Virtual and augmented reality could be the next big trend in software development as devs warm to the use of the tools, but there are still a few key barriers blocking adoption.

VR/AR tech offers programmers a more focussed work environment, with a virtualized workspace but research suggests the platform isn’t quite mature enough for widespread adoption.

JetBrains’ 2024 State of Developer Ecosystem report gauged 23,252 developers' interest in using VR headsets when working, asking if any had experimented with VR when coding.

The results indicated coding in VR remains fairly nascent, with just 8% of developers reporting they had tried using the hardware for programming.

However, there is a clear appetite to experiment with VR, with 50% telling JetBrains they were eager to try the technology.

Respondents who had used VR for coding said the primary benefit is that it enhances the visualization of complex data (42%).

A similar proportion (39%) said the multi-screen virtual workplace increased their productivity, with a quarter reporting they preferred the virtual workspace to their physical monitor set up.

Similarly, more than a quarter (28%) of respondents using VR said it greatly simplified testing VR-specific applications.

The tech still looks to be a way off entering mass adoption, however, with the most common hurdle identified as the high cost of the equipment and uncertainty about how beneficial it truly is.

JetBrains found these concerns were real among those already using VR, with 18% of developers reporting they experienced physical discomfort or have concerns for their health related to prolonged VR use.

Virtual workspaces are promising but there are kinks to work out

There have been notable examples of using VR in coding over the last year. Popular design and development content creator Adrian Twarog detailed his experiences using the Apple Vision Pro for day-to-day tasks, including programming in VS Code.

Twarog said he appreciated that the Vision Pro allowed him to dim or block out the real world and better focus on his work, but highlighted a number of areas where the experience felt inferior to his traditional monitor set up.

In particular, blurriness was a recurring issue across a number of applications, with fonts being harder to read in virtual reality. Twarog noted that there is no native VS Code application for Vision Pro, for example.

“While GitHub Codespaces could be used inside of Safari, I wouldn't be able to work on a project locally, and would need to bring my laptop anyway. I did like the fact that the mouse and keyboard tracking carried across from my keyboard to virtual screens though!”

Overall, Twarog said he wouldn’t recommend using Apple Vision Pro for coding, adding that he is looking forward to seeing the improvements made with the product’s later iterations.

Speaking to ITPro, Randall Degges, head of developer relations and community at developer security platform, Snyk, was slightly more positive about his experiences using a cheaper AR product for coding.

“I'm a developer by trade, and recently decided to give AR coding a try for the first time earlier this year. In particular, I ended up purchasing a pair of XReal Air2 Ultra AR glasses, as they have sufficiently high resolution to do computer screen work in high-definition, as well as a simple interface for working with your glasses.”

Degges said he considered the Apple Vision Pro but ultimately could not justify its hefty price tag, noting that he was mainly looking for a solution that wouldn’t require him to lug around large monitors when on the move.

“I was originally tempted to try the Apple Vision Pro, but at $3500 USD, it was just too expensive to experiment with, which is what led me to check out an alternative. So far, I've been fairly impressed. My main use case for trying AR for development tasks was to essentially be able to bring multiple large monitors with me when using my laptop without having to haul a lot of equipment around.”

He said the XReal glasses were able to do exactly this, meaning he could multi-task with documentation and IDE open simultaneously, with relatively little set up.

“Using the Mac app for the XReal glasses, I'm able to connect a USB-C cord from the glasses to my Macbook, configure how many virtual ‘monitors’ I want, then I instantly get a massive visual set up in front of me that allows me to have documentation open in one window, a couple terminals open in another, and a big IDE experience in a third (I typically use the 3 virtual monitor setup). This would be really hard to replicate otherwise, as you'd need 3 massive monitors with you everywhere, which just isn't feasible.”

Overall, Degges said he is optimistic about the potential of virtual reality products to change the nature of development, adding he expects more developers to make the switch to virtualized workspaces in the future.

“For a lot of developers (like me!), it's becoming more common to do engineering work on your laptop, rather than at a dedicated desk, but the pitfalls of the laptop experience is that even the highest-quality, largest laptops don't provide enough screen real estate for rapid engineering work,” he explained.

“As a professional developer, you NEED the ability to have multiple monitor's worth of information at once, so I suspect that more and more developers will start to adapt AR and VR glasses as time goes on to better improve their working conditions without the physical hassle.”

Over the past few years, countless millions of words have been written about augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). For a time, it seemed the technologies could be about to change the world, with Mark Zuckerberg seemingly going all in, renaming his company Meta after the so-called metaverse, and launching a mixed reality headset aimed at businesses.

More recently, it’s felt more like a VR winter as Silicon Valley abandoned its grand plans. Microsoft, which launched its own pioneering HoloLens headset, has apparently laid off several of the teams working on it, and, in March, Google finally killed Google Glass, the company’s early attempt at getting into mixed reality. Even Meta is thought to be quietly backing away from the Metaverse, instead putting its more speculative investments into machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).

But everything could be about to change again. Apple remained silent throughout but then used its 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) to finally reveal a mixed reality headset of its own: the Vision Pro.

What is the Vision Pro headset?

According to Mark Gurman, the well-connected Bloomberg reporter, the headset will work independently of an iPhone or any other device and will use a 4K OLED display in front of each eye to ensure that the device’s display is suitably sharp. And it will, of course, be powered by a custom Apple-designed chip like Apple’s most recent phones and computers – likely the same M2 found in the most recent MacBooks.

The headset’s interface will reportedly be similar to an iPhone, with a grid of app icons, and early apps will include a version of FaceTime that lets you speak to friends in virtual space, and a version of SharePlay, which will let you watch TV with other people while sharing a virtual living room.

However, there are still huge questions of exactly how the headset will work, and whether it will contain some of the more advanced components that are already in rival devices. Apple will want to set the de facto standard for a mixed reality headset, and that means working out what to omit to keep the design lightweight as much as working out what to include. 

What features will Vision Pro include?

“I'll be intrigued by the necessity of eye tracking,” says Tom Ffiske, founder of ImmersiveWire, a VR-industry newsletter. “The pros of eye tracking are that it does make it more immersive and it also lowers motion sickness, which is a huge deal for virtual reality at the moment.”

“What I'm more interested in is what is going to be sacrificed to make it slightly easier for the user,” adds Ffiske, who thinks Apple has a big decision to make about whether to include adjustable “interpupillary distance” lenses, that let the user manually adjust the distance between lenses. Meta included a wheel specifically for this functionality on its recent Quest 2 headset, but Ffiske speculates Apple may choose to forego the complication.

“It does work, it does make images way crisper… but Apple may respond by saying this is an additional thing we're asking the users to do. We have a suspicion that – unless there's a clean way of doing it – this might be something we want to remove just so it's easier for people,” says Ffiske.

Will Apple change the mixed reality landscape?

If Tim Cook does finally reveal the headset, it will be a big moment for the company – arguably the first major new form factor released on Cook’s watch (depending if you count the Apple Watch). But will it be an “iPhone moment” that changes everything or will it be just an expensive tech demo? The rumored price tag is, after all, $3,000. 

Ffiske believes the success of the headset could depend on how deeply the headset is linked to the rest of the Apple ecosystem of services, such as the App Store and iCloud. Not only are services increasingly important for Apple’s bottom line, but they will tie the headset to the rest of Apple’s business.

“I have a strong suspicion that fitness is going to be a key part of their release when they do announce it,” says Ffiske, who points to Meta’s success at carving out a niche offering VR workouts and games on its own headset. “It's a natural fit for Apple because they've got an ecosystem when it comes to fitness, as well as their own classes, which can integrate within the [headset] as well.”

Smart glasses are one of those technologies that just refuses to die. Companies like Microsoft and Google have had a crack at it, with varying degrees of success, and here we are in 2022, with high-tech eyewear still not quite in the mainstream.

The history of virtual reality goes all the way back to the late 50s, though the term was actually coined in 1987 by author and technologist Jaron Lanier. Along with AR (augmented reality), VR has primarily centred around gaming and immersive experiences, but there is a feeling that we’re entering a new age of VR thanks to the sudden emergence of the so-called ‘metaverse’. Meta (née Facebook) is leading the charge here, though I have to say what Meta presents as the ‘metaverse’ looks an awful lot like characters and backgrounds from Wii sports.

However, if we leave the low-quality avatars and cartoon landscape to one side, there are other use cases for smart glasses that can benefit businesses and remote workers. One example was presented by Lenovo with the announcement of its new T1 smartglasses, which were revealed at IFA in Berlin. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to have a full hands-on session with the T1 glasses; instead, I got about three minutes with them at the Showstoppers consumer trade event, where Lenovo had a presentation table.

With the device in hand, my immediate impression was that they looked a little stupid and, to be fair, most smart eyewear prototypes are unattractive. Part of the reason, for me, is that they’re an ugly mix of sunglasses and VR headsets. The T1s themselves aren’t as large as the latter, but they’re a little bit like bulky Ray Bans. Nowhere near as svelte as Meta’s ‘Ray Ban Stories’.

The T1 works with a smartphone or a laptop and according to Lenovo, this will include MacBooks. The two prototypes the company had on display were hooked up to an Android handset via a USB cable. Presumably, they will eventually be wireless, but the display of the smartphone screen is transported to the glasses with the cable. The phone's display then switches to a trackpad so you can move a cursor around a screen that you can see through the glasses, essentially making the phone a mouse.

I played around with it for a few minutes and asked various questions - and you know what? It was just straight-up cool. Cool in a way that I could actually see the use cases or the reason for it, not like foldable phones, which still seem like an answer to a question no one asked. This felt like a future technology that had reached the now. I had the graphics of a smartphone in my eyes, a virtual desktop that only I could see. I felt like flipping Iron Man.

Said desktop moved with my head, but there was also a button on the arm of the glasses that I could click to keep the content in a single place. What’s more, it doesn’t block your peripheral vision and you can still see the real world beyond the graphics. Now, I can’t say how good this is for working on documents or typing, but for controlling a smartphone UI and watching a quick video, it was great. How this will operate with a laptop screen is still a mystery, but I like the idea of having a screen that literally no one but me can see. It’s complete privacy in that regard, which will make your sensitive work that little bit safer when in public. Lenovo told me that it’s predominantly going to be aimed at the consumer, with a release date estimated at early 2024 and a price tag that will be under £400.

However, while I was clearly sold on the idea of a desktop for my eyes only, I still recognise that this in itself may come with issues. For starters, it’s an immersive technology and that might not be a good fit for work, particularly as more and more of us are apparently doing an increasing amount of our work remotely. The idea that you can do your job in a virtual space and essentially ignore the outside world seems like a fast track to burnout and isolation. For now, though, I’m content with the idea of a virtual interface that only I can see. I just wished they didn’t make me look like actual glasses.

Virtual reality (VR) is starting to find its feet as an enterprise tool, and one of the most popular use cases for it is in training. Engineers can use it to learn how to maintain large and expensive pieces of machinery, managers can run conflict resolution simulations, and construction workers can model building projects. These applications are merely the tip of the iceberg, however, and the technology is being used in some unique and unexpected settings.

One of the most interesting players is Rezzil, a company using VR to train and develop Premier League footballers. Run by ex-gaming developers, the company builds VR platforms that can accurately simulate real-world scenarios, allowing clubs to train players and analyse match tactics. The system works by using HTC Vive headsets combined with wireless adapters and the company’s ‘puck’ trackers – one on each foot and shin – to accurately track a player’s movement and ball control, including motions like outside spin, stops and kick-ups. Rezzil has fine-tuned the physics to the point the system will even model and respond to different boot types and sizes.

Easing the road to recovery

One of the main ideas behind the technology is to help players recover faster from injuries, says co-founder Adam Dickinson. Leg, knee and ankle problems are among the most common issues that can affect professional footballers, but recovery usually requires them to avoid traditional practice and training for extended periods of time, during which their skills can atrophy.

“The main factor in rehabilitation is a player can lose about 60% of their cognitive sharpness during that injury, where they fall off,” Dickinson explains. “The whole point is that we can keep them sharp, we can put them back in the same scenarios, the decision making, keeping them at that elite level.”

Because Rezzil’s training drills involve minimal physical contact, he adds, players can keep their skills up without risking further strain. This has allowed injured players to retain their contracts at clubs by showing their cognitive skills haven’t suffered, whereas they may otherwise have been let go.

Aside from rehabilitation and general skills training, Rezzil’s technology also allows clubs to analyse previous matches and tactics deployed. The system can ingest match data from the industry-standard data tracking tools used in sports stadia, convert it into positional information and then recreate the match in a virtual environment. This allows managers, coaches and players to review the action, as it happened, from any angle they choose.

“Traditionally, a manager's position on the pitch is the worst place to view any game ever,” says Dickinson. “So they like to be up in the stands, or you might be experiencing where you thought a goalkeeper was at fault, but actually, his line of sight was blocked by a player. It's really, really useful for conflict resolution.”

This can also be extended to building out custom-made training drills based on specific situations and opponents, such as analysing a certain player’s habits in order to counter them. “For example,” Dickinson continues, “if you know Mbappé is going to always run down the right-hand side of a certain player, that defender can train over and over and over again without the fatigue, in that position.”

This attention to detail has paid dividends for Rezzil; the company counts major Premier League clubs including Arsenal, Manchester City, and Manchester United among its customers, as well as American and German sides. The company has also deployed its systems for the upcoming World Cup in Qatar, but it’s not just limited to football; Rezzil is already working with an NBA basketball team in the US and attempting to branch out into sports like golf and American football.

Converting professionals to new ways of working

Of course, working with cutting-edge technology isn’t without its challenges. Dickinson says one of the biggest problems when doing on-site demonstrations with customers is the lack of connectivity within training grounds, which has forced them to carry a selection of Wi-Fi dongles and mobile hubs around with them. Rezzil also had to customise a lot of the VR hardware it uses for use in a specific environment. For example, although the clip-on battery packs powering the wireless adapters for HTC’s desktop headsets work fine with jeans, Dickinson explains they’re heavy enough to pull football shorts down.

Subsequent advances in mobile VR technology have mitigated these issues, but for Dickinson, the hardware has always been somewhat less important than getting the software and the interaction models to feel natural and realistic. Because many players aren’t familiar with high-end VR, he says, they have to be carefully introduced to the technology to avoid turning them off altogether.

“We've got to put it in front of Premier League players. If they swung their foot and then the ball was a second after, they'd just say 'no, it doesn't work'. So we learned our lessons trying different haptics. We have a much stronger feedback just using audio, letting your brain fill in the pieces – but you have to have zero latency. That's the key.”

In addition to catering for professional clubs, Rezzil has also branched out into the consumer market. The company’s Player 22 software acts as a more ‘gamified’ offering that appeals to casual players whilst still retaining the technical foundation of its more established packages. However, Dickinson says that while becoming “the EA Sports of VR” isn’t exactly unappealing, the company still remains focused on serving top-tier athletes.

“It's been a long, long road, and it won't end. The elite side will always feed in,” he says. “We want to find someone [through our platform] that would have never been discovered; someone who would never have been found traditionally, through traditional scouting methods.”

NeuPath has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Cynergi to assess the efficacy of the company's virtual reality (VR) program for chronic pain management.

“Chronic pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Studies estimate the cost of this lost productivity to be in excess of $300 billion per year in the US alone,” said Harbir Singh, Cynergi CEO.

Singh added: “Collaborating with NeuPath and building a holistic chronic pain targeted treatment program provides an outstanding opportunity to work with employers and other payers to improve patient quality of life while also reducing disability-related costs as well as other direct health care costs.”

Per the new deal, Cynergi’s Rilaxta VRx will be used alongside NeuPath’s remote pain management and virtual care platform across Canada and the US.

Adding VR software to traditional interventions can provide extensive benefits in behavioral pain management.

Cynergi’s proprietary virtual reality tools pair soothing images and sound with proven psychological techniques to reduce anxiety and panic. Developed by renowned Harvard psychiatrist Arshya Vahabzadeh, Cynergi’s VR program also includes guided therapy for benzodiazepine, alcohol, and opioid addiction.

NeuPath’s centers for pain management provide multimodal treatments for patients with chronic pain. Together, Cynergi and NeuPath aim to offer customized VR treatment plans for psychological and behavioral pain.

Earlier this month, NeuPath acquired virtual care platform KumoCare. Designed to reduce wait times, KumoCare enables secure video chat with medical practitioners.

For the past few years, virtual reality technology has been going through a bit of an awkward adolescence. While the first few generations of headsets were initially impressive, the ‘wow factor’ quickly faded and wider adoption has so far been limited by a few key factors. These include awkward setup, a comparatively limited number of apps, and the need to either be tethered to a bulky PC, unless you’re willing to accept a significant drop in performance and quality.

HTC has been doing its level best to change that, however. Unlike Facebook’s Oculus Quest headsets, which have taken a more consumer-friendly approach, HTC’s Vive family has its sights set squarely on the high-end ‘prosumer’ and business market. The latest fruits of its endeavours is the Vive Focus 3, a standalone enterprise VR headset that could very well represent the future of VR as a business tool.

HTC Vive Focus 3 review: Design

The most significant improvements come in the form of the Focus 3’s design. VR headsets – particularly standalone units that require onboard compute hardware – have typically been bulky and uncomfortable affairs, but the Focus 3 bucks this trend somewhat. The visor portion is noticeably more compact than its predecessor, the Vive Focus Plus, for example, and it’s more comfortable to wear for extended periods without getting physically tiring.

It’s much more ergonomically designed overall. This is in spite of the fact that at 785g, it’s actually around 100g heavier than the Focus Plus; the trick is that the weight has been distributed more evenly between the front and back of the headset, via a removable battery pack at the rear which acts as a counterweight.

This is another masterstroke for businesses; when the battery dies, you can swap it out for another fully-charged battery on the fly. This means if you’re doing a long day of demos or workshops, you don’t need to keep pausing to periodically recharge the entire headset.

The gaskets around the edge of the visor are also removable, allowing them to be swapped out and cleaned between users for comfort and hygiene. Both they and the battery packs are magnetically attached, and removing them is simplicity itself. So much so, in fact, that we quite often accidentally knocked them loose when handling the Focus 3 – although since they clip straight back on again, this isn’t really an issue.

The headset itself is easy to get on and off, too, with a quick-release catch at the back to loosen the fit, and an adjustment knob to tighten it, both of which are easy to operate with the headset on. As with all of HTC’s recent headsets, it can be used with glasses, but we did find that it’s easy to over-tighten the fit, which made our spectacles dig uncomfortably into the bridge of our nose.

One more point of importance, albeit purely aesthetic, is that it looks a lot less silly than HTC’s previous headsets. The black colour scheme is not only much more sophisticated than the white Focus Plus, it helps hide the lenses that stud the visor to support its inside-out tracking. While units like the Vive Pro 2 have a vaguely insectile air about them – or, in the case of the Focus Plus, the look of a pair of googly eyes stuck to the front of your visor – the Focus 3 looks appealingly sleek and futuristic.

HTC Vive Focus 3 review: Display

The screen has also seen big improvements. It uses a pair of 2.88in LCD panels, each with a resolution of 2,448 x 2,448. That translates to a 5K resolution across both eyes and on top of that, the field-of-view has been bumped up to 120 degrees, while the refresh rate has gone up to 90Hz. That’s up from 110 degrees and 75Hz, respectively, on the Focus Plus and matches the PC-driven Vive Pro 2 on all but the refresh rate.

Those are some distinctly impressive numbers, and in practice, the screen looks noticeably sharper than previous iterations. In-app text is easier to read, smaller details are easier to pick out and the overall visuals are smoother and more expansive. For practical purposes, this will be a differentiator for anyone wanting to use VR for design or prototyping work, but it also makes using the Focus 3 more pleasant across the board.

HTC Vive Focus 3 review: Specs and performance

Built on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 platform, the Focus 3 promises impressive performance – and it delivers. The headset can run graphically complex VR apps with no trouble, and we experienced no stuttering, lag or slowdown. That’s partly due to the Focus 3’s active cooling system, which uses a combination of heatpipes and fans to keep the silicon from overheating.

These fans kick in during most operations, but they’re not loud enough to be distracting and work admirably well for maintaining stable performance across the board. Even the PC streaming feature – which we’ll cover in more detail shortly – managed to keep a solid and consistent framerate.

HTC Vive Focus 3 review: Battery life

Of course, all of this performance has to take its toll somewhere, and the battery life isn’t exactly lengthy. After roughly an hour of serious use, we found that the Focus 3 had lost a third of its charge; if you started using it in the morning, we’d be surprised if it lasted past lunchtime.

On the other hand, this isn’t a headset that’s designed for all-day use, and outside of something like a demo experience at an event, you’re unlikely to need that much continual use. Even if you do, the swappable batteries have your back. You’ll have to buy additional batteries and charging cradles separately, but each battery does have a handy indicator that can tell you at a glance how much juice is left without having to put the headset on.

Charging the headset itself is nice and convenient, with a single cable going into the device and it takes less than two hours to fully power the unit. Even better, the Focus 3’s two rechargeable controllers don’t require a separate power socket. The headset comes bundled with a double-headed USB-C cable; one end goes into the USB-C port on the headset’s right-hand side, and the two split ends go into the controllers – both of which also feature LED battery indicators. It’s a clever and convenient solution, and one that we hope more headset manufacturers adopt.

HTC Vive Focus 3 review: Features

The Focus 3 is packed with similar quality-of-life improvements, one of which is the boundary system. If you start to stray outside the defined usage area, you’ll start to see a wireframe boundary; fairly standard stuff, but once you cross the threshold, it uses the passthrough feature (which feeds footage from the external tacking cameras directly to the screen) to effectively create a portal into the real world. It allows you to keep a close eye on your surroundings, which is handy in restricted spaces.

Elsewhere, the audio deserves special mention. The Focus 3 uses open-backed dual-driver speakers built into the headband, as opposed to headphones, and they’re remarkably clear and high-quality. They’re also great at delivering 3D spatial sound for added immersion. Where they really excel, however, is the ‘audio privacy’ feature.

This is designed to help stop people around you from listening in to whatever may be happening in your virtual environment – a sensitive meeting, perhaps, or some confidential training. It uses the same principle as active noise cancelling on high-end headphones, but turned outwards and works amazingly well; it’s genuinely difficult to hear what’s happening within the headset, even when you’re right next to whoever’s using it with no other background noise.

The biggest issue is still the app store; as with almost all VR platforms, the selection available on the Vive Business App Store is extremely limited, with a few too many gimmicky ‘experiences’ that are more akin to theme park simulator rides than useful business tools. That said, there has been improvement. There’s a handful of genuinely useful enterprise apps on there, including conflict resolution simulations, hazard awareness training, a handful of desktop virtualisation programmes and, of course, HTC’s excellent Vive Sync app.

These improvements don’t extend to the store UI itself though, which is still clunky and awful, and only allows you to browse available apps rather than install them. To do that, you have to head to the web store on a smartphone or PC, find the app you want (and pay for it, in many cases) then put the headset back on, head to your library and download it from there.

It’s an arcane and obtuse process, but fortunately many business users will be able to bypass it, thanks to the management tools that HTC provides alongside the Focus 3. These tools allow IT admins to manage a fleet of headsets, including updating firmware, tracking the locating devices, and updating their firmware. It’s also compatible with third-party Android Enterprise MDM solutions. These management tools can be used to remotely load apps onto the headset, or you can use the built-in microSD card slot to install them, as well as expanding the Focus 3’s storage beyond its 128GB capacity.

If the apps you need to use are PC-based, however, there is another option, which is the PC Streaming app. This essentially uses a PC on your network to host a VR app, and then streams it to your headset, either wirelessly or via a USB-C cable. This works astonishingly well in practice, streaming demanding VR content from our PC to our headset wirelessly over a home network with a minimal amount of stuttering and dropped frames. It’s not ideal for anything requiring absolute precision, but as a method for increasing the Focus 3’s versatility, it’s extremely commendable.

HTC Vive Focus 3 review: Verdict

There’s no question that VR is still a long way away from being a universally applicable technology. While there are an increasing number of use-cases for the hardware – particularly with remote working now firmly entrenched – it’s just not relevant to a large proportion of organisations.

For those that do need it, however, HTC’s Vive Focus 3 is a generational leap forward. The specs and performance are powerful enough to keep up with demanding apps, the display looks breathtaking and for when you need a bit of extra grunt, the PC streaming feature is genuinely astonishing.

What really sets this device apart, however, is the array of smart design choices that HTC has made in its construction. The removable battery packs and gaskets are a stroke of genius, and it’s the most comfortable VR headset we’ve worn by a country mile. Add to that some smart charging features and intelligent noise cancelling, and you’ve got a genuinely transformative package.

It’s not perfect, of course; at over £1,000 before tax, it’s not an investment you’ll be making lightly. Additional battery packs will also cost extra, and considering how polished the actual headset is, the business app store is bafflingly unintuitive. Despite the cost, however, this headset is a must-have for any organisation that’s considering seriously investing in VR technology. Enterprise VR may have started as a bit of a novelty, but it’s certainly not any more.

Organisations all over the world are currently grappling with the challenges of how to adapt their culture to a new hybrid-first model. While many potential solutions have been posited, one organisation is taking a somewhat different approach; distributed HR platform Remote.com has turned to virtual reality technology to unite its employees, not just for meetings and brainstorms, but for social and team-building events.

This week, we’re joined by Remote’s director of people, Nadia Vatalidis, to explain how the company’s using VR to bring its workforce together without having to rely on video calls. We discuss some of the challenges of rolling out VR collaboration across a business, as well as the advantages it has brought.

Footnotes

• How do I best support my remote workers?
• Three keys to a long-term remote working strategy
• Remote working: Are you ready for the new normal?
• How to manage a distributed team
• Out of office - on forever: Meet the companies leaving the office for good
• How to manage people successfully from a distance
• 12 must-have tools for working from home
• Onboarding during the pandemic and beyond
• IT Pro Panel: The loneliness of the long-distance worker
• How do IT leaders prepare for a refusal to return to the office?
• IT Pro Panel: Why CIOs have embraced hybrid working
• Transforming training with virtual reality
• IT Pro Live: How virtual reality will power Workplace 2.0
• I had a meeting in VR, and it felt like the future
• The IT Pro Podcast: Will VR ever be mainstream?
• Why AR, not VR, is the next big thing in business
• Mixed Reality: How to augment your IT
• Why video conferencing is so tiring and what you can do about it
• Game on: How playing video games could level up your career

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HTC has expanded its lineup of business-focused VR headsets with two new devices: the PC-driven Vive Pro 2 and the Android-based all-in-one Vive Focus 3.

Unveiled today at the company’s virtual Vivecon 21 event, the new headsets boast both an expanded 120-degree field of view and a combined resolution of 5K across both eyes.

The new headsets are aimed at a variety of enterprise use-cases, including virtual training, design and prototyping tasks, and remote collaboration. The latter is supported by the company’s Vive Sync platform, which enables remote meetings in a virtual environment as part of the Vive XR Suite of business applications.

HTC is also launching a new storefront for business VR apps, as well as a training platform for supporting VR-based classroom training.

HTC’s partners have welcomed the announcement, with representatives from Dassault Systèmes, Autodesk, Adobe, and other professional 3D creation tools praising the high visual fidelity offered by the new headsets.

“With HTC’s new generation of high-resolution VR headsets, the level of photorealism is boosted to a completely new level which will greatly help to make the right decisions during project reviews," said Christian Lang, CEO of architectural software firm Enscape.

The Focus 3 is designed for portability, and uses a magnesium alloy chassis for reduced weight and increased durability. Its weight has also been better distributed to aid comfort, which includes the addition of a battery pack to the rear of the headset. In addition to providing a counterweight, this swappable battery pack includes quick-charge capabilities to enable all-day use without having to charge the headset every time the battery runs out.

This feature – as well as the new swappable gaskets inside the visor – comes in response to the emergence of new customer use-cases, like demonstrations, where multiple people need to use a headset over the course of a day. New rechargeable controllers have been launched alongside the Focus 3, which promise a 15-hour battery life on a single charge.

The Focus 3 also includes contact-free directional speakers, which allow users to hear audio from their virtual environment without blocking out what’s going on around them in the real world. This features additional outward noise cancelling, as well as an ‘audio privacy mode’ to further limit what can be heard outside of the headset.

It’s built on top of a customised version of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 platform, which has been augmented with fan-driven cooling and heatsinks in order to maintain maximum performance for demanding VR applications. The Focus 3 supports a maximum refresh rate of 90Hz and can stream footage to PC through a USB-C cable, with wireless streaming supposedly coming soon.

For higher performance needs, HTC is offering the Vive Pro 2, which includes a 120Hz max refresh rate, dual stacked-lens optics for reduced motion blur, and redesigned headphones with 3D positional audio. The company has also collaborated with both AMD and Nvidia to optimise the Display Stream Compression technology used to power the device, which is backwards-compatible with DisplayPort 1.2.

Both devices include a number of business-focused features; the Vive Pro 2 will be compatible with all existing Steam VR peripherals, including base stations, movement trackers, and controllers, while the Focus 3 is compatible with Android Enterprise MDM products, meaning it can be managed by IT departments through existing tools like MobileIron or SOTI.

For customers that don’t already have an MDM solution in place, HTC also offers a pre-built ISO-certified suite for remotely managing and updating Focus 3 devices on a network.

The Vive Focus 3 will go on sale on 24 June for £1,060 exc VAT, including a two-year warranty and services package.

The Vive Pro 2, meanwhile, is available to pre-order today in a headset-only package for those that want to upgrade an existing installation. This version can be preordered for £659 inc VAT (with a cost of £719 if bought after the pre-order period), while the full kit with base stations and controllers – which will hit shelves 4 August – will cost £1,299 inc VAT.

If you ever need proof that we’re living in the future, just look at virtual reality; a technology that was considered science fiction less than two decades ago is now available to all for a comparatively affordable price. Despite its rapid development, however, it has yet to find its place outside of niche gaming and tech enthusiast communities.

Manufacturers like Lenovo and HTC have tried to bring VR into the business world, but enthusiasm is still seemingly limited. While applications like training, prototyping and collaboration have all shown a degree of usefulness, it appears that VR still lacks a ‘killer app’. In this episode, we look at the development of enterprise virtual reality technology, and whether it’s ever going to crack the big time.

Footnotes

• Virtual reality is dead. Long live VR
• I had a meeting in VR, and it felt like the future
• Lenovo launches new enterprise-focused VR headset
• Should companies use virtual reality to cut costs or boost sales?
• Transforming training with virtual reality
• HTC Vive Pro hands-on review: Ready, player one?
• VR for art's sake: How virtual reality can change the world of culture
• The future tech helping battle the pandemic
• IT Pro Live: How virtual reality will power Workplace 2.0
• Mixed Reality: How to augment your IT

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In the past few years, we’ve seen virtual reality technology turn from a science fiction trope into an accessible gaming medium, but VR is about much more than just entertainment. The technology has a multitude of applications within the business world, from design planning and data visualisation to remote virtual meetings, and in this keynote session, HTC's Graham Wheeler explains how VR could power the office of the future.

Graham Wheeler

General manager, EMEA, HTC

Graham Wheeler, is the current General Manager of HTC EMEA. Graham is based in HTC’s European headquarters near London. In his role he oversees HTC’s growing European business across its virtual reality content, software and hardware ecosystem. As part of HTC’s global innovation vision Graham oversees HTC’s entire product portfolio including the recently launched 5G Hub. Graham joined HTC in 2005, becoming the fourth employee in the European office and has now been with the company for 13 years. Graham has served in a number of roles across HTC’s European product, engineering and service teams, before heading up operations across the smartphone and VIVE business.

Future tech usually carries connotations of exciting but ultimately over-hyped technologies. With little to no practical uses in business, sudden crazes for things like blockchain and other future tech have quickly died off.

Tech like 3D printers, chatbots, and VR, which had their heyday come and go, are now relegated to the same category of interesting, useless technology.

However, COVID-19 has raised challenges that no one expected, calling for innovative solutions. We’ve compiled six ways that future tech has been used - effectively, and not so effectively - to help address problems caused by coronavirus.

3D printers

3D printing went through a bout of popularity around 2014, but companies promised more than the technology could deliver to both the business and everyday consumer. The technology everyone hoped would revolutionise manufacturing, though it continues to evolve and add new materials, never took hold in home manufacturing.

But 3D printing stepped into the spotlight during the pandemic, as it became clear that hospitals around the world weren’t equipped with enough ventilators and PPE to treat the influx of patients and protect hospital staff. So companies started creating 3D-printable designs, helping to fill these gaps in life-saving equipment.

Businesses like 3D Systems, and customers Lonati and Isinnova, have collaborated to print components of ventilators. Through additive manufacturing like 3D printing, companies can manufacture parts internally or make parts as needed, reducing their dependency on suppliers.

“And this is what we’re asking our network, and encouraging the industry to help us do right now,” said Vyomesh Joshi, president and CEO of 3D Systems, in a statement. “Circumvent the supply chain to manufacture these PPE (personal protective equipment) and life-saving devices as quickly as possible.”

It also enables creativity. 3D Systems helped print hundreds of valves for an emergency ventilator mask designed by an Italian doctor, Renato Favero, who modified snorkelling masks donated by the sports equipment retailer Decathlon. Plenty of others in the 3D-printing industry have also stepped up, meaning that we’ve finally found a use for 3D printers: saving lives.

Drones

British police have shelled out millions for drones, and are now finding out ways to put the whirring toys to use to support their work. Derbyshire Police, for example, has used its drone with a thermal camera to look for homes growing marijuana, as well as to search spaces that were deemed unsafe for officers, including abandoned buildings.

Now the drone has a new use: nagging dog walkers to leave national parks and go back to their homes. Derbyshire Police used drone footage to make a short clip of people walking in Curbar Edge in the Peak District, hoping to encourage others to stay at home as advised by the government and saying “the message is still not getting through”. The move was criticised as “sinister” by digital rights group Big Brother Watch, and partially led to new guidance about how police should enforce the lockdown laws, but at least the drones aren’t gathering dust.

Virtual reality

VR has struggled to find purpose with mainstream audiences, with headsets failing to take off despite the best efforts of Oculus and HTC. However, researchers at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC have put the neglected tech to use to fight COVID-19.

One of the challenges of this pandemic has been treating the patients who are hardest hit by COVID-19 and understanding exactly what’s happening to their lungs. The hospital saw its first COVID-19 patient in mid-March and his condition quickly worsened. To understand why, doctors made a 3D image of his lungs to see the damage in VR. What they saw was alarming – but helped treat the patient.

“There is such a stark contrast between the virus-infected abnormal lung and the more healthy, adjacent lung tissue,” explained Dr Keith Mortman, chief of thoracic surgery at the hospital, in its podcast. “And it’s such a contrast that you do not need an MD after your name to understand these images.” Such is the power of virtual reality – and the damage caused by COVID-19.

Robotics

Medical staff on the front line are dying from infections passed on by their patients. We don’t yet have the robotics in place to help doctors and nurses operate at a distance from those sick with COVID-19, but it’s clear to see how automation could help.

Indeed, there are places where robotics are already helping in the fight against this pandemic. In China, robots were used to deliver meals to people under quarantine in hotels. Meanwhile, in Thailand, hospitals have been rolling out small robots equipped with displays to communicate with patients without risk of infection, as well as dole out food and medicine.

Danish company UVD Robots says that its ultraviolet cleaning robots have been shipped to China, Italy and elsewhere to zap viruses with light to help stop the spread of infections. “We are now helping solve one of the biggest problems of our time, preventing the spread of bacteria and viruses with a robot that saves lives in hospitals every day,” said Claus Risager, UVD Robots chairman, in a statement. It’s a clear example of how robotics can actually support human workers, rather than replacing jobs as so many fear.

AI and algorithms

There’s no question that artificial intelligence and algorithms have already had an impact on our lives – but they could save them too. These technologies are being used in a wide range of ways to help battle the novel coronavirus, from tracking cases to smart symptom checkers.

Doctorlink is one example. This online symptom checker’s algorithm was updated to include details about COVID-19 to help people understand whether they’re at risk from the disease and what steps to take next – and to reassure the “worried well” that they’re fine and should simply stay home.

“The symptom assessment app was first updated to detect potential cases of COVID-19 in January and is updated daily to reflect new guidance on the novel coronavirus from NHS England, Public Health England and the UK government,” said Rupert Spiegelberg, CEO of Doctorlink. “The latest release, which is available to the million patients across England, includes new logic to identify patients who are vulnerable due to their age or underlying health conditions and provide them with appropriate advice.”

AI is also being used to track the spread of the pandemic – including using our smartphone data for contact tracing – and to develop medicines, with British startup BenevolentAI using its predictive system to analyse already approved pharmaceuticals for their ability to help treat COVID-19.

Chatbots

Chatbots are stupid. You ask them a question and they can only answer if they figure out what you’re trying to say – and if they have that answer preprogrammed into them. But the World Health Organization (WHO) has found a use for the most basic of future technologies: fighting global misinformation about the pandemic.

The chatbot is available in messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Viber, making it easy to fact-check information forwarded by family and friends. To access the chatbot on WhatsApp, send a message saying “hi” to +41797818791. You’ll then get access to a menu of options, including the latest figures, how to protect yourself, travel advice and fact checking, as well as a question and answer service.

“The WHO aims to reach as many people as possible with reliable health information through innovative digital technology,” said WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Information is power and can help save lives during this pandemic.” A life-saving chatbot? Who would have thought

Providing staff with opportunities for training and upskilling is an increasingly important – and expensive – part of running a successful modern business. According to the latest Training Industry Report, the average training expenditure for large companies in 2019 was a whopping $17.7 million (£13.5 million).

This investment, which is largely poured into conventional classroom-style teaching, isn’t delivering much in return, however. Online learning provider Cerego’s recent State of Learning report has found that a staggering 70% of training is forgotten within 24 hours, and almost 90% is forgotten after 30 days.

The problems associated with traditional training methods don’t end here. “Issues like delivering consistent training, tracking skills application, quantifying training effectiveness and improving learning effectiveness are some of the constant challenges trainers have to deal with,” says Faisal Athar, lead extended reality (XR) engineer at Malaysian digital innovation firm Ministry XR.

Raffaella Camera, global head of innovation and market strategy at Accenture Extended Reality agrees, adding that training people in high-risk industries like mining and construction is particularly difficult. “Learning on site requires people to put themselves in potentially dangerous situations – often before they’ve completed the necessary training,” she says.

This is because it has been traditionally very difficult to replicate real-life scenarios in a classroom environment. “Even the best role-play actors and most convincing off-site environments can struggle to recreate a physical real-life scenario, and the high costs of these classroom-based courses can often render them a real challenge to scale across an organisation’s workforce,” says Jason Lovell, head of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) strategy at PwC UK.

A growing problem

The COVID-19 pandemic has not made things any easier. It’s no longer possible to bring large numbers of people together in small spaces and while e-learning is one solution, its effectiveness is limited. “E-learning can be more cost-effective but it can also be full of distractions – a busy inbox is never far from view and your people can feel distant from the action they see online,” says Lovell.

“You can watch a video or read books all you want, but it’s not the same as being in front of machinery and equipment, feeling the tools in your hands, and getting real-time feedback or changes take place in front of you,” adds Ramon Llamas, research director for mobile devices and AR/VR at IDC.

No longer reserved for the entertainment world or one-off gimmicks, VR is becoming increasingly accessible as a technology, with all sorts of industries adopting it to enhance core business processes, from product design and manufacturing to virtual retail showrooms. As with any technology entering the mainstream, this means your staff will become increasingly familiar with VR, and therefore more likely to respond to and benefit from VR training solutions. With all this in mind, the time is ripe for VR technologies to enter the fore and to transform learning for the better.

A virtual playing field

VR training can combat the shortfalls of traditional methods of training and further complement them. “By wholly immersing workers in an VR experience, you can connect to them in a way that being talked at or reading off a screen can't,” explains Colin Yellowley, founder and managing director of Igloo Vision, a UK-based firm that uses shared immersive spaces to show VR content. “As the old Confucius quote puts it, ‘I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand’.”

Unlike traditional practices, VR training can be constantly repeated for improving skill sets, or even randomised to create new scenarios for training. User performance can be tracked and graded automatically. Moreover, this type of training is scalable to hundreds or even thousands of people.

These VR environments also allow trainees to experience equipment or substances that would otherwise be limited or inaccessible. Llamas provides a good example: “For instance, training a warehouse worker to use a forklift truck can be an expensive process. You have to take a machine offline for a certain amount of time, train the employee, and the employee could end up damaging the machine or other assets. In a VR setting, a user can virtually pilot a forklift around a warehouse, conducting the proper exercises and safety steps to ensure correct usage. At the same time, the actual forklift stays in use and nothing gets damaged.”

While all of these benefits are significant, what’s perhaps most impressive is VR’s effectiveness.

Recent research from the University of Cambridge has found that training via VR resulted in 28% more productivity, 55% faster learning and 200% less mistakes than non-VR methods.

A number of pioneering organisations are already enjoying these benefits. Global retailer Walmart, for example, has reported 80% savings in training time by using VR to prepare store managers for Black Friday, America’s biggest shopping day.

UK wastewater utility solutions provider Lanes Group is using its Igloo Shared VR cylinder to train groups of engineers in simulations of various high-risk wastewater environments. Not only has this been successful, but it’s reduced employee attrition by 57% and decreased employee unhappiness by 9%.

The University School of Medicine in Atlanta, meanwhile, is using VR to train surgeons, resulting in a 40% reduction in mistakes made compared to surgeons who are conventionally trained.

For its part, multinational oil and gas company BP is integrating its own content into VR-based training provider Immerse’s Virtual Enterprise Platform (VEP). The training will be deployed internationally, and the platform will generate detailed data and reports on learner progress.

“VR and Simulation are key enablers to BP’s digital agenda and initiatives to provide our workforce global accessibility to best in class training,” said Anthony Del Barto, learning technology manager at BP, in a press statement. “The value of data in the workforce is critical, and the Immerse platform allows us to gather the vital information that we need in order to upskill our employees efficiently in an innovative and engaging way. This is both beneficial to us as a company, but also to our staff to ensure they’re getting the best learning and development possible.”

Advances are also being made in using VR for soft skills training and the rewards are there for those organisations that choose to adopt this approach. A soft skills study by PwC has found that 40% of VR learners saw an improvement in confidence compared to classroom learners and 35% improvement over e-learners to act on what they learned after training in VR.

This VR toolkit could also be utilised beyond training, for example, in the recruitment process. Just as VR technology can create scenarios to help staff develop skills, companies can develop virtual assessment centres with scenarios to test potential employees. As with training, this can be particularly useful for any roles with potential risks to people or property, or which would be very expensive to run in real life.

Powering the future of learning

As VR technology becomes more usable, affordable and powerful than it already is, and as expertise and experience in developing VR training improves, experts agree that it will become a core part of delivering training across all verticals in the years to come. In fact, IDC estimates that VR training will contribute $294 billion (£225 billion) to the global economy by 2030.

The rollout of 5G is set to be a big driver in the widescale uptake of VR technologies. This is because VR needs a reliable, consistent network with low latency to fully reach its potential. Not only will this help VR programmes run smoothly, but latency can also cause the dizzying sensation that many users complain of when using VR headsets.

“VR technology is constantly improving. By going wireless, improving battery life, creating more natural means of user interaction and generating greater processing power and graphics streaming, even more realistic and immersive training scenarios will be enabled,” says Asyran Amin, lead XR engineer at Ministry XR.

Lovell, meanwhile, says the technology will help drive a new age of learning, development and education by delivering a cost-effective, immersive and efficient experience to train people in both hard and soft skills. “VR offers unignorable benefits for organisations who want to train large sets of people, remotely and cost-effectively – with better outcomes compared to the existing, traditional training formats,” he says.

For Camera, VR training holds a wealth of opportunities, but more needs to be done before it can truly become a core part of skills development. “Currently, the vast majority of VR learning applications are for technical and behavioural training,” she says. “In order for it to become more mainstream, it is critical that companies start implementing these solutions at-scale, versus in siloed, one-off situations. At the same time, VR training will become more prevalent as the headsets themselves become more mainstream for consumers.”

“The more people who have VR devices on-hand, the more opportunities there will be for companies to provide employees with this type of training content,” she concludes.

If your working day is anything like mine, chances are you’ve spent most of your time bouncing from one video call to another over the past few weeks; I’ve spent so much time on Zoom that I feel like the interface is burned into my retinas. It’s not a bad way to stay in touch, compared to text-based messaging or standard phone calls, but it still feels oddly forced and impersonal in some ways. While I’m still a proponent of virtual pub trips and hangouts, I’m starting to tire of having endless video meetings.

Recently, however, my eyes have been opened to a better way of keeping in touch over long distances, and it comes from a somewhat unexpected source: virtual reality. Consumer VR has been a thing for a number of years, with Oculus, PlayStation and others trying to capture the attention of gamers with entertainment-focused headsets.

The concept has yet to gain a major foothold among the general public and in recent years VR companies have turned to the business sector in the hopes that it might catch on there. The response from enterprise has been similarly lukewarm, though; outside of areas like prototyping and 3D modelling, there seemed to be few practical applications for the technology, but our new era of social isolation might just have given VR its first killer app.

HTC’s Vive unit has this week taken the wraps off Vive Sync, a business-focused app that is essentially a virtual conferencing tool. Instead of plonking themselves down in front of a webcam to have a meeting, participants don a headset and are transported to a virtual space where they can move around and interact with full-body digital avatars representing their fellow attendees.

I tested out the new app – which is in beta until the end of the year – to talk to David Sapienza. David is the head of Vive’s internal 2 Bears studio and the mastermind behind Sync. Because 2 Bears’ developers are split between San Francisco and Taiwan, collaboration was always a bit of a headache even before the world went into lockdown.

Sync was originally developed as an internal tool to help mitigate this problem, allowing team members to collaborate with a greater sense of presence and personal connection by using an immersive VR environment. In the demo I was shown, this took the form of a serene little open-air platform with a view of the San Francisco bay in the background.

Is it a cheesy gimmick? In some ways, yes, but it’s also surprisingly engaging. Being able to see the body language of the person I was talking to (or at least a rough approximation of it), helped make the conversation feel more natural and genuine, and the ability to move around and switch between sitting and standing was welcome after weeks of having to be glued to my chair.

Beyond that, though, Sync is full of neat little touches that make it genuinely useful. You can spawn tables in a variety of sizes, for example, from small cafe-style tables all the way up to massive boardroom tables, or even amphitheatre seating; a small thing, but one that subtly helps structure and set the tone of a meeting, rather than everyone just floating around aimlessly.

You can also bring up a massive, cineplex-sized virtual screen to display slides, documents and videos within the environment, which conveniently switches to a night-time look for better visibility when you do so. An aesthetically pleasing world clock in the corner even lets participants keep track of what time it is in everyone’s respective corners of the globe, which means meetings are less likely to drag on into the wee hours.

For large, multinational companies who need to conduct in-depth meetings between different geographies, using something like Sync certainly makes more sense than flying a plane-load of executives to one central location. HTC itself is even set to conduct a full annual board meeting next week using the tool.

It’s got problems, of course, namely ones of accessibility. The beta version of Vive Sync is currently free, but you’ll have to pay for the service at some point, and you’ll have to drop several hundred pounds on a headset for every employee that needs to access it. With that being said, I used a standalone Vive Focus Plus headset to dial in, and the setup process was mercifully short and simple. The company is also planning to open it up to more platforms in the future, including potentially other VR headset models and ever letting people dial in on a normal PC.

There are stumbling blocks, and the technology isn’t likely to replace the trusty video call any time soon – but sticking a VR helmet on and having the next best thing to a real-life face-to-face conversation felt closer to the future promised by utopian science fiction than anything I’ve experienced to date. It’s not quite the holodeck – but I can see it from here.

This article originally appeared in February's edition of IT Pro 20/20, available here. To sign up to receive each new issue in your inbox, click here.

Having the ability to access additional information via augmented reality (AR) is becoming more commonplace as businesses realise the advantages this can deliver. Enhancing what people see via smartphones, tablets and – increasingly – head-mounted displays (HMDs), has the potential to transform many business processes.

The business case for AR has been coming into focus over the last five years. Technologies such as the original Google Glass and Blippar were early pioneers. Today, AR has moved to mobile digital devices – Google’s AR maps for example and Microsoft’s HoloLens is making inroads into specific sectors most notably healthcare.

AR has quickly matured and is now finding practical applications in a wide range of industries including manufacturing, entertainment and healthcare. It is also actively used in the travel sector as an ideal technology for wayfinding at airports. In the cosmetics and fashion industries, where try-before-you-buy literally offers a new dimension, consumers can explore on a highly personal level. In the food and beverage sector, meanwhile, packaging is increasingly using AR to reveal detailed product content to support consumer purchasing decisions.

In a business process setting, AR is also changing how workforces approach tasks. Boeing, for example, is using AR in its production processes, where engineers can see wiring diagrams overlaid onto engines as they are assembled. The company claims moving away from paper drawing has cut wiring time by 30%.

DHL, meanwhile, has expanded its vision picking programme worldwide using Google Glass Enterprise Edition to locate and pick inventory. The company estimates its workers are 15% more efficient using the AR technology than they were without it.

According to research from IT services company Cognizant, 82% business leaders expect substantial AR-driven redesign of business processes in the near future.

Rob Brown, vice president, Cognizant’s Centre for the Future of Work, tells IT Pro: "Where technology has digitised previously repetitive, manual, and paper-based work processes, AR will take the next step by rewiring business process journeys to allow information to be exchanged while on the move. It will remove activities that involve checking information and toggling between multiple documents.

“Many businesses are already embracing the technology. Coca-Cola, for example, is using AR to help its retail partners visualise how drinks coolers would look in their stores; Caterpillar is reducing the significant cost of downtime by using AR for servicing its on-site portable generators; and Walmart is leveraging the technology for employee training,” Brown adds.

The ambitions that businesses from a diverse range of sectors have for AR and VR are only now being realised. Mobile digital technologies have caught up with the AR promise and can provide a technology platform on which to build AR services.

Overlaying reality

Industrial process augmentation is a growth area for AR that will continue to expand. Indeed, in its 2019 State of Industrial Augmented Reality report, software and services provider PTC found that where industrial businesses had implemented AR experiences, 69% of use cases were focused on benefitting their internal workers in engineering, manufacturing, service and training.

In its own report on AR, Seeing is Believing, consultancy PwC explained: “Many businesses are starting to recognise the opportunity to create new revenue streams and grow existing ones. Retail, hospitality and automotive are just three sectors already exploring the potential to sell and showcase products via both VR and AR, while gaming and entertainment companies are using the technology to create new experiences and products.”

Leila Martine, UK product marketing director of Mixed Reality at Microsoft tells IT Pro: “We have found that with AR, it is really important to start with bottom-up projects that quickly deliver ROI and impact into businesses. Alongside this, it's also important for there to be a strategic level of focus and investment to harness new technologies like mixed reality. A great example is the Airbus Holographic Academy in Toulouse. After going through initial [trials], Airbus realised the potential of mixed reality across their business and centralised a team to help Airbus look across their internal and customer-facing requirements and streamline this right into their business.”

The power of AR is that it can narrow almost any skills gap that may exist in a business and can also accelerate customer support in a range of scenarios. Maintenance situations, for example, have become the most conspicuous use of on-site and off-site AR. Increasingly though, business communications within and between teams will use AR when highly technical information must be assessed and acted upon.

Customer experiences are also on the cusp of being transformed. As high-speed 5G rolls out and the Internet of Things (IoT) delivers intelligent environments, products and services will increasingly become AR-enabled. The value to businesses is a closer relationship with their customers. For instance, Hidden Side from Lego can be played with without the need for AR, but the extra dimension AR delivers can be applied in countless other user scenarios.

Future dimensions

Overall spending on AR and VR is expected to grow significantly over the course of this year and over the rest of the decade. In Seeing is Believing, PwC predicted the technology will add £62.5 billion to the UK economy by 2030, with the majority of that figure coming from investment in AR. This includes both internal use cases like training and on the job guidance (which is expected to impact almost half a million employees in this country alone), as well as customer engagement initiatives.

Speaking to IT Pro, Jeremy Dalton, head of VR/AR, PwC UK adds: “Smartphone AR will continue to exist alongside wearable head-mounted displays, especially as the consumer world is still a major force in the AR market.

“In the longer term, we can expect consumers to grow more comfortable with using head-mounted technology for AR features, but this will not totally eradicate the demand for smartphone AR. In the far future, once the technology effectively becomes transparent (think contact lenses), this will be the likely point where we see a phasing out of non-wearable AR.”

Whether AR is used to enhance end-user products, deliver detailed information for technically intensive manufacturing environments, or used to upskill workforces, it has precise applications all businesses can explore.

A clear development roadmap is critical to identify how AR could be applied and how AR services could be delivered. From simple solutions based on smartphones to more advanced implementations using HMD such as HoloLens or ThinkReality’s A6 headset, applying the right hardware and software will ensure high levels of ROI.

PwC’s Dalton concludes: “Augmented reality's future is an evolution of form and user experience – expect headsets to become lighter, smaller and more intuitive to use. Inevitably, as is the case with hardware in general, costs will also fall, further enhancing the investment case for organisations.”

The applications of AR by large firms such as Boeing, AutoDesk and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust grab the headlines as they are pioneering the use of AR in mixed reality environments. However, these large-scale programmes can seem out of reach for most businesses. AR, though, is scalable. Companies that can see how to improve an area of business operations either internally or externally can use AR today with reasonable levels of investment.

Google will stop selling its Daydream View headsets. The BBC has halted investment in its virtual reality team. And Samsung won’t be supporting its Gear VR on future smartphones, earning a heartfelt eulogy from rival VR firm Oculus. It’s not looking good for phone-based virtual reality. Is this the end? And, if so, what’s next?

Oculus’ CTO John Carmack admitted in his eulogy – a talk given at a development conference – that there were tech problems for smartphone-based VR, which uses your own handset to power the device. Those challenges included battery drain and overheating issues, a lack of compelling content, but also the “friction” of slotting a handset into the headset. “If you could magically hold your phone up in front of your face and it just transformed into a VR headset, we’d have like 95% retention,” he said. “But if you have to pop your phone out of its phone case and dock it into a Gear case, you’ll use it twice.” He suggested Oculus considered adding a gamepad controller as it made gaming easier and more fun, but couldn’t make it work with the tech.

Anthony Steed, a professor in the department of computer science at University College London, agrees that smartphone VR has been disappointing. “As an experienced VR researcher, they were quite good [for] raising awareness, but the quality of [the] experience was nowhere near the high-end displays,” he said. “If anything, it was a little premature as these systems didn’t really show off the full potential of having full tracking (position and rotation) of both head and hands. Because of the range of devices, Daydream was a little hard to target as a developer.”

However, the future could still be bright. “If you compare [it] to the Oculus Quest, which is basically the same technical components as a smartphone, there the experience is much superior as it is all dedicated or customised to the task,” said Steed.

Is peak VR in the past?

George Jijiashvili, senior analyst at Ovum, notes that smartphone VR headset sales actually peaked in 2017, when Samsung announced it had shipped five million Gear headsets – although he believes that many were given away for free. At that time, Google said ten million Daydreams had shipped since its launch three years before. Even with those millions of devices, there was still never enough of an install base to support content makers.

Ovum downgraded predictions for the tech last year and Jijiashvili expects the figures to remain muted. “Unrealistic expectations were set for the adoption of VR headsets back in 2016, when many companies jumped to invest in this new and exciting media format,” he said, admitting that analyst firms like his own added to the problem: “This industry got caught up by the VR hype to some degree, but now everyone has had a reality check.”

Indeed, while right now the discussion around the smartphone VR market is negative – eulogies are rarely good news, after all – that doesn’t mean the technology is wrong, merely that the mass perception of it might be skewed. Tuong Nguyen, senior principal analyst at Gartner, argues that smartphone VR is still at its adolescent stage. “Characterising phone-based VR as being dead based on recent news items is misleading,” he said. “Just because it’s not ready now, or because the VR market is not mature now, doesn’t mean there’s no opportunity for it ever or in the future.”

What’s next for VR?

Set aside the eulogies and shuttered projects, and there is still life in VR. “Despite the doom and gloom stories about VR, spurred on by these recent developments, I remain very optimistic about VR’s future,” said Jijiashvili. “Abandoning phone-based headsets like Gear VR and Daydream is just part of VR’s journey.” Indeed, smartphone VR helped millions of people give the technology a try to better understand its possibilities, he argues, and let tech companies test hardware and content, helping to inform the next generation of devices.

So while smartphone-based displays may be dying off, VR still has a future – or many futures, according to Steed. Gaming headsets will continue to develop, driving consumer demand, he predicts, while industrial uses will require higher quality, specifically designed headsets to fit niche applications. “So we can’t really talk about one next step for VR, there are multiple ones,” he said.

Jijiashvili agrees. “Gaming remains the low-hanging fruit for VR, but this technology is rapidly gaining traction in enterprise – and I think this area offers massive growth potential for VR,” he told us. “Design, education, training, marketing, healthcare and collaboration are a few use cases that companies all around the world are increasingly using VR for. The move towards standalone VR headsets is further accelerating this trend. As you can imagine, it’s easier for companies to manage and utilise integrated, wire-free headsets instead of PC or smartphone-tethered solutions.”

Frank Furnari, the founder of VRtuoso, echoes this sentiment. While his presentation and conferencing software can use dedicated headsets or smartphone-based devices, it’s much harder to support the former. “Corporate smartphones are locked down,” he said. “And Oculuses are becoming much cheaper.” Indeed, the cost of a high-end smartphone is much more than the latest dedicated headsets, he notes, suggesting VR will take off with dedicated headsets, and was held back by smartphone-based models.

So there are still plenty of ways for VR to find a niche – we just need to see past the hype and find uses for it. “The mismatch between expectations and what VR can do is one of the biggest reasons why it always seems like the coming week or month or year is always the year for VR or the year VR is dead,” said Nguyen. “VR is definitely coming and it can deliver value in different ways – some, if not many, of which we haven’t discovered yet. But as I mentioned above, it’s not today, tomorrow, or even next year. It’s two to five years out.” In other words, the future is bright for VR, because it simply isn’t here yet.

Virtual Reality is a major trend at the moment, whether talking in consumer applications or business applications. It was even the main subject of Steven Spielberg's major Hollywood blockbuster 'Ready Player One', which is set in 2045 and focuses on VR software called OASIS a VR platform that humans turn to when their world becomes so desolate, they seek solace in an artificial one.

But VR is equally as important in the real world. It's often used for gaming, where people can use it to escape from the everyday grind, entertaining themselves with an alternate reality. Although the technology has largely been associated with gaming, it's not all about shooting zombies or flying spaceships.

There are apps to immerse yourself in a story, apps for creating Art, for travelling without actually leaving your sofa, there are even apps for getting more out of popular video streaming sites the possibilities are endless.

Read on to see our pick of the best apps around for a quality virtual reality experience.

Cisco Spark VR

Cisco Spark VR breaks down physical distances by enabling teams to communicate, regardless of their location. Whether colleagues are thousands of miles apart, or just around the corner from each other, virtual reality kits make it possible to meet and collaborate in digital form rather than send countless emails or messages to each other.

It includes features such as Cisco Spark Spaces for group chats, sharing files, a virtual whiteboard, video chat and instant messaging. To use Cisco Spark VR you'll need an Oculus Rift headset and an existing Cisco Spark account.

NYT VR

The New York Times has used virtual reality to put its readers at the centre of stories they have covered. The publication pushed the frontiers of journalism by reporting on the US presidential race and the Syrian refugee crisis in an immersive 360-degree fashion with the NYT VR. The app posts new VR films every month.

Tilt Brush

If you want someone to understand both how impressive VR can be and that it's not just for games, Tilt Brush is the app to show them. The concept of using VR to create three-dimensional paintings is a simple one, but put it the right hands and the results can be truly astounding.

YouTube

YouTube has - by far - the largest library of virtual reality content around. All of the videos on the platform can be watched in VR in a virtual theatre, and it also supports 360-degree video, allowing users to upload their own VR footage. The content itself might not be revolutionary yet, but if 360-degree video is ever going to go mainstream, YouTube is where it'll be.

Google Earth VR

The beauty of VR is that it can take you to strange and faraway places. This doesn't have to mean distant galaxies though; with Google Earth's VR app, you can explore some of the most iconic and breathtaking landscapes on the planet, zooming over entire continents at will.

VuildUs

Samsung's experimental VuildUs software allows users to scan a room and plan out the interior design in virtual reality, placing furniture and fittings and changing colours. Although designed primarily for home users, it has real applications for architecture, planning and business - so much so that we gave it an award for best business software when it was debuted at MWC 2017.

Minecraft

As one of the most popular games ever made, it's no surprise that there's a VR version Minecraft. In fact, Oculus CTO John Carmack ported it to the device himself. Although it's technically a game, the sheer scale and versatility of Minecraft (particularly for areas like education) make it one of the most interesting pieces of VR software around.

While the Oculus Rift has garnered a lot of attention in the press, Microsoft's HoloLens appears to be shaping up to be a very interesting take on virtual reality headsets.

The HoloLens was the surprise announcement at the Windows 10 launch earlier in the year with members of the press taken to the firm's Building 92 for a demonstration of the headset and some hands-on time with it.

But just what does the HoloLens do, how much will it cost and when will the general public be able to buy it? Read on

Microsoft HoloLens latest news

Microsoft HoloLens release date

Microsoft HoloLens price

Microsoft HoloLens specs, features and rumours

Microsoft HoloLens verdict

Microsoft HoloLens latest news

19/09/2018: Microsoft rolls out HoloLens for businesses with Dynamics 365 update

Microsoft will expand its Dynamics 365 platform so its HoloLens headset can take advantage of newly-incorporated AI and mixed-reality applications.

The firm will release a host of new AI applications, Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and Dynamics 365 Layout for its enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) platform in a fresh release available from 1 October.

"Since the release of Microsoft HoloLens over two years ago, the team has learned a lot from customers and partners," said Microsoft's corporate vice president for business applications and industry Alysa Taylor.

"The momentum that HoloLens has received within the commercial space has been overwhelmingly positive. This has been supported by increased demand and deployment from some of the world's most innovative companies."

Announcing its plans ahead of the flagship conference Microsoft Ignite, hosted next week in Orlando, Taylor also cited how inspectors at oil firm Chevron made used HoloLens and Dynamics 365 Remote Assistant to cut down on travel time.

"Previously it was required to fly in an inspector from Houston to a facility in Singapore once a month to inspect equipment," she continued.

"Now it has in-time inspection using Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and can identify issues or provide approvals immediately.

"In addition, remote collaboration and assistance have helped the company operate more safely in a better work environment, serving as a connection point between firstline workers and remote experts, as well as cutting down on travel and eliminating risks associated with employee travel."

Microsoft's full complement of AI applications including Dynamics 365 AI for Sales, Dynamics 365 AI for Customer Service, and Dynamics 365 AI for Market Insights. These tools aim to offer organisations better insights, and can be deployed through Microsoft Power BI, Azure and the Common Data Service.

"The thing that's most exciting for me and as to what we at Microsoft can do is to make every company an AI-first company, because they already have customers, they already have data," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

"And if we can democratise the use of AI tools, every company can then harness the power of AI, and I think that that's really core to our mission."

01/05/2018: You can now lease a HoloLens for 260 per month

Microsoft's mixed-reality headset HoloLens can now be leased as part of a monthly subscription, the company announced today.

The European-wide initiative will allow customers to rent a HoloLens headset for 260 per month per device over a two-year period. This covers the cost of delivery and warranty during the contract, and collection and recycling at the end of the term.

The device was previously only available as a one-off purchase of 4,529, or 2,719 for the developer's edition.

Tech training and support firm JTRS and parent company Econocom will support the leasing of devices to UK customers as part of a 'Mixed Reality as a Service' package. This also includes optional extras, including an ability to increase the number of leased devices, and the option to keep some when the contract finishes.

"The aim of this partnership between Microsoft and Econocom is to help our clients speed up their digital transformation," said Paul Corriveau, Microsoft's global head of network marketing and partners for HoloLens.

"By offering mixed reality 'as a service', Econocom is establishing itself as a market leader and confirming its commitment to making mixed reality and 3D technologies accessible to any company looking to improve its productivity and ways of working."

Microsoft hopes the new pricing structure will allow companies to take advantage of the tech without the steep upfront cost, although in reality the price of the term will mean customers will end up paying over 2,000 more for the device over the two-year period.

Subscription information is available here

02/11/2017: Microsoft launches HoloLens in 29 more countries

Microsoft will be extending the availability of its HoloLens virtual reality headset to 29 new countries across Europe, including Belgium, Denmark, Spain and Italy.

This will add to its current coverage in the UK, Australia, Canada, France, China, Germany, New Zealand and the US, tripling the territories where it can be purchased.

"At Microsoft we are on a mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more," said Lorraine Bardeen, general manager of Microsoft HoloLens and Windows experiences.

"Mixed reality has the potential to help customers and businesses across the globe do things that, until now, have never been possible. Mixed reality experiences will help businesses and their employees complete crucial tasks faster, safer, more efficiently, and create new ways to connect to customers and partners."

The company also announced today that HoloLens has been certified for use as protective eyewear - which will come as good news for some industries wanting to make use of the VR headset. It can also be used on construction sites, where architects and engineers can visualise a building's construction in real time.

"We're happy to announce a HoloLens hard hat accessory is in production and will be available for purchase next year," Bardeen added.

Microsoft HoloLens release date

Microsoft is keeping quiet about when it plans to release the HoloLens to the consumer market, but a prototype developer version is available today. Released on 30 March 2016, this early model has so far only been available to customers in the US and Canada, however Microsoft's global expansion, announced in October, will open up the programme for those in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, France and Germany.

A consumer device is still in the works, with recent rumours suggesting Microsoft will skip its version two HoloLens and fast track development on a third iteration, expected to release in 2019.

In an interview with BBC Click, CEO Satya Nadella has said that the road to HoloLens will be a "five-year journey", and indicated that the company was prioritising delivering the device to developers and enterprise customers before releasing it to 'Joe Public'.

Microsoft HoloLens price

Microsoft's developer version launched at an eye-watering $3,000 per unit, although there is currently no indication what prices it will sell for outside of the US and Canada. A commercial suite is also available, priced at $5,000, offering additional business focused features such as Bitlocker security and an extended warranty.

As of the 1 May, Hololens devices can be leased through JTRS and Econocom in the UK for 260 per month per device over a two year period. This includes the price of delivery, warranty, collection, and recycling at the end of the term.

Microsoft HoloLens specs, features and rumours

The HoloLens is one of the first VR headsets to combine reality with its virtual counterpart, creating what's called an augmented reality - layering computer-generated images on top of the real world.

Design

At its initial unveiling, Microsoft was keen to show off the sleek design and build quality of its headset. Featuring a set of twin lenses and an all-in one-headband, it looked fairly impressive. In fact, it's oddly reminiscent of the aliens' headgear from the original V miniseries.

V - the 1980s miniseries/HoloLens pioneer

Those that were privy to the behind-closed-doors hands-on, however, tell a different story. In IT Pro's experience, HoloLens was less fancy space-goggles, and more "a bicycle helmet that's had most of its frame removed, with two large lenses in front of [the] eyes, and a sensor array over [the] forehead".

There are two rings that almost encompass the head. The outer ring contains all the hardware that runs the device, while the inner ring is adjustable to the wearer's head.

Hardware

HoloLens is powered by three processors, the CPU, GPU and HPU. The most notable of these is the Holographic Processing Unit, which handles all the data coming in from sensors on the device, which in turn makes sense of the world around it.

"The advanced sensors in HoloLens capture information about what you're doing and the environment you're in," Todd Holmdahl explained on the Lumia Conversations blog.

"This is done through the inertial measurement unit (IMU) which includes an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer. It's this IMU, coupled with head tracking cameras, which enables HoloLens to understand where your head is and how it's moving."

It is also includes four cameras mounted on the headset to track movement of the user within their environment, as well as one 2MP HD camera for taking photos and recording video.

Microsoft has used a 32-bit processor based on Intel's Cherry Trail line of processors, while the HPU is a custom-made processor designed specifically for the HoloLens. Both of these feature 1GB of LPDDR3 and share 8MB of SRAM.

Cherry Trail chips are able to crunch through large amounts of data, such as what is being looked at, what the user is doing with their arms (reaching for something, touching a surface) as well as what is in the user's surroundings. This is stuff we take for granted as humans, but takes considerable computation power to pull off for the headset. The HoloLens also includes a built-in rechargable battery, which is estimated to last around 2-3 hours with continuous use.

The headset also features WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity.

Operating system and apps

As Microsoft has committed itself to running apps across all platforms, the HoloLens unsurprisingly runs Windows 10. In theory the same app could run across your desktop, laptop, phone, tablet, Xbox and HoloLens.

The reality is that the HoloLens runs specialist apps that built for headset use only, although it is compatible with Microsoft's digital assitant Cortana. Microsoft has already made lots of noise about its 3D design and prototyping software Holo Studio, which allows users to manipulate projects in three dimensions, and more will probably follow.

Developers also have access to Windows 10 APIs to incorporate gesture controls and eye tracking into apps running on HoloLens. However developers don't have direct access to sensors. The reason Microsoft gave for this was that this would lead to an inconsistent experience for users.

The HoloLens is pretty much a self-contained computer, however, in order to upload apps, it has to be hooked up to a PC via a micro USB cable.

Games

The HoloLens team is said to be working with Xbox to produce games for the device. Xbox lead Phil Spencer told delegates at the Game Developers Conference in March that his team would be developing games for the device. Again, this appears to be part of the strategy of having a universal app platform for Microsoft.

Spencer said in an interview with Re/Code that he felt gaming with a HoloLens would be more for general users rather than devoted gamers, and isn't modelled as a gaming device the way devices like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift are.

However, Microsoft has shown off demos of smash-hit Minecraft running on HoloLens, and the prospect of having a Minecraft world laid out across your living room has been getting fans very excited indeed.

Microsoft HoloLens verdict

Assessing how successful the HoloLens will be is somewhat difficult, however we have had the opportunity to try out a prototype build. Overall, we believe the HoloLens shows promise as an enterprise device, and we can see it being easily integrated into the workflows of most businesses.

However it is far from a finished product, and suffers from a particularly limited field of view that obstructs most of your vision. These niggling problems need to be ironed out before it hits the mainstream market.

It won't replace desktops and laptops any time soon, but it is clearly something set to shake up computing when it becomes widely available.

Click the next page for more HoloLens news

More HoloLens news

25/07/2017: Microsoft is working on an AI chip for its next version of the HoloLens.

Marc Pollefeys, director of science at HoloLens, explained in a blog post on Sunday that the AI coprocessor is designed to work in the next version of HoloLens and will run off its battery.

The new AI coprocessor will be incorporated into the second version of the Holographic Processing Unit (HPU). It will be able to implement deep neural networks, and the chip "supports a wide variety of layer types, fully programmable by us". This means the processor will be able to analyse what the user sees and hears and even recognise objects without using the cloud or having an internet connection.

Pollefeys said: "Mixed reality and artificial intelligence represent the future of computing, and we're excited to be advancing this frontier."

Microsoft joins other tech companies who are looking to develop their own AI chips. ARM announced in May that it was looking to put AI chips into mobile devices through its new processors. Intel also stated last year that it had a new strategy for putting AI into products and it hoped that in the next three years it would reduce the time to train a deep learning model by up to 100 times.

This technology could increase the amount of ways the new HoloLens could be used. In May we reported that a firm was using the HoloLens to develop an AR surgical system that equips surgeons with "X-ray vision". Prior to that, a Finnish research firm also believed it had come up with a way of using the device on the ISS, so astronauts could gain access to real-time data that would usually be out of reach.

12/05/2017: A company is exploring how augmented reality could transform surgery which could lower risk involved in operations.

Product design and development firm Cambridge Consultants is using Microsoft's HoloLens headset to develop an AR surgical system that equips surgeons with "X-ray vision".

This vision will make it possible to see inside a patient in real time while operating through minimally invasive openings. The new system also uses data visualisation to give surgeons easy access to patient records and operating information while they work.

Cambridge Consultants hopes to also improve keyhole surgery with the AR system as it provides a real-time 3D interactive perspective of the inside of the patient, and helps to guide the surgeon.

Simon Karger, the head of surgical and interventional products at Cambridge Consultants, said: "AR has the potential to fundamentally change the surgical experience by giving the surgeon a new dimension of information in an easy-to-use way".

Earlier this month a Finnish research firm believed it had come up with a way of using the HoloLens on the International Space Station, meaning that astronauts could gain access to real-time data that would usually be out of reach.

This would be through visual representations of telemetry data from the station and on the ground which include fault diagnostics, radiation and temperature readings.

02/05/2017: A Finnish research firm believes it has come up with a new way of exploiting the HoloLens headset for use on the International Space Station, helping astronauts gain access to real time data that would otherwise be out of reach.

Following a two-year research project, the VTT Technical Research Centre has developed a way for ISS workers to see visual representations of telemetry data from equipment on-board and on the ground, including fault diagnostics or radiation and temperature readings.

Maintenance technicians typically rely on referring to printed or online data for instructions on how to proceed, which often slows down the process and delays essential repairs. Maintenance onboard the ISS is critical, and often requires in-depth preparation and practice before launch, with the assistance of various experts.

Picture courtesy of Domenico Tedone, Thales-Alenia Space, Italy

The EdcAR project (Engineering data in cross-platform AR), which was funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), intends to solve this problem over two years by "making the invisible, visible".

By using the HoloLens display, the new system will be able to guide astronauts step by step to perform maintenance procedures in the right order, using graphics, text, and video. The hope is that this will improve the performance of manual tasks, reduce mistakes, and reduce the time it takes to make decisions, according to the team.

The program will be able to tell the astronaut how to perform procedures, such as "now press this button" and "then turn the lever (B)", according a team statement.

"The AR system that we developed runs on the Microsoft HoloLens platform. It supports the astronauts' work in a completely new way by displaying key telemetry data through an IoT interface," said VTT project manager Kaj Helin.

The first practical tests of the new system have already been performed at the ISS-Columbus training station housed at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany.

"This is very impressive. We are exploring possibilities for an EdcAR follow on," said David Martinez Oliveira, technical officer at the ESA.

The team believes the technology could be adapted for use within other sectors, including aviation, machine building, shipping, and power plants.

13/03/2017: Microsoft takes HoloLens app programme to UK

Three UK partners have joined a Microsoft programme to help businesses develop VR applications for the HoloLens headset.

Redmond's expanded HoloLens Agency Partner Readiness programme now includes Black Marble, Fundamental VR and Rewind - all UK distributors who can help UK companies build apps that take advantage of HoloLens's VR capabilities.

"Working with one of our hand-selected HoloLens Agency Readiness Partners is one of the quickest ways to get started with creating mixed reality applications that can transform working with 3D data, bringing new products and information to life, and creating new opportunities for business growth," said Lorraine Bardeen, Microsoft's general manager of HoloLens and Windows Experiences, in a blog post.

With France's Immersion and Holoforge, and Germany's Zuhlke, Microsoft has expanded the programme to a total six European partners, on top of its original 10 US and Canada vendors it announced at Build 2016.

Black Marble, for instance, offers a workshop to explain people how HoloLens works and what it can be used for, before helping customers scope out a tool to develop.

Fundamental VR said it offers mixed reality tools for medical training and procedures, workplace collaboration tools and education training.

Sol Rogers, CEO & founder of Rewind, which creates a Red Bull Air Race mixed reality experience called Flight Deck, said: "The ambition is for Flight Deck to be experienced across the whole Red Bull Air Race 2017 season -- on the ground at races and in the homes of fans. Telemetry data from the position of planes will be used to watch head-to-head battles in the sky in real-time. It's the future of live sport and we're thrilled to be part of it."

20/02/2017: Microsoft 'stalls HoloLens upgrade until 2019'

The next version of HoloLens won't hit the shops until 2019, according to a new report.

Microsoft isn't in any rush to release a new VR headset, according to Thurrott.com, which cites sources who say the tech giant is skipping version two to work on version three of the device, with a release date around two years away.

The HoloLens is currently available as a developer's edition and a commercial model, costing 2,719 and 4,529 respectively.

But thanks to a lack of competition - with companies like Magic Leap still without a VR model available to buy - Microsoft wants to focus on its third iteration of the HoloLens, shelving the upgrade it had been working on.

Saying the third version is "closer to a generational leap", Thurrott.com says the third iteration means a device useable in every day life is more likely to become reality sooner.

IT Pro has approached Microsoft for comment. A spokesperson said in a statement to IT Pro: "Mixed reality is the future of computing, and Microsoft HoloLens is the future and present of mixed reality. Our commitment requires no roadmap."

30/11/2016: Microsoft has announced the HoloLens is coming to Japan from 2 December, making it the first Asian territory to be able to get its hands on the device. Although preorders will start from later this week, the headset won't ship until early 2017.

"We continue to be inspired by the work developers and customers are doing with HoloLens across the globe. Japan is no different," Microsoft's Alex Kipman said. "One of the companies already innovating with HoloLens is Japan Airlines.

"By using HoloLens, Japan Airlines has developed two proof-of-concept programs to provide supplemental training for engine mechanics, and for flight crew trainees who want to be promoted to co-pilot status. We are very excited to have them on this holographic journey with us."

Back in October, Microsoft announced the HoloLens would be arriving in six new territories, including the UK, Australia, Ireland, France, Germany and New Zealand. It's hoping to offer the headset worldwide next year, although it seems to be announcing each territory individually.

"Since January 2015 we have been hard at work to bring the vision of mixed reality to life," Kipman added. "It has been inspiring to see what has been created by our partners, and the team remains in awe of the way developers are using HoloLens. We can't wait to see what everyone in Japan creates when they get their hands on HoloLens."

26/10/2016: Microsoft announced today that HoloLens would be receiving integrations with Windows 10's newly announced 3D content creation tools. Using Microsoft's Edge browser and the new 3D model library, users would be able to pull digital 3D object into the AR environment created by your HoloLens.

One example the company showcased was a proof-of-concept app developed in partnership with interior design firm Houzz, allowing users to pull out and manipulate 3D models of furniture to see how they would look in real life.

24/10/2016: Microsoft has now officially opened up UK pre-orders for the HoloLens developer kit, and IT Pro got hands-on with the headset to see if it really lives up to the 2,700 asking price.

In short, it's an incredibly impressive technical achievement, but one that's hampered by its limited field of view. The core technology is amazing - unlike other VR headsets, HoloLens is completely untethered, with all the processing power contained in the unit itself. The display quality is also fantastic.

Sadly, that display is relegated to a very small area. While the transparent visor means you can still see everything around you, the digital content projected by the headset only appears in a very small window, about the size of a 24in monitor viewed from 1m away.

It's a frustrating drawback, and one we can only hope that Microsoft gets round in time for the device's full release. If you can get past this limitation, though, HoloLens is a very sophisticated device, and one that has more practical business applications than you might initially expect.

Latest News

26/06/2018

Vive Libraries programme will equip 110 libraries with VR headsets

HTC has announced its new Vive Libraries programme, which will bring virtual reality headsets to 110 libraries based across California and Nevada.

The initiative will allow visitors in the two states to access a wealth of information via the headsets - including dedicated educational apps packed with immersive content.

"Instead of card catalogs, banks of computers pipe broadband access to all the wonders of the Internet," said Chris Chin, executive director, Education VR Content at HTC Vive, said in a blog post. "I can start a 3D print job and roam freely with a checked-out laptop and Wi-Fi hotspot. And now, I can visit a local library and once again enter that gateway to infinite untold adventures simply by putting on an HTC Vive - and of course, all for free!"

HTC says it has developed and curated "over 35 of the most immersive educational and experiential VR apps" for library users, which will allow visitors to take virtual trips of famous landmarks, experience animals in their natural habitats, build virtual models for 3d printing, and much more.

"These amazing experiences span the best of Arts & Culture, Creativity, Design, History, STEM, Travel, and Wellness," Chin concluded, adding that the program will eventually expand to "more communities, states and countries around the world".

25/05/2018

European VR startups can now sign up to Vive X

Virtual reality startups based in Europe can now sign up to HTC's Vive X program before 30th June, the company has announced, following the opening of its brand new Vive X hub in London.

The Vive X program is HTC's global VR/AR accelerator program, designed to provide young VR companies with education, investment and mentorship - as well as to grow the overall virtual reality ecosystem. The new London HQ becomes the sixth Vive X location to open, joining locations in Taipei, Shenzhen, San Fancisco and Tel Aviv, as well as two in Beijing.

"London will act as a hub for startups across Europe (not just UK), a region that we believe has a huge amount of talent and several clusters of innovation around the core technologies of interest to Vive X (ie. VR, AR, AI, 5G)," Dave Haynes, director of Vive X Europe, announced in a blog post.

"We're especially interested in hearing from companies working on B2B and enterprise applications, a market that we believe European startups are especially well placed to address."

Following a successful meetup in London, HTC said it also plans to visit the "thriving hubs" of Helsinki, Paris, Madrid, Berlin and Amsterdam in June to raise awareness of the program.

VR/AR startups can sign up to Vive X before 30 June.

HTC Vive: All you need to know

Anyone with half an eye on the tech scene during the last couple of years will have noticed that virtual reality is the hot new trend. Numerous companies including Google, Samsung, OnePlus and more have thrown their hats into the ring, but thus far, the HTC Vive appears to be the most impressive.

The HTC Vive is one of the first true VR headsets, and arguably the most impressive. While the Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR both offer immersive virtual reality experiences, the HTC Vive is the only one that offers ‘room-scale’ VR.

This means that the HTC Vive will track your movement within an area of up to 15ft by 15ft, allowing users to freely walk around the virtual environment. Thanks to the motion controllers bundled with the Vive, one can even reach out and pick up virtual objects.

The HTC Vive is incredibly impressive, but impressive technology requires equally impressive hardware. Similar to the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive requires a top-end gaming PC in order to properly run.

The recommended specifications provided by HTC include an Nvidia GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 graphics card, along with at least 4GB of RAM and an Intel Core-i5 4590 or AMD FX 8350 CPU.

On top of these undeniably steep hardware requirements, users are expected to stump up almost £750 for the headset itself. As Jonathan Wagstaff, UK & Ireland country manager at tech analyst firm Context, explains, this may need to change before the HTC Vive can fully succeed as a mass-market commercial device. “Driving down the cost of VR-ready hardware will help drive both the adoption of HMDs and grow the already burgeoning PC gaming market,” he says.

Suitability for business & launch of Vive BE

However, while high technical requirements and an expensive cost of entry may prove a barrier to consumer adoption, the HTC Vive faces no such problems in a business environment. In the enterprise, the budget for IT systems is much higher, with business workstations frequently running to more than £1000.

This fact is not lost on HTC, and the company is actively courting the enterprise market. Earlier in the year, the company launched the Vive Business Edition in order to capitalise on the enterprise applications of immersive VR.

As well as all the standard features of the consumer edition, the Vive BE also includes business-specific features such as a dedicated support line and a 12-month limited warranty.

In fact, while gaming is currently the most immediately obvious application for the Vive, there are numerous key verticals that could benefit from the use of virtual reality technology, including healthcare, education, and more.

Virtual reality environments are not totally new, Wagstaff notes, but added that “previous price-points (in the tens of thousands of dollars) have meant that this was restricted to large research institutions. Now with HMDs retailing at a fraction of the cost it is democratising the usage of devices.

“Other major potential markets include corporate training and retail,” he says. “There are already companies out there such as Attensi – a member of our VR Research Group – who are using HMDs to develop training programmes for retailers.”

Due to the high requirements of PC VR, its growing popularity – both in commercial sectors and as a business tool – is forecast to have a big impact on the channel. While games are pre-configured to run on VR, explained AMD’s industry alliance manager for workstation graphics, Rob Jamieson, business applications currently are not. “People need somebody to hold their hand,” he says. “That’s where the channel comes in.”

Manufacturers have already started bringing out hardware that is explicitly optimised for VR. Intel’s new Broadwell ‘Extreme’ chips are designed with VR content creation as one of the primary use-cases, while AMD is using its Polaris architecture to release the VR-capable Radeon RX 480 at a much more affordable price point than other VR-ready GPUs.

Currently, most enterprises that are exploring VR have opted for cheaper mobile VR headsets like the Samsung Gear VR or Google Cardboard. This allows companies to begin experimenting with the technology, without risking large amounts of IT budget on a system they might not use.

However, while mobile VR is cheap, the level of quality offered by headsets like the HTC Vive is an order of magnitude higher. In particular, the ability to fully inhabit and immerse yourself in a virtual environment still gives PC VR devices like the HTC Vive a distinct edge.

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06/03/2018

HTC Vive falls behind rival Oculus Rift in latest Steam survey

The latest Steam hardware usage survey has found that the Oculus Rift headset has overtaken the HTC Vive for the first time.

The Oculus Rift came in at 47.31% of virtual reality headset users on the Steam platform while 45.38% were found to be using HTC's Vive headset, according to February's findings.

Steam users are required to opt-in to the platform's survey, which then determines the hardware a user is running on their system. This factor means the newly-established 2% lead that the Rift has gained may not necessarily be reflected in overall market share statistics.

However, the Oculus Rift has steadily been closing the gap on its rival on the platform's monthly findings, with the headset closing the gap on the HTC Vive to just 0.9% in January.

Various factors for this change have been touted by industry observers, chief among them the Oculus Rift's notably lower price of £399 compared to the HTC Vive's £599 price tag.

In terms of other headsets on the market, Windows Mixed Reality rose slightly from 5.17% market share in January to 5.36% in February, while the Oculus Rift DK2 comprised 1.95% of users, up from 1.78%.

19/02/2018: HTC rules out Vive-only titles

There are currently no plans for HTC to release games that run exclusively on its Vive platform, the company has said, ruling out tactics used by rival platforms Oculus and Playstation.

In an interview with Wareable, Joel Breton, vice president of global VR content at Vive, explained that the firm does not want to hurt gamers for selecting a certain virtual reality headset.

"We don't want to use content as a weapon and block out people on other platforms from playing the content we create or help bring to market," he told the website.

"We look at the whole VR market as our playground for content, and we certainly want to make a great Vive version. As far as providing it to other platform players, we don't want to punish them for choosing a different platform."

Breton added that there won't be any Vive exclusives in the near future as HTC doesn't "feel like that's where the market's at" - but he did keep the door open to the possibility in future.

"Maybe down the line in a few years, certainly we'll keep our eyes open on the market and see if it makes sense then, but at this early stage of the market we just don't feel like its good for us as a revenue-creating business or for our developers, who we're trying to help create revenue," he told Wareable.

The VP also said HTC will look at titles on a case-by-case basis to determine whether they would take to a rival platform such as PS VR.

07/02/2018 - New Steam survey shows fall in HTC Vive market share

The HTC Vive's market share has dropped by 5.3% since August 2017, according to the latest Steam survey, with the headset now on a level pegging with the Oculus Rift as a result.

As reported by Gamesindustry.biz, the findings revealed the Vive is used by 46.96% of Steam survey participants – whilst the Oculus Rift totalled 46.09%.

Behind the two front-runners, Microsoft's Windows mixed reality offering totalled 5.17% of those surveyed, whilst just 1.78% were gaming with the Oculus Rift DK2.

The results could be a cause for concern for HTC, with the Oculus Rift having steadily closed an 8.3% gap in market share since August 2017, Gamsindustry.biz reports.

However, the survey does also show that 0.2% of all Steam users now own a HTC Vive, an increase of 0.09% since the month prior. The Oculus Rift also stands at 0.2%, with the same monthly growth of 0.09%.

As the website notes, the levelling-out of market shares between the two rival headsets may be a result of the Oculus Rift's significantly lower retail price. The VR headset is currently on sale for £399 thanks to permanent price cuts – a whole £200 cheaper than the HTC Vive (£599).

25/01/2018 - HTC and the World Economic Forum to drive forward “VR/AR For Impact” project

HTC Vive has partnered with the World Economic Forum (WEF) to further push the positive uses of virtual reality through its 'VR/AR For Impact' Initiative.

First announced at WEF last year, the $10 million VR/AR For Impact program set out to leverage new VR/AR content and technology in order to create positive change in the world.

The project has been designed to support the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals and now, in collaboration with VR/AR leaders in the UN and the WEF, the collaboration will seek to break further new ground using virtual reality.

As a core member, HTC Vive announced that the firm will continue to design and create experiences that "foster and champion the use of Virtual and Augmented Reality to educate and empower humanity".

"The challenges our world faces today have never been greater, and humanity needs a clearer understanding and guidance to help solve global issues," said Cher Wang, Chairwoman and CEO at HTC.

"Unlike any other medium, Virtual Reality is able to immerse the global audience in literally any experience, and can help us learn, empathize and transform the world. VR/AR for Impact is a unique way of driving critical awareness toward problems and solutions facing mankind."

Six VR/AR For Impact experiences are on display this week at WEF 2018 - including the critically acclaimed TREE VR experience that allows users to experience the stark reality of deforestation.

06/12/2017 - HTC Vive increases percentage lead over Oculus Rift

The HTC Vive has widened the gap between itself and the Oculus Rift in terms of headset usage on Steam, according to the platform's latest survey results.

Steam's November figures reveal the Vive has increased its usage percentage to 49.5% – up from 48.76% in October. By comparison, the Oculus Rift fell to 46.03% from its figure of 47.61% last month.

The HTC Vive's increase marks something of a change in fortune for the device, following a period in which the Oculus Rift had continued to close the gap.

As noted by UploadVR, the usage hike could be the result of increased sales for November – which included the notorious Black Friday sales event. As part of the event, many retailers offered the Vive headset bundled together with a free Vive Deluxe Audio Strap and a pre-order copy of Doom VFR.

Elsewhere, HTC has also confirmed that Valve remains committed to bringing further titles to virtual reality, despite the developer seemingly going quiet on the subject in recent months.

In an interview with Glixel, Dan O'Brien, Vive general manager for the Americas, confirmed that Valve continues to work on delivering on its February promise of three new full VR games.

"I manage the relationship with Valve," O'Brien said. "I meet with Valve weekly to talk about everything from what's happening on new content launching to new product launches to new features and functions.

"They are very committed; they are still committed to delivering on that promise."

22/11/2017

HTC announces Vivie Tracker bundles for consumers

HTC has announced the arrival of Vive Tracker bundles for consumers, allowing users to track peripheral accessories in virtual reality for the first time.

Previously only available to developers, the Vive Tracker can be attached to any object in order to accurately replicate its motion in VR. Now, Vive users can get their hands on the device for $99 -- or purchase three new peripheral accessory bundles.

The first, which partners a new Hyper Blaster light gun accessory with Duck Season, is available to pre-order now for $149.

For the same price, HTC has also announced a Racket Sports Set, which offers custom moulded and weighted paddles rackets alongside a redemption code for Virtual Sports.

The Hyper Blaster is compatible with six different titles at launch and the company is working with 10 more developers to expand its compatibility, HTC said. Similarly, the Racket Sports Set can also be used with six titles at launch, whilst another five are expected "by end of year".

The TrackStraps bundle is also available to purchase now, allowing Vive users to track their bodies in VR by attaching the strap the required body part. TrackStraps are available immediately for $25 and includes a redemption code for Redfoot Bluefoot Dancing on Steam.

"With Vive Tracker, we've already seen the tremendous tools and experiences that the development community has created and unleashed into VR," said Daniel O'Brien, US general manager at Vive, said. "As we launch Tracker to consumers, we've lined up a number of developer and hardware partners that are committed to making VR on Vive more immersive than ever before.

"The Vive Tracker opens up a whole new set of experiences that can take advantage of full body tracking and a number of peripherals that set VR experiences on Vive apart."

09/11/2017

New VIVE Arts programme brings virtual reality to the arts

HTC has announced the launch of Vive Arts, a new global VR programme designed to change the way the world creates and interacts with the arts.

The initiative will aid the development of virtual reality installations in galleries and institutions around the world, HTC says, which will in turn allow both creators and audiences alike to harness the power of VR to further education in the arts.

Since its launch, Vive's creators have already struck up a number of partnerships with well-known global cultural centres around the VR device - including London's Royal Academy of Arts, Taipei's National Palace Museum, the French Museum of Natural History, Washington DC's Newseum and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

The device will also feature in London's Tate Modern's upcoming 'Modigliani' exhibition (opening 23 November), which will provide visitors with a unique look at the artist through the medium of VR.

"With the launch of Vive Arts, we are driving Virtual Reality's influence in art and providing access to our world's cultural heritage. We are empowering artists to create, and consumers to experience and interpret, art and culture in new ways," explained Joel Breton, vice president at Vive Studios.

"We are thrilled for the next Vive Arts' project with Tate Modern, and support their mission to increase the public's enjoyment and understanding of international modern and contemporary art."

From today, Vive users can also access more than a dozen pieces of Vive Arts content through the Viveport app store.

04/10/2017

New standalone could be called the ‘Vive Focus’

The upcoming Vive standalone headset could be named the ‘Vive Focus’after HTC submitted new trademark applications for use of the name.

Discovered by Dutch website LetsGoDigital (via Upload VR), the documents describe a ‘head-mounted display for computer simulated reality’ carrying the Vive Focus name – with one being from the European Union Intellectual Property Office and the other from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

HTC has not officially commented on the name or filings - but the standalone Vive is the only known headset the Taiwanese firm currently has in the pipeline, Upload VR notes.

Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 processor, the so-called Vive Focus will run on the Daydream mobile VR platform from Google and will offer 6 degrees of freedom (6DOF) tracking, as well as 3DOF motion controls.

There is currently no release date for HTC’s new standalone headset – but the company previously revealed in a blog post that it would be available “later this year”.

A standalone Vive headset will also be released in China but will not run on Google’s Daydream platform.

“Vive’s standalone VR headset will provide a deeper and more immersive portable VR experience than ever before,” HTC said.

21/09/2017

Could $1.1billion sale boost HTC’s VR business?

Google and HTC have announced an agreement that will see the Alphabet company pay $1.1billion in exchange for the team that developed the Pixel smartphone.

The move will see HTC staff move across to Google, with the received funds set to be injected into its other ventures – such as the Vive virtual reality headset.

The deal will also allow the Taiwanese firm to place a greater focus on augmented reality and AI, whilst its smartphone division will also benefit, the company said.

"This agreement is a brilliant next step in our longstanding partnership, enabling Google to supercharge their hardware business while ensuring continued innovation within our HTC smartphone and VIVE virtual reality businesses,” said Cher Wang, CEO and chairwoman of HTC, in a press release.

“We believe HTC is well positioned to maintain our rich legacy of innovation and realize the potential of a new generation of connected products and services."

HTC also said the move will allow the firm to reduce operating expenses by around 30-40 percent, whilst streamlining its product portfolio and offering greater flexibility in terms of company finances.

The transaction is expected to be completed by early 2018, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

08/09/2017

HTC could sell off its Vive division

HTC could be considering selling off its Vive virtual reality division - or even the whole company - according to a recent report.

The Taiwanese business is currently working with an adviser as it considers strategic avenues, according to Bloomberg sources. These avenues include a potential Vive sale, and HTC has even held talks with tech giants such as Google over the matter, the sources said.

While its Vive arm may be vulnerable, a sale of the entire company is the least likely option, one person said, as its various divisions may not prove beneficial for a single buyer.

As Bloomberg reports, however, HTC is yet to make a final decision on the matter - and may even opt not to sell at all.

Following a downturn in fortunes for its smartphone division, HTC placed a greater focus on virtual reality as a way to grow the business and enter new markets.

The Vive was born as a result of this, with the company shipping over 190,000 headsets in Q1 2017, analysts at IDC found. More recently, HTC slashed $200 off its price in a bid to expand its user base.

18/08/2017

UPS to train student drivers using VR headsets

Package delivery giant UPS are to begin using VR headsets such as the HTC Vive to train new drivers, the company has announced.

From September, students at the firm's US Integrad training facilities will don the headsets and navigate through an ultra-realistic, 360-degree cityscape created by the company's IT experts.

Employees undertaking the course will be required to verbally identify potential road hazards, UPS says, including parked vehicles, pedestrians and oncoming traffic.

"Virtual Reality offers a big technological leap in the realm of driver safety training," said UPS chief information and engineering officer Juan Perez.

"VR creates a hyper-realistic streetscape that will dazzle even the youngest of our drivers whose previous exposure to the technology was through video games."

The scheme will replace the global firm's current method of using touchscreen devices to teach new drivers about road hazards and general safety when out on the job.

To begin with, the VR training will only be provided for package delivery trucks - but UPS says it is exploring both virtual reality and augmented reality training methods for tractor trailer drivers and other duties.

"This training is foundational, and Virtual Reality brings it to life," said Jeanne Lawrence, UPS Integrad expansion director. "VR complements real-world training in a way that deeply engages our employees in the UPS Integrad curriculum."

01/08/2017

HTC announces all-in- one Vive Standalone for China

HTC has announced the Vive Standalone, a new all-in- one Vive headset that will launch first in China

before being available in western markets.

Revealed at last week’s ChinaJoy entertainment expo and conference, the wireless Vive Standalone will not require tethering to a PC or smartphone to operate unlike current models.

HTC is yet to reveal the devices’ full specs but the headset will sport Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 processor and will ship with a three degrees-of- freedom (3DoF) controller.

“China is the leading mobile market in the world today, and has the momentum to lead the global VR market as well,” said HTC’s Alvin Graylin (via The Irish News).

“Partnering with Qualcomm to deliver an easy to use and more affordable Vive VR system will

enable us to make premium standalone VR widely accessible to the masses in China.”

According to VRfocus, a company representative has confirmed that the Vive Standalone is the same

head mounted display (HMD) that was announced at Google I/O back in May.

The difference between the headsets will be their software distribution, with the Chinese market receiving apps through the Viveport store and western users downloading via Google Daydream.

The HTC representative attributed the reason for this difference to Google’s limited reach in China,

VRfocus reports.

20/07/2017

Google launches Blocks for HTC Vive

Google has launched its new 3D modelling program Blocks for the HTC Vive, enabling users to create beautiful 3D models in virtual reality.

Designed to be accessible for both beginners and seasoned creators alike, Blocks offers up an experience that feels "more like playing with children's blocks" than working with traditional 3D modelling software, Google says.

"Starting with a simple set of shapes, a colour palette, and an intuitive set of tools, you're able to naturally and quickly create almost anything you can imagine, from a piece of watermelon to a whole forest scene," Jason Toff, VR Group Product Manager at Google, announced in a blog post.

Blocks also allows users to export their creations as an OBJ to place in other augmented reality and virtual reality apps, or share their models online with other creators.

The modelling software also ties in smoothly with Google's Tilt Brush painting app, meaning creators can import their 3D models into the software and paint them.

Google Blocks is free to download now for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

16/06/2017

Mario Kart set for VR debut at Tokyo arcade

Mario Kart GP is receiving a VR makeover for the Vive at a Tokyo VR arcade, it has been announced.

Currently being developed by Bandai Namco, Mario Kart Arcade GP VR will debut at Tokyo's VR Zone Arcade in Shinjuku - giving users a chance to experience the title using HTC's Vive headsets.

Players will control their virtual vehicle using arcade-style seats, whilst motion sensors will allow users to throw in-game objects by moving their arms.

"The course is filled with the well-known Mario Kart traps and tricks," the game's description reads, as reported by VR Focus. "Dodge giant Piranha Plants and Thwomps, leap over huge ravines, and watch out for [Bowser] as he tries to get in your way..."

The release is the first official Nintendo title to hit the Vive platform but, whilst the game has been confirmed on the arcade's official website, the developers are yet to release further details.

Meanwhile, Duck Season - a modern reworking of the NES favourite Duck Hunt - will also be making its way to the HTC Vive "very soon", according to Engadget.

The release will see the arrival of an updated version of the NES light gun accessory made popular by the classic NES original, which will utilise the Vive tracker to replicate its movement in VR.

Duck Season elaborates on the original NES game, offering up a more detailed plot, seven different endings and seven additional mini-games. There is also a "secret subplot" that can only be discovered by piecing together a "handful of hidden clues", the website reports.

01/06/2017

HTC Vive will go wireless in 2018

A wireless version of the HTC Vive will debut in early 2018, thanks to a new partnership between HTC and Intel.

Demonstrating a prototype of the headset at Comutex in Taipei this week, Intel explained that the new Vive will utilise the company's WiGig technology, which is able to handle large amounts of data without any restricting cables.

"We will be working together to leverage Intel's WiGig technology to create a VR accessory that allows Vive customers to get high-fidelity, low latency, immersive VR experiences without the wire," confirmed Gregory Bryant, senior vice president at Intel.

In a separate blog post, HTC said that the wireless headset will offer latency speeds of under 7ms thanks to WiGig working in the "interference-free" 60GHz band.

"The WiGig technology, based on 802.11ad standard, works solely in the interference- free 60GHz band, and enables high throughput and low latency in both directions, from the PC to HMD and from HMD to PC," HTC explained. "This means pristine video quality with <7ms latency in any environment, supporting multiple users sharing the same space."

Intel will have a proof of concept model on display at the E3 gaming event in Los Angeles, which takes place between 13 June and 15 June.

05/05/2017

New Vive accessory will track eye movements in VR

Beijing-based start-up 7invensun has announced a new a new pair of lenses for the HTC Vive which will track eye movements when wearing the headset.

The add-on - named aGlass - is due to go on sale as a development kit in China this month for around $220 (£170) and is expected to ship internationally some time in Q3 2017.

According to Road to VR, the lenses attach to the inside of the Vive and connect via the headset's extra USB port. Each lens implements a series of infrared LEDs that light up the user's eyes, while a near-eye camera tracks the eye's movements in real-time.

The accessory is designed to enable a technique called foveated rendering, which mimics the natural focus of the eye in virtual reality. Users will see the space they're looking at as clear and in-focus -- whilst the periphery will have a blurred, lower-resolution image.

By only leaving the centre of the visual field in full-focus, the aGlass will help keep processing power down and could even allow less-powerful PCs to run VR programs more efficiently.

The accessory could also pave the way for corrective lenses for users that usually wear glasses -- meaning a possible end to wearing regular glasses underneath the Vive headset, Road to VR added.

20/04/2017: HTC Vive may receive Facebook Spaces support

Facebook's virtual reality venture Spaces may be opened up to third-party headsets in the future, according to the company's social VR product manager Michael Booth.

In an interview with Upload VR, Booth said that Spaces will not be exclusive to the Facebook-owned Oculus and will "ideally" be compatible with any six degrees of freedom (6DOF) VR system.

The VR chief even told the website that competitors such as the HTC Vive, PlayStation VR and a host of upcoming rivals were "fair game" in relation to the Spaces platform.

"Right now we're launching on Rift and Touch because we think it's the best in class for VR hardware," Booth told Upload VR. "We're trying to build an experience assuming that this stuff is ubiquitous in five years.

"At that time I believe all VR will be 6DOF head and hands. I gravitated to that to start with. When you have that level of interaction you forget that you're in VR. Plus all your body language comes in."

Booth did not offer a date as to when support for the additional headsets will be offered - but did say Facebook Spaces will "change rapidly" once its "true beta" launches.

05/04/2017

HTC discounts Vive headset for one-year anniversary

HTC has marked the Vive's one-year anniversary today with its first-ever discount for the VR headset.

For one day only, UK customers can purchase the Vive for a reduced price of £589 as opposed to the usual £689. In the US, consumers can get their hands on the Vive for $700 (down from $800).

HTC also launched its new Viveport Subscription service on the same date, which the company says will offer Vive owners a "new way to navigate" the growing VR app marketplace.

For just £7/$7 per month, users can receive unlimited access to any five titles from HTC's Viveport store - with the option to rotate these apps each month. Users can register at the Viveport website to take advantage of a one-month free trial of the service.

HTC will also offer Vive Studios' VR action game Arcade Saga as a free download on Wednesday, redeemable via the Viveport website or desktop app.

"We're surprised every day by what our fans and developers have brought to VIVE in its first year," said HTC Vive's Daniel O' Brien. "We're astounded by the impact that VR is making in the home and in the enterprise, and we want to celebrate Vive's first birthday by giving a bit back to our fans and by introducing Vive to more people."

29/03/2017

MakeVR launches for the HTC Vive

Vive Studios and Sixense have announced the arrival of MakeVR, a professional 3D modelling studio for the HTC Vive.

An industry standard CAD engine, the app utilises the HTC Vive's room-scale VR to provide users with a sizable and immersive design space.

Developer Sixense says the software has been designed with users of all ages and skill levels in mind - with intuitive two-handed gestures allowing for "natural interaction" with 3D geometry.

Creators can also export their designs to other CAD programs or 3D printers.

"MakeVR is a first-of-its-kind advanced creativity app for VR," said Joel Breton, head of Vive Studios. "We recognize how the intuitive and immersive environment of VR will revolutionise digital modeling.

"We worked with Sixense to create MakeVR as an accessible yet advanced creativity app for Vive where room-scale VR gives creators a virtual workshop, and the use of natural physical motions brings unprecedented expressiveness and intuitiveness to object design."

The app is available now from Viveport for $19.99, whilst HTC and Sixense say professional edition MakeVR Pro will arrive sometime later in the year.

Meanwhile, HTC has also announced the release of its wireless trackers to developers. Available for $99 each via the Vive website, the puck-shaped devices can be attached to accessories in order to track them in virtual reality.

23/02/2017

Mobile VR device in pipeline

HTC is planning to release a mobile VR device before the end of the year.

As reported by CNET, the device will allow users to connect to their smartphone on the move, eliminating the need to use a high-spec PC - as is the case with the current HTC Vive.

Speaking at the company's U series launch in Singapore, Chia-lin Chang, president of global sales at HTC, said: "We have a good plan in terms of combining mobility with VR.

"Vive is very top end, and in the coming months you'll see our plans in terms of mobility and VR - and it's not a phone slapped in a headset. It'd be a different thing."

The mobile device will be compatible with the HTC U Ultra, but no further details are currently known. It is expected, however, that the new mobile device will cost significantly less than the HTC Vive.

Meanwhile, HTC Vive has partnered with the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) to launch a new VR travel experience.

The 'China VR Tourism Cloud Data Service Platform' will be powered by Vivepaper - which allows for interaction with paper and magazines through QR codes - and will make China the first to integrate VR into its tourism industry.

"As the world's largest travel market, China will now become the world's first market to systematically apply VR technology to its tourism industry," said Hongye Xin, Deputy Director of the Information Center at the CNTA.

"In the next couple of years, we expect to see The China VR Tourism Cloud Data Service Platform take root in tens of thousands of offline stores nationwide, thus introducing a brand-new VR travel experience to consumers across the country."

06/02/2017

HTC adds Vive Video to VR headset

HTC has brought video to the Vive headset.

The app brings a customisable theatre-like experience to the VR device, with support for 2D, 3D, 180 and 360-degree footage. Vive Video also offers a up a variety of features to enable users to get the most from their videos and VR.

"Virtual reality adds a delightful, immersive element to watching videos regardless of the format you choose," HTC said in a blog post announcing the app.

When viewing 2D video, the software allows users to resize the screen to fill their field of view and adjust the image to their gaze as required. Ambient lighting can also be turned off for "a truly cinematic experience," HTC explained.

"Things get more exciting with 180° and 360° screen modes," it added, "where, thanks to digital tracking, you can move and look around in the virtual environment while the content adapts to your viewing perspective."

Vive Video is available now from Viveport - with each download also receiving a preview of award-winning VR animation INVASION! (from the director of Madagascar).

20/01/2017

HTC confirms new Vive base stations

Valve has confirmed the development of new SteamVR Tracking/Lighthouse base stations, stating they should arrive sometime "later this year".

The company initially revealed its plans at Steam Dev Days in 2016 and Valve programmer Joe Ludwig has now confirmed the refresh in a Q&A session on Reddit.

Responding to one user's question regarding automated manufacturing, Ludwig said: "The controller production line is still going strong and churning out controllers. The next line we're building is for the base stations we talked about at Dev Days.

"Using automation allows us to keep production local, which means our employees can be much more hands-on with the manufacturing process. That works a lot better with how Valve works, so we'll probably keep doing that going forward."

As Road To VR notes, the upcoming base stations will move away from the dual-rotor design of the current iteration, instead using a single rotor. This new rotor will sport two diagonal sweeps that lean in opposite directions - as opposed to one for horizontal speed and another for vertical.

According to Valve, the new design will reduce the weight, noise, power consumption and price, whilst also providing the same precise tracking information as current base stations.

06/01/2017

Wireless upgrade for the Vive

A series of upgrades are coming for the Vive in 2017.

HTC announced the new accessories at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week - with wireless capability being the most anticipated.

The wireless update comes courtesy of the company's partnership with TPCAST, reports Unlocked, and will sport a 6,000mAh battery, which will power approximately two hours of use.

The upgrade will be available to pre-order sometime later this quarter for $249, HTC announced, with Q2 2017 earmarked for delivery to customers.

Alongside the wireless refresh, the company also announced the Vive Tracker, a small accessory designed to make peripherals come to life in virtual reality. The Tracker can be attached to a range of items, with HTC demoing the device on peripherals such as baseball bats, gloves and guns.

Unlocked adds that the Tracker is 10cm wide, and includes a universal screw for easy attachment and will last up to six hours at a time.

The third upgrade comes in the form of a new Audio Strap that will arrive with built-in adjustable headphones and provide an altogether more comfortable audio experience.

HTC also announced that the Viveport app store will soon have a 'Subscription' option, allowing users to download a number of apps in return for a monthly fee.

17/11/2016

Google Earth arrives for HTC Vive

Google Earth VR is now available for HTC Vive headset owners.

The app, which can be downloaded from the Steam Store, enables users to fly over cities, venture up mountains, and even journey into space.

Virtual tourists can also take tours of famous landmarks, allowing for easy discovery of the most fascinating places on Earth.

Announcing the app in a blog post, Mike Podwal, product manager at Google VR, said: "Today, we are introducing Google Earth VR as our next step to help the world see the world.

"At 196.9 million square miles, we know the world is pretty big, so we've made it easy to find great places to visit," he added. "Earth VR comes with cinematic tours and hand-picked destinations that send you to the Amazon River, the Manhattan skyline, the Grand Canyon, the Swiss Alps, and more."

Google Earth VR is expected to arrive on other VR platforms next year.

04/11/2016

New Vive headset reports emerge

A second HTC Vive headset could be on its way, according to the latest reports.

Despite the Vive having not been on the market for very long, the HTC Vive 2 - codenamed Oasis - is reportedly being developed by the company.

Tech Radar reports that the codename is derived from Ernest Cline's novel 'Ready Player One' - after a "metaverse that players inhabit" within a virtual reality world.

The news originates from reliable HTC leaker @LlabTooFeR, who tweeted: "HTC is working [on a] refreshed Vive headset... Internal codename is Oasis."

Similar reports also emerged back in September when Bulgarian company Quark VR said it was working with HTC on a new prototype headset, revealing that the device will utilise wireless connectivity.

Elsewhere, Rikard Steiber, SVP of virtual reality at HTC, has told Tech Crunch that the company is set to upgrade its business edition Vive hardware.

