CaixaBank and Imagine Show Us What Fintech in the Metaverse Should Look Like

vrcoin on April 20, 2022

Spanish retail banking financial group CaixaBank is “entering the metaverse” through imaginLAND. This virtual destination and immersive event series is an extension of imagin, a “digital services and lifestyle platform” backed by CaixaBank. We’ve seen American financial technology groups try to “ape into” the metaverse with limited success, but CaixaBank has a different plan. Another Look at Fintech in the Metaverse If you’ve been following the gradual entrance of companies – particularly fintech companies – you might have thought of the JPMorgan lounge launched in Decentraland last month. While initially exciting and certainly still promising, the actual lounge saw little fanfare and little utility, according to emerging tech writer Lily Snyder, who visited the lounge early on. However, CaixaBank has big plans for imaginLAND. The company plans to develop new virtual experiences and services on a regular basis and renew the content available every month. imagin’s first content in the

Moon VR Player returns with passthrough AR mode

vrcoin on April 20, 2022

Who else remembers Moon VR Player? It was a video player for virtual reality headsets, able to play both 2D videos, 360 videos, and 360 VR videos which was quite popular back in the Gear VR days. But after a while, it kinda disappeared from my radars, without any explanations. I almost forgot about it, when a few days ago I got contacted by the company, because it is now back to business, and it has even just released a new version of its player, with interesting features, like passthrough AR support. We started chatting, and I found their comeback story very interesting, so I decided to interview them. Here you below you can find what the Moon VR guys told me: Hello Randolf, can you please introduce yourself to my readers? My name is Randolf, Chief Growth Officer at Moon VR. I am a serial entrepreneur and marketer

The XR Week Peek (2022.04.18): Pico Neo 3 Link launches in Europe, Meta offers monetization tools in Horizon, and more!

vrcoin on April 18, 2022

Happy Easter Holidays to whoever celebrates it! Yesterday I have eaten a lot, including a chocolate egg and an Easter cake with tons of pistachio and hazelnut cream. And today I’m going to do the same… the goal is gaining 10 kilos in 2 days haha. VR is cool and all the rest, but Italian food is even better! Anyway, today should be a vacation in Italy, but here I am writing this roundup for you, so if you want to show your appreciation, don’t forget to make a donation on Patreon! Top news of the week (Image by Pico Interactive)Pico Neo 3 Link has been launched in beta At Laval Virtual, Pico has announced the Pico Neo 3 Link, its first consumer-oriented headset.  Pico Neo 3 Link is basically the same device as the Pico Neo 3 Pro, with just some little modifications. The headset is more or less a clone of the

The XR Week Peek (2022.04.10): Epic releases Unreal Engine 5, Meta cancels F8, and more!

vrcoin on April 10, 2022

I know you weren’t expecting my newsletter for today, but since I’m going to have a very busy next week, I’ve anticipated the release of my roundup! This afternoon I’m flying to Paris to then go to Laval to attend Laval Virtual, one of the oldest events about virtual reality, where I’ll be as an attendee, a virtual speaker (about the game HitMotion: Reloaded), a host of the AWE Nite Florence (featuring great speakers like Charlie Fink… ), and also as a.. I can’t tell you the last one because it will be a surprise! I have written a little blog post about my participation there. It’s going to be very interesting and very busy… I hope to meet you in Laval! Top news of the week (Image by Epic Games)Epic Games releases Unreal Engine 5 Epic Games has finally released the latest iteration of its popular game engine: Unreal Engine 5. UE5

The XR Week Peek (2022.04.04): Meta Quest Gaming Showcase is back, Mojo Vision is “feature complete”, and more!

vrcoin on April 4, 2022

It’s been a fun 1st of April for the whole XR community, with many jokes and pranks being released in the wild. Don’t forget to read the rich “Fun” section down below this roundup, because it is going to be a pretty rich one!  But at first, let’s get serious and read the relevant news of the week in AR and VR. Top news of the week Meta Quest Gaming Showcase is coming on April, 20th Meta is back with its Gaming Showcase, and this year, it is going to be aired on April, 20th at 10 am PT. Last year, it was still called Oculus Gaming Showcase, and it featured important updates on games like Pistol Whip, The Climb 2, I Expect You To Die 2, and Resident Evil 4 VR. This year, it promises to be cool the same, and probably even more, featuring new game announcements, gameplay first-looks, updates on

The XR Week Peek (2022.03.22): Quest to feature new parental control tools, Google acquires Raxium, and more!

vrcoin on March 22, 2022

I’m back in Italy, but I have left a piece of my heart in Austin, where I had an unforgettable experience both on the personal and professional side at SXSW (you can read more about my experience here). I thank everyone that made my days so awesome, and I hope to meet you again soon!  This newsletter is happening one day after because on Sunday I was traveling, so I had to spend my Monday reading online articles for this roundup while I still was confused about the time of the day and the night. Luckily, we had not huge news about XR this week, so my work has been a little easier 🙂 Before I leave you to the big news of the week, don’t forget to register to NVIDIA GTC using my unique referral code: https://www.nvidia.com/gtc/?ncid=ref-crea-201724 ! If you are from the EMEA region, and you use my special link to

My experience at SXSW 2022: expect the unexpected

vrcoin on March 20, 2022

Ten days ago, I revealed to you that I was going to Austin, Texas to attend the SXSW, one of the most important events about creativity and technology in the USA. Today, while I’m packing my stuff up to go back to Italy, I want to tell you a few words about my experience there, and if I think it has been worth going. Going SXSW SXSW Logo (Image by SXSW)Even if it is not so famous in Europe, the SXSW (South by SouthWest) has always been one of the events to be in the United States. It gathers people from the tech industry, from movies, from music, all

Mark Zuckerberg talks about his vision for Meta at SXSW

vrcoin on March 17, 2022

In my visit to SXSW, I could not miss the fireside chat with Mark Zuckerberg that took place two days ago. I have never seen Zuckerberg in real life, and even if he was in streaming, it was anyway intriguing that he was speaking live and also answering live to the questions of the audience, so it was a bit like having him in the room with us. I’m not a big fan of Zuck, honestly speaking, but he’s still the CEO of the most important XR company in the world, so it’s worth listening to what he has to say. And seeing his big face and listening to his words was in the end an interesting experience. If you are afraid of having missed some big announcements, relax. During the interview, the Zuggity Zuck just repeated the same things we have already heard a bazillion times: his vision for

ITIF Releases Report on Moderating Multi-User Immersive Experiences

vrcoin on March 16, 2022

When you’re on social media and see someone engaging in dangerous, illegal, or often just distasteful activity, it is often fairly easy to report the content or the poster. In the physical world, these situations are less frequent and scarier but here too there are ways to report illicit interactions when necessary. But, what about immersive experiences? We tend to spend most of our time talking about the positive interactions and promises of immersive experiences. While AR and VR applications combine the best of in-person and online events, they also combine the worst of these settings for people who would misuse them. A recent report by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) explores this. Authors and Influences “Content Moderation in Multi-User Immersive Experiences: AR/VR and the Future of Online Speech” is a free online publication by Daniel Castro, ITIF vice president and director of the Center for Data Innovation.