HTC Launches Vive Arts NFT Store

vrcoin on December 9, 2021

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

Editorial: Is Facebook Going Meta?

vrcoin on October 20, 2021

Since acquiring Oculus in 2014 Mark Zuckerberg’s company erased nearly every reason not to buy a VR headset, with one big exception.That reason, of course, is Facebook. “Oculus Quest 2 Review: The New King Of VR, If You Don’t Mind Facebook,” Jamie Feltham’s review of the headset noted at its release just over a year ago. “Facebook’s New Portal Is Great, but It’s Also Facebook,” Gizmodo noted about the company’s latest Portal Go video calling device this week. Zuckerberg has the majority controlling stake of a public company built on the idea people would voluntarily fill out an online profile, take photos with their friends and tag them in those captures of the past. But the company which built that technology is fundamentally different now, with some 60,000 employees at last count. The 2021 version of this company is starting to make useful hardware products, like the Quest 2 that

Report: HTC Working On ‘Viveport Verse’ Metaverse Platform

vrcoin on October 12, 2021

HTC is working on a customized version of Mozilla Hubs with a persistent social layer, Protocol reports.HTC already has a business-focused social VR platform called Vive Sync, but the report says it’s now working on a consumer platform called Viveport Verse. Protocol also claims to have a source backing up recent speculation that HTC will soon announce Vive Flow, a “lightweight consumer VR headset” that will be “primarily positioned as a media consumption device”. That same source claims Flow will have positional tracking but won’t ship with controllers, and will use a chip less powerful than Quest 2’s. Rather than starting its metaverse ambitions from scratch, HTC is apparently building on Mozilla’s open source Hubs platform. Hubs runs on WebXR, so users can access it on any platform and don’t need to install or update an app. A now-deleted unlisted HTC webpage pitched Viveport Verse as letting users “meet

Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook Will Be ‘A Metaverse Company’ In 5 Years

vrcoin on July 23, 2021

Platformer’s Casey Newton interviewed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his plans to make Facebook “a metaverse company”.If you’re not familiar with the term, “metaverse” simply means a massively social digital alternate universe. The term was coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, which also popularized “avatar”. Some consider individual platforms like VRChat metaverses, whereas others think the term should only be used singular to describe an open protocol-based system like the internet.

Lynx R1: XR2 AR-VR Hybrid Ships 2022 For ‘A Few Hundred Dollars’

vrcoin on July 9, 2021

French startup Lynx is shifting strategy for its upcoming AR-VR hybrid headset, dramatically lowering the price to target consumers too.

Lynx R1 was initially announced in February 2020 as a $1500 product focused on businesses & professionals. It has the same Snapdragon XR2 processor found in Oculus Quest 2 & HTC’s Vive Focus 3. But whereas those headsets can only show a low resolution black & white view of the real world, Lynx R1 has two dedicated high resolution color cameras for passthrough AR.