of the Vive brand.
And while Vive tracker box probably doesn’t mean too much for the XR industry itself, it may tell us more about how HTC’s XR arm—Vive—is faring right now.
With its last four major VR headset releases seemingly not generating much traction for the company in the consumer VR space where it once dominated, Vive is veering into new territories in search of business. Beyond the Vive Tracker box here, another recent example is Vive Arts, the company’s effort to stake a claim in the NFT art scene.
So far HTC has not officially announced the Vive Tracker box beyond the teaser photo—so we still don’t have details like when it will launch, how it will be priced, or what specific features it will have—though we expect those details to come soon.
This article was originally published on roadtovr.com