According to the site, Steiber revealed that enhanced arcade-style peripheral devices are part of the company's VR arcade strategy in China and Taiwan. He stated that these locations will also eventually see additions of "enhanced" Vive headsets with "form factor updates" - adding that they are "going to evolve."

"This is year one as far as this set of virtual reality experiences go," Steiber told Tech Crunch. "I think with the amount of innovation going on in the space and the amount of players coming into the space, I do think that innovation cycles will be sort of annual."

20/10/2016

HTC expands Viveport

HTC is expanding its range of virtual reality services, announcing Viveport M for mobile and Viveport Arcade.

Through the new Viveport M hub, Android users will be able to access a wide range of VR and 360 degree apps through their smartphones.

The store is currently open to developers only as a closed beta - but the company says Viveport M will be released to the public "later this year".

The company has also revealed Viveport Arcade - an offline accompaniment to the PC version of Viveport that provides a VR content management and sales platform.

The company says the service makes it easier for VR arcade operators "to legally acquire the most compelling VR content available," whilst enabling operators and developers alike to share revenue "accurately".

HTC also hopes the platform will allow developers to reach those that "haven't yet bought a Vive for their home".

A number of Viveport Arcade pilot programs have already begun in the last two months - and HTC says hundreds of gaming centres, amusement parks and karaoke bars will soon be added.

Alvin W. Graylin, China Regional President of Vive, HTC, said: "Compelling content is the life blood of the burgeoning VR industry, but making great content isn't easy or cheap.

"By expanding Viveport into mobile and offline channels, we are exponentially expanding the user base and revenue opportunities for VR developers around the world.

"This will give them the funds they need to not only survive but prosper, encouraging the creation of more exciting content."

Viveport M and Viveport Arcade will debut in China later this year, followed by a worldwide release.

Virtual reality technology may not have been the instantly world-changing, paradigm-shifting technology that many predicted it would be, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have huge potential to offer businesses.

Whether it's architectural models, 360-degree video content or promotional experiences, VR technology can add value to a wide range of companies. However, if you're going to extract that value, then you need to ensure that you're using the very best technology available. There's a wealth of VR headsets on the market, covering both lightweight mobile devices and high-end PC-driven powerhouses - and these are the best of the best.

Samsung Gear VR

Samsung managed to largely corner the mobile VR market by offering a polished, premium experience at an attractively low price point. The Gear VR does admittedly require a Samsung device to function, but it provides one of the best mobile VR experiences around.

Google Daydream View

After finding success with the Cardboard viewer, Google last year decided to step up its VR offering, releasing a proper premium headset, complete with an attractive, comfortable design and even a bundled remote. While there's still not many devices that support it, Google Daydream is an excellent headset.

Google Cardboard

The original and still one of the best, Google's Cardboard viewer is brilliant in its simplicity. Although it's little more than a slot for your phone and some rudimentary lenses, Cardboard is still the easiest way to experience mobile VR. It's also incredibly low-cost, making it an excellent choice for proof-of-concept demonstrations.

HTC Vive

It may be more than two years old at this stage, but the venerable HTC Vive has retained its status as one of the most technically capable headsets on the market. HTC also released the Deluxe Audio Strap last year, which adds integrated headphones and improved weight distribution and ergonomics. Combined with a healthy price-cut, this arguably makes the original Vive a better-value option than the newer Vive Pro.

HTC Vive Pro

While we don't quite think that the HTC Vive Pro is worth the extortionate 800 ticket price when compared to the original, the fact remains that it is the most technically capable and well-built VR headset currently on the market. If you need the best of the best - and you've got deep pockets - then the Vive Pro is for you.

Oculus Rift

The surge of interest in VR was kickstarted five years ago by Oculus and although it hit some stumbling blocks along the way, the Oculus Rift is still one of the most sophisticated and powerful virtual reality devices. If you've got the money and a PC powerful enough to run it, you're unlikely to be disappointed.

PlayStation VR

Sony is currently the only console manufacturer to offer its own virtual reality headset and it's proved a huge success straight out of the gate. Not only is it an excellent-quality headset, it also supports a wide range of games, indicating that third-party support won't just be a flash-in-the-pan.

Two years have now passed since the launch of the HTC Vive spurred many into excitedly declaring that the future of computing had arrived. Unfortunately, the sci-fi VR future we were all dreaming of has yet to materialise, but HTC hasn't given up on the technology just yet - it's now launched the Vive Pro, a new and improved headset aimed at business users and early adopters who need that little bit of extra polish.

HTC Vive Pro: Design

Upon first glance, the Vive Pro looks even more bulky than the original Vive. In addition to the actual visor that sits in front of your eyes (which is if anything very slightly bigger), the Vive Pro features built-in headphones and a solid plastic headband with a chunky weighted section at the rear that houses part of the mechanism for adjusting the headset's fit.

On paper, this sounds like a step backwards - the Vive wasn't the sleekest piece of hardware to begin with, so making it even more bulky seems counterintuitive to say the least. However, it actually has the effect of making the Vive Pro noticeably more comfortable than the Vive.

This is partly because the plastic headband allows for more padding and a greater level of ergonomic design than an elastic strap, but the main reason that it's so much more comfortable than the Vive is that the weight is much more evenly distributed.

The weighted section at the back of the headband acts as a counterweight to the solid lump of plastic and circuitry attached to your face, balancing it out and ensuring that the weight is being supported by your whole body rather than just your neck. This is remarkably effective in making the whole kit and caboodle feel much less bulky and unwieldy than the first Vive, despite being noticeably chunkier. Wearing it for long periods wasn't a particular strain, and we had no issues with soreness or fatigue.

HTC has given the Vive Pro a high degree of adjustability, too - something that was somewhat absent from the first revision. Not only does the new headband allow for a much more precise fit around the back of the head, the front of the visor also allows you to adjust how far away from your face the lenses are for a greater degree of comfort.

It's still not quite foolproof; we found ourselves intermittently fiddling with the interpupillary distance, the position of the visor and other settings in order to try and get a slightly clearer picture. It also has to be said that it still makes you look more than a little goofy while you have it on - which is not helped by the fact that HTC has added an extra camera lens to the front of the headset. This is used by the chaperone mode to map out the playing area, but it gives the impression of a great big pair of googly eyes on the front of the device, which are more than a little reminiscent of Short Circuit's Johnny 5.

Overall though, we found it to be much more comfortable than the original Vive, and we're inclined to place the blame for any issues with the headset on our awkwardly-shaped glasses and poor vision rather than the headset itself.

While some areas have been beefed up and augmented, one thing that has been slimmed down and streamlined is the Vive Pro's cables. Rather than the multiple snaking wires that connected the old Vive to the PC powering it, the Vive Pro connects with just one slim cable, and even better, there's a loop on the back of the headband to ensure it goes down the user's back, rather than awkwardly hanging down in front of them and becoming a tripping hazard.

HTC Vive Pro: Display and performance

Speaking of which, it must be said that the upgrades HTC has made to the Vive Pro's display and optics - upping the resolution to 2,880 x 1,600 across both eyes for a PPI increase of 37% - have made a noticeable difference. The Vive's display wasn't low-quality by any means, but the new higher resolution makes the original screen look and feel noticeably sub-optimal.

It also ensures the first Vive's slight 'screen door' effect (where you can see the lines separating the individual pixels) is conspicuously absent on the Pro. As a result, the experience of using the Pro feels noticeably more immersive and high quality.

In fact, overall performance is excellent. We had no issues with tracking - something that was an occasional problem with the original Vive - and the frame rate was absolutely faultless. We were zipping around in Doom with zero disorientation, motion sickness or stuttering. Admittedly, this is largely dependent on the PC that's powering the headset, but the display itself still plays a part, and it's nice to see that the overall experience is still so high quality, although the refresh rate of the display hasn't been improved from the Original Vive's 90Hz figure.

Immersion is further improved by the new nose-flaps that HTC has added, which adapt to the contours of your nose to slop light bleeding in from the bottom of the headset. It's a small detail, but again, one that makes a surprisingly large difference.

HTC Vive Pro: Audio

Audio is important in VR, which is why HTC has chosen to incorporate a pair of on-ear headphones into the Vive Pro's headband. These are articulated for easy adjustment and positioning, support high-definition audio, and also have built-in volume and mute buttons for easy control. We would have preferred over-ear headphones, as they provide a better seal for passive noise-cancelling, but these earphones still offer rich sound, with good 3D audio capabilities allowing them to simulate sounds coming from various positions around you.

One neat feature is that the Vive Pro uses its integrated microphones in conjunction with the headphones to provide active noise cancelling to keep you immersed in whatever you're doing, and HTC says that it also has a form of hazard awareness. If the microphones detect an unusual noise - such as a pet entering the room or your phone going off - the earphones shift the sound output to the back of the head, allowing you to hear whatever's going on more clearly.

If you'd rather use your own cans with the Vive Pro, never fear; you can use a screwdriver to quickly detach the built-in earphones. You can then connect your own headset via USB-C, although you may need an adapter to do so.

HTC Vive Pro: Verdict

For 799, the HTC Vive Pro isn't terribly cheap, but it's not aimed at the average user. It's very much a professional-grade device, aimed at design studios, architecture firms and other creatives who require the absolute pinnacle of VR technology.

However, if a lot of the Vive Pro's features sound familiar, they should; the new headset is very similar in design and functionality to the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap, which the company launched last year as an aftermarket accessory to improve the Vive's ergonomics. Many of the Vive Pro's best elements - such as the integrated headphones, balanced weight distribution and improved cable management - were first seen on the Deluxe Audio Strap.

If you're an existing Vive owner, HTC has you firmly in mind. The Vive Pro is compatible with all of the Vive's existing peripherals (both optional and required) and the company is selling the Vive Pro as a standalone unit with no controllers, base stations or accessories included, in order to allow early adopters to pick it up without forcing them to re-buy equipment that they already own.

Unfortunately, it's still a poor value-proposition. There are some improvements made to the headset itself, like the enhanced resolution, more manageable cables and more adjustable visor, but they're the only features that are actually new.

While they're definitely nice to have, they're not worth shelling out this much money to own, especially considering that the original Vive has now dropped in price to 500. Add on the 100 price of the Deluxe Audio Strap and you'll be able to take advantage of most of the functionality and comfort of the Vive Pro for roughly 200 less. Unless you want to do high-precision graphics work that requires the absolute bleeding-edge maximum in visual fidelity, the Vive Pro can't justify the price of admission.

The Oculus Rift is perhaps one of the most significant technological advancements of the past decade. First revealed back in 2012, the Rift was the first successful virtual reality headset, offering users a totally immersive way to experience movies and games.

Oculus Rift latest news

07/03/2018: The Oculus Rift has surpassed its primary rival the HTC Vive in one of its biggest markets, new figures have indicated.

February's Steam Hardware Survey - a monthly opt-in survey conducted by digital gaming platform Steam to determine what components and peripherals its customers are using - shows that the Oculus Rift has pulled ahead of the HTC Vive in terms of popularity for the first time ever.

The race between the two devices is still incredibly close - the Rift is now used by 47.3% of Steam's VR users, compared to 45.3% using the Vive. But this marks the first time since both headsets launched that the Rift has overtaken Vive among Steam's users, though it has been the culmination of a reasonably steady growth in popularity for Oculus's flagship product.

This survey is far from a concrete indication of sales performance, as it measures only the number of headsets that are in use among Steam's PC gaming community. This is, however, an overwhelmingly large portion of both devices' overall markets, and provides a good benchmark as to the relative popularity of both headsets - especially as neither company release official sales figures for their devices.

The main factor in the Rift's growing market share is likely to be its relative value when compared to the Vive, as the Rift is still significantly cheaper than its main rival with a price difference of around 200.

The Windows Mixed Reality segment has also made minor gains, with a market share of 5.36% according to Steam's figures.

Oculus Rift price and release date

The Oculus Rift is now on general sale in the UK, and can be ordered from Amazon, as well as purchased instore at retailers including John Lewis, Harrods, GAME and Currys PC World. The device debuted at 549, including VAT.

To complement the launch, Oculus set up a series of demo areas at various retail locations, in order to sway undecided customers. A strong physical presence is important to the company, according to CEO Brendan Iribe, who told CNBC "you have to see it to really believe it, and we feel like once you see it, you're gonna want it".

"Getting it into broad retail around the world is going to be very important to the success of VR and to the success of Oculus and the Rift".

Oculus Rift design

The Oculus Rift DK2 was a squat, boxy affair. The consumer model is a much more attractive device, however; it's had a full-on makeover and is looking sleek and polished.

In place of the elasticated strap, the visor is now secured by a flexible plastic harness. The headset itself now has rounded sides and a flat, but slightly curved front, with a smooth finish on the face and textured plastic on the sides.

In a move that will please the visually-impaired, you can also now wear it with glasses, as well as adjusting the interpupillary distance of the lenses via a slider.

As a head-mounted device, comfort is critical. The DK2 is a bulky beast, weighing in at almost 400g. However, Oculus has trimmed a lot of the Rift's unnecessary fat for its big reveal, and Oculus is boasting of the Rift's light and comfortable nature.

Oculus Rift specs

Due to its highly-specialised nature, the Oculus Rift is much more technically capable than many other devices, and has some pretty beefy specs in terms of its visual hardware.

The Rift runs at 2,1601,200 at 90Hz split over dual displays, which equates to a per-eye resolution of 1080p. It also runs at 90Hz, which, while not quite as impressive as the 120Hz claimed by PlayStation VR, is perfectly acceptable. There's no noticeable lag or latency, and motion looks smooth and natural.

Oculus Touch controllers

While the leaked images of the Oculus Rift indicated that it was shipping with an Apple TV-style remote, Palmer Luckey surprised crowds at the device's unveiling by taking the wraps off a totally new input system.

Oculus Touch, as it has been dubbed, is a set of two wireless controllers that feature triggers for sensing grip on the palm and index fingers, as well as having traditional buttons and thumb sticks.

With built-in positional tracking similar to the headset, the controllers provide physical haptic feedback, which enables users to pick up and interact with virtual objects just as they would with real ones. In practise, the controllers are supremely comfortable, and the most instantly natural and ergonomic VR inputs we've tried.

The Oculus Rift will also ship, and be fully compatible, with an Xbox One controller for Windows. Included as part of Oculus' partnership with Microsoft, this is to allow developers and users to work with an already-familiar input system.

Oculus Rift features

To make it easier for developers to work with, both the Unreal Engine 4 and Unity 5 game creation tools is integrated into the Oculus Rift software. This will allow developers to preview any VR experiences they create from within the Rift itself.

The Rift uses a dedicated software platform, Oculus Home, to display its content on. Similar to the Xbox dashboard, it features different subsections for content, as well as tiled previews, storefronts and social integration. Thanks to Windows 10's native support for the Oculus Rift, users can also stream games from an Xbox One to the headset, viewing them in a virtual theatre.

Unlike many of its competitors, the Rift features built-in earphones, which can be adjusted for comfort. They're also detachable, which will allow gamers that are particular about their audio requirements to use their own headsets.

Oculus Rift system requirements

One of the Rift's drawbacks is that it needs a seriously powerful PC in order to properly run it. Company executives previously quoted a ballpark figure of around $1000 as the amount a sufficiently-specced machine would cost.

To start with, any prospective Rift customers will need a desktop PC with a CPU and graphics card equivalent to - or better than - an Intel Core-i5 4590, and an Nvidia GTX 970 or an AMD R9 290, as well as 8GB of RAM.

They'll also need to be running Windows 7 SP1 64-bit or newer, with 1 USB 2.0 and 3 USB 3.0 ports, and HDMI 1.3 output.

For those that don't build high-powered gaming PCs for fun, Oculus has partnered with a number of different PC manufacturers to create a certification program.

Specific PCs from OEMs including Dell, Asus and Alienware carry badges proclaiming them "Oculus Ready", meaning they are guaranteed to support the device straight out of the box.

Due to the highly GPU-intensive nature of the Oculus Rift's requirements, the headset is not compatible with Macs.

Oculus Rift movies

As well as games, Oculus is planning to bring VR movie content to its device, and the company has created its own production house, Oculus Story Studio to create experiences.

Henry, the second title from the division, is helmed by former Pixar alumni Ramiro Lopez Dau, and picked up an Emmy award for Outstanding Original Interactive Program. The company debuted another production, Dear Angelica, at the Sundance Film Festival 2016.

Previous news

30/10/2017: Virtual reality headsets could pose significant health risks to users, particularly children, unless changes are made to the way the technology is developed.

That's according to new research from Leeds University scientists, who have carried out what is considered to be one of the first investigations into the long-term health impact of virtual reality headsets.

"The problems come when the normal relationship between the perceptual information and the corresponding action is disrupted," said Mark Mon-Williams, professor of cognitive psychology at Leeds University, in a blog post.

"One way of thinking about such disruption is that a mismatch between perception and action causes 'surprise'. It turns out that surprise is really important for human learning and the human brain appears to be engineered to minimise surprise."

He added that if there is a mismatch between the visual information and the hand movements within a VR experience, this 'surprise' occurs, forcing the brain to adapt.

"The issue is that the process of adaptation may cause difficulties - and these difficulties might be particularly problematic for children as their brains are not fully developed," added Mon-Williams.

The study, which was first reported by the Guardian, monitored 20 children aged between eight and 12 as they played a game using a virtual reality headset. While no children were found to have had eyesight deterioration, there were two examples of reduced stereo-acuity, or their ability to judge the distances of objects, and one example of a child having drastically reduced balance after removing the headset.

The research comes at a time when technology companies are looking to bring virtual reality to the mass market, outside of its use within gaming.

Google, Microsoft and Samsung have already developed their own VR technologies, and social media companies are pushing for interactive video content, while filmmakers are using VR to create 360-degree movie experiences.

However, the study warns that technology companies need to understand the long-term health impact of prolonged VR use and work to counter issues such as nausea or headaches as a priority.

"It may turn out that the human brain can adapt to these unnatural pressures without any long-term problems," said Mon-Williams. "But it's also possible that these pressures may cause long-term difficulties. These issues are of particular concern in young children who may be more susceptible to disruptive pressures owing to their developing brains."

12/10/2017: Oculus unveils VR business bundle

Businesses can now step into the world of VR with an Oculus Rift package for $900.

The Oculus for Business bundle is the first time that the Rift will be sold specifically for commercial use and is intended to make it easy for companies to use VR by providing them with all the necessary tools.

The business bundle, which costs $900, will include the headset, touch controllers, three sensors, a remote and three Rift Fits. Along with the hardware, Oculus is also including a commercial warranty, a commercial licence, and "preferential customer service" in the business bundle to help make the transition into VR even easier.

The company website highlights key features of the device such as its easy setup and the fact it's comfortable to wear, saying it could be used for training and education.

"VR enhances everything from training and education to marketing, product development, and data visualisation helping you strengthen relationships, tell stories more effectively, and foster business growth," the company said.

The bundle is available for order through the Oculus website.

15/08/2017: Oculus launcher now supports Steam VR games

The launcher software that powers the Oculus Rift has become much more versatile, after an update that should make accessing all your VR content much easier.

The updated Oculus launcher software now includes the ability to launch any Oculus-compatible content on your PC, not just games and experiences that have been downloaded through Oculus' own storefront.

That includes Oculus-compatible games bought through Valve's digital distribution platform Steam, as well as any other source. Note that the games will have to be specifically compatible with Oculus Rift, rather than VR in general - so titles exclusive to the HTC Vive are still off-limits.

The update also adds a new feature for supporting multiplayer parties, allowing up to four Oculus Rift owners to chat across different apps. This means that you won't have to be playing the same game as your friends in order to carry on a conversation.

Oculus apps will also feature detailed release notes that can be viewed within the library, as part of the update, with several bug fixes also introduced. The update begins rolling out to users today.

21/07/2017: Oculus exec Jason Rubin has said that lowering the price of the company's Rift headset is crucial for VR's success, stating that the company's ecosystem is now reaching a level of maturity that will help drive mass adoption.

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Price matters. Lowering the price point of high-end VR hardware is a win for consumers, a win for developers, and a win for the industry as a whole," he wrote as part of a blog post.

"As PC and component prices continue to drop, VR will become increasingly affordable, attracting even more people to the highest-end experiences that VR has to offer."

As part of its 'Summer of Rift' sale, Oculus has slashed the price of its Rift and Touch bundle, which also includes six games. The bundle is available for just 399 during the sale.

The platform has been experiencing some success, with multiple titles surpassing $1 million in sales, and players racking up a combined total of 1.3 million hours in the top five Oculus apps.

Rubin highlighted some of the platform's major recent releases, such as Echo Arena, Lone Echo and Marvel Powers United VR, as well as promising more flagship titles for 2018 which will be unveiled over the course of this year.

"With Summer of Rift bringing more people to the community, we look forward to fuller lobbies and more multiplayer magic," Rubin said. "VR shines when you're sharing a virtual space with other people. We now have many titles that are delivering on the social promise, and we'll continue to invest in that space."

14/07/2017: Facebook is reportedly developing a budget version of its Oculus Rift headset, in an effort to push the technology into the mass market with a more appealing price point.

The company appears to recognise the current problem with virtual reality technology, namely that the pricing options are far too restrictive. At 400+, headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are expensive products on their own, even before the necessary purchase of a 1,000 PC to run them. Even cheaper products, such as Samsung's Gear VR, require you own a top of the line Samsung device.

Facebook's cheaper headset is expected to be priced around $200, but will not need to be hooked up to, or bundled with, a PC or mobile device, significantly cutting down on the overall cost of the tech.

The project, codenamed 'Pacific' according to Bloomberg sources, will attempt to produce the same interactive gaming experience of the current Oculus Rift, although the device will be a more compact version. It's hoped the tech will act as its own media hub, rather than an extended display.

It's expected to be based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon processing chips, with power that's somewhere between Samsung's Gear VR, and the high-end Rift. Sources suggest it will feature a similar interface to the Gear VR, with support for a wireless remote.

Facebook expects to begin briefings with video game designers and content creators by October, according to one source, with an expected shipping date of sometime in 2018.

Despite recent price drops, the Oculus Rift has remained an expensive device that has prevented it from gaining mass market appeal. A recent market analysis by tracking firm Superdata put Rift purchases at 383,000, compared with the similarly priced HTC Vive at 667,000 units. However, Samsung's Gear VR, with its relatively cheap initial buy in, is leading the way with around 22% of the VR market.

10/07/2017: Oculus cuts price of VR set to $399

Oculus is temporarily cutting the price of its hardware to $399 as the industry puzzles over why its technology has not taken off among customers.

Oculus announced in a blog post that it is cutting the price of the Rift headset and Touch controllers to $399 for six weeks, starting today. This matches the price of the PlayStation VR set made by Sony and is cheaper than the HTC Vive at $799.

The post explains that the offer is part of a "Summer of Rift" deals designed to encourage more people to buy Oculus products.

In an interview with Reuters, VP for content Jason Rubin said that the company wanted to cut the price sooner but wanted to wait until there was enough content to keep a broad audience busy, not because it's a sign of weak product sales.

He said: "We're now in a space where the mass market can be much happier".

In March the Facebook-owned company reduced the price of its headset by $100. Oculus VP of product Nate Mitchell said back then that this year there was a focus on bringing more people into VR. He added that the cheaper price "should let even more folks who've been waiting to get into VR to jump in".

29/06/2017: Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has reportedly donated $2,000 toward the development of a workaround that allows Rift games to be played on the HTC Vive.

Luckey, who left the Facebook-owned Oculus VR back in March, pledged the cash to CrossVR's Patreon campaign, which is being used to fund the on-going development of ReVive. The hack allows HTC Vive owners to play Rift exclusive titles that otherwise would not appear on the Steam store page.

Jules Blok, creator of the ReVive project, thanked Luckey for his donation in a message on his Patreon page, which almost covers their entire monthly pledge goal after taxes and a website cut is taken. At the time of writing, the project has raised $1,976 of its $2,000 goal.

The donation, which was first spotted by UploadVR, is a little unexpected given that Oculus, bought by Facebook in 2014, initially shot down the project back in April 2016, ultimately blocking the software just as ReVive was beginning to gain popularity.

A statement at the time read: "This is a hack, and we don't condone it. Users should expect that hacked games won't work indefinitely, as regular software updates to games, apps, and our platform are likely to break hacked software."

It's unclear what this donation is supposed to signify, and there is no sign as to whether this will turn into recurring support. It may simply be that Luckey is choosing to back a technology that he has spent his career trying to pioneer.

He left Facebook after it lost a $500 million lawsuit to ZeniMax, which claims Oculus's device relied on ZeniMax IP developed by legendary game deveoper John Carmack while at the company (he later moved to Oculus), and after being discovered to have donated to a pro-Donald Trump trolling campaign. Facebook said at the time that Luckey would be "dearly missed".

25/05/2017: Oculus's first employee just quit

Oculus' first ever employee has announced he's leaving the company, saying he's been presented with a unique opportunity at a startup - which is something he really wants to do.

Chris Dycus started as an engineer at Oculus in 2012, when his friend and co-founder of the company Palmer Luckey decided it needed to bring onboard staff. He was instrumental in the development of the Oculus VR headset and helped the company sell to Facebook for $2 billion back in 2016, just four years after it launched.

"Chris Dycus, employee number 1, out," Dycus wrote in his parting statement in a Facebook post. "I am a little disappointed I won't make it to my 5 year Oculus anniversary only 2.5 months away! Oh well."

Dycus' new role will be based in Southern California (SoCal), but he wouldn't say which particular company he would be joining, nor what his role will be.

There are still lots of Oculus' original staff at the company, including Nate Mitchell, Michael Antonov, and Brendan Iribe, suggesting it can't be all that bad working for Facebook rather than Oculus. Luckey left last year amid political controversy around the US election.

17/05/2017: ZeniMax, the game publisher that successfully sued Facebook Oculus for $500 million, has now turned its sights on Samsung's Gear VR.

The move is unsurprising, given that Samsung's virtual reality headset was built using Oculus software - it now appears that ZeniMax has come to collect.

The filing below, made to a court in Texas last Friday and initially reported by Polygon, is an extension of the original lawsuit against Oculus and repeatedly cites that initial victory, in which "the resulting verdict established that the Oculus VR software is tainted by Oculus's violations".

It also argues that "Samsung knows, or reasonably should know, that the Samsung Gear VR is based upon ZeniMax's intellectual property", and that as a result is in breach of those same non-disclosure agreements.

Given that there was no indication of any wrong doing at the time of development, it stands to reason that Samsung did not obtain any licensing agreements from ZeniMax, however the filing argues that the "ongoing use of ZeniMax's intellectual property amounts to a knowing and continuing misappropriation".

ZeniMax is now seeking damages, as well as lost profits from the sale of Gear VR units and cover for lawyer and court fees.

In the initial case against Oculus, a jury determined that Oculus used ZeniMax codes to launch the Rift VR headset, obtained by former ZeniMax employee and Oculus CTO John Carmack. As a result the company was forced to pay $500 million of the original $2 billion demanded by ZeniMax.

Carmack is currently counter suing over the sale of his company id Software to ZeniMax in 2009, in which claims that he is still owed $22.5 million.

Zenimax v Samsung by Brian Crecente on Scribd

Next up is The Unspoken, a game by legendary developer Insomniac Games which involves "an urban magic fight club". Use the Oculus Touch controllers to fling fireballs at foes, summon mystical allies, and more.

Lastly, there's point-and-click adventure Wilson's Heart. This stylish noir tale features the vocal talents of luminaries such as Rosario Dawson, Alfred Molina and Michael B. Jordan, tasking the player with solving an unsettling mystery in an abandoned hospital.

At face value, the three games are worth more than 70 in total, making this bundle an excellent deal for anyone who was already thinking about investing in a new GPU and a Rift.

10/03/2017: Oculus CTO and id Software co-founder John Carmack has re-opened the legal feud between Oculus and Zenimax Media, bringing a $22.5 million lawsuit against the company.

The games industry legend is suing ZeniMax over the sale of his company id Software. Carmack claims that he is still owed a total of $22.5 million from ZeniMax's purchase of the Doom studio in 2009.

According to Carmack, he was set to receive a promissory note valued in excess of $45 million as part of the $150 million deal. He swapped half of that value for ZeniMax common stock in 2011, but alleges that the company is now refusing to pay him the rest of the money or let him convert it into stock options.

While it follows hot on the heels of another legal dispute between Carmack and his former employers, the two cases are not directly linked. ZeniMax recently sued Carmack, along with Oculus, its founder Palmer Luckey, CEO Brendan Iribe and parent company Facebook, over claims that Carmack stole ZeniMax IP in order to help develop the Oculus Rift. Facebook was ordered to pay ZenimMax $500 million after the court found Oculus used ZeniMax computer codes, but ZeniMax has also requested an injunction stopping Oculus from selling the Rift.

In Carmack's lawsuit, first reported by the Dallas Morning News, ZeniMax stated that the aforementioned dispute is the reason it is not paying up. Carmack's claim noted that not only did ZeniMax not charge him with breach of contract, Oculus was also acquitted of stealing trade secrets.

"When ZeniMax bought id Software in 2009, it agreed to pay a total of $150 million for that purchase. Now that the final installment of that bill is coming due, ZeniMax is simply refusing to pay," the lawsuit said. "But sour grapes is not an affirmative defense to breach of contract."

02/03/2017: As we draw near to the one-year anniversary of the launch of the Oculus Rift, Facebook has decided to reduce the price of the VR headset for the first time, dropping from $599 to $499.

Oculus has also cut the price of its Touch Controllers mere months after the Rift accessory went on sale, from $199 to $99. Additional Oculus sensors are also now available at a reduced price of $59.

The Rift and Touch Controller bundle, that previously would have set you back $798, is now available for $598.

The new prices are live today, although we are still waiting on clarification of the new UK prices.

"Last year was all about getting the hardware out there, getting the software out there really enabling developers to build great content," said Oculus VP of product Nate Mitchell, speaking to GamesBeat. "This year, the focus is really around bringing more people into VR."

As an added bonus, those customers who bought an Oculus Rift or Touch Controllers in the last 30 days before the price cut will receive $50 credit on its digital store.

Mitchell added that the cheaper price "should let even more folks who've been waiting to get into VR to jump in".

The price cut means the Rift bundle is now $200 cheaper than the HTC Vive, which with motion controllers is priced at $799.

The move is somewhat of a surprise given the Rift's relatively short time on the market, but it will certainly help Oculus sell more units.

But a cloud still hangs over Facebook-Oculus, which is still reeling from the damage caused by the lawsuit brought by ZeniMax. Not only did Facebook have to pay out $500 million, an impending injunction against the use of the disputed VR code could result in the death of the Rift entirely.

24/02/2017: ZeniMax, the video game company that successfully sued Facebook over VR intellectual property theft, has made good on its promises to try and block the company from monetising the code in future products.

Following its $500 million lawsuit, ZeniMax has now requested that a federal judge issue an injunction to block attempts by Facebook's Oculus to use the code, which if successful could limit the number of games available on the fledgling VR headset.

ZeniMax filed for the injunction on Thursday at the US District Court for Northern Texas, the same court that awarded in favour of the company earlier in the month.

"ZeniMax's motion does not change the fact that the verdict was legally flawed and factually unwarranted," an Oculus spokesperson said. "We look forward to filing our own motion to set aside the jury's verdict and, if necessary, filing an appeal that will allow us to put this litigation behind us."

Earlier this month, a US jury found that Oculus had used ZeniMax codes to launch its VR headset, and that executives, including Oculus founder Palmer Lucky, had violated non-disclosure agreements during the building process.

Speaking at the time, a ZeniMax spokesman told gaming website Polygon: "We will consider what further steps we need to take to ensure there will be no ongoing use of our misappropriated technology". The company also said it would seek an injunction to "restrain" Oculus and Facebook from ongoing use of the code.

The case came mere months after Facebook paid $3 billion for the startup, which was one of the first companies to start developing modern VR headsets.

What this means for Oculus remains to be seen, as the company has already distributed the disputed code to other game developers, and it has been used in a number of games available on Samsung's Gear VR.

10/02/2017: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has shown off new prototype input gloves for the Oculus Rift, which allow users to physically interact with virtual worlds.

Zuckerberg shared the new technology as part of a Facebook post, in which he detailed his recent tour of Oculus' research lab. Based out of Redmond, Washington, he said that the lab was "where some of the best scientists and engineers in the world are pushing the boundaries of virtual and augmented reality".

"The goal is to make VR and AR what we all want it to be: glasses small enough to take anywhere, software that lets you experience anything, and technology that lets you interact with the virtual world just like you do with the physical one."

For Oculus, adding the ability to type in VR could be the key to cracking the enterprise market; an area that will prove crucial to the long-term survival of VR tech in general.

Zuckerberg will also be glad of the distraction from Oculus' recent court case loss, in which the company was ordered to pay $500 million for copyright infringement, false designation and breach of a non-disclosure agreement by founder Palmer Luckey.

02/02/2017: Facebook has been ordered to pay $500 million after losing the Oculus lawsuit. ZeniMax filed the lawsuit against Oculus back in 2014 for $2 billion.

A U.S. jury determined that Oculus used ZeniMax computer codes to launch their own virtual reality headset, the Oculus Rift. The executives are said to have broken a ZeniMax non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in the beginning of the headset building process.

A major part of the $500 million comes from a $200 million NDA violation. The remaining amount comes from two false designation violations: $50 million against Oculus and co-founder Palmer Luckey and $150 million against former CEO Brendon Iribe.

Despite the big win, ZeniMax may not stop at the lawsuit.

"We will consider what further steps we need to take to ensure there will be no ongoing use of our misappropriated technology," a ZeniMax spokesperson told Polygon after the ruling.

The spokesperson also stated that they plan on "seeking an injunction to restrain Oculus and Facebook from their ongoing use of computer code that the jury found infringed upon ZeniMax's copyright." This injunction would bring Oculus Rift sales to a halt.

Although Oculus executives were found guilty of using ZeniMax technology, they were not found guilty of misappropriating ZeniMax trade secrets--which Oculus claimed was the heart of the lawsuit.

"We are undeterred," said an Oculus spokesperson on the finding. "Oculus products are built with Oculus technology."

Oculus stated that it was "disappointed" and would be filing for an appeal.

18/01/2017: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg took the stand in court yesterday to defend his company, as well as its subsidiary Oculus, in a trial over intellectual property theft.

Zuckerberg was brought into the dispute last year, when ZeniMax's original lawsuit against Oculus and its founder, Palmer Luckey, was re-filed, with additional defendants including Facebook.

ZeniMax Media, parent company of game developers Bethesda Softworks and id Software, claims that its research and intellectual property were used to help Luckey create the Oculus Rift.

Zuckerberg told the court yesterday that "like most people in the court, I've never even heard of Zenimax before" - despite the fact that it publishes some of the most successful games in the world. He also explicitly denied that ZeniMax's tech formed the basis for the Rift, saying "the idea that Oculus products are based on someone else's technology is just wrong", according to the BBC.

Echoing the statement released by Oculus when the original lawsuit was issued in 2014, Zuckerberg seemed to imply that ZeniMax was merely attempting to make a quick buck. "It's pretty common when you announce a big deal that people just come out of the woodwork and claim they own some part of the deal," he said.

Indeed, Facebook's mammoth acquisition deal to buy Oculus was even larger than initially thought. While Zuckerberg's company paid $2 billion (the amount sought by ZeniMax in damages) to buy Oculus itself, his testimony apparently also revealed that Facebook shelled out a further $1 billion to retain key Oculus staff members and to offer incentives.

The trial is expected to last for around three weeks, with Oculus founder Luckey - who has rarely been seen in public since he was outed as backing a pro-Trump group last year - expected to be called later this week.

17/01/2017: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will testify in court as part of a trial alleging that Oculus was built on technology stolen from Bethesda's parent company, ZeniMax.

The lawsuit was initially filed in May 2014, following Facebook's acquisition of Oculus for $2 billion. While it originally named Oculus and its founder, Palmer Luckey, as defendants, an amended version was filed last year that also includes Facebook as a defendant, along with Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe and CTO John Carmack.

The trial, which commenced on 9 January, revolves around claims by ZeniMax Media that the Oculus Rift virtual reality device was developed with ZeniMax IP by games industry legend and former id Software employee John Carmack, during his time employed by ZeniMax.

ZeniMax states that while Luckey developed the first Rift prototype in 2012, input from Carmack and other Zenimax personnel "literally transformed" it by adding specialised software and hardware improvements

Both Luckey and Carmack violated non-disclosure agreements expressly preventing them from using ZeniMax's VR tech without its permission, the suit also argues.

Facebook's involvement stems from ZeniMax's claims that the company "knew or had reason to know" that Oculus was not the legal owner of the full rights to the VR technology used in its headset.

"Defendants have now been unjustly enriched by billions of dollars in value exploiting ZeniMax's hard work and VR Technology as if it were their own," the lawsuit reads.

Carmack, Facebook and Oculus have all maintained their innocence, with Oculus stating that the suit has "no merit whatsoever" and that "ZeniMax did not contribute to any Oculus technology".

If successful, the lawsuit could see Facebook liable for up to $2 billion in damages - the same amount it paid to acquire Luckey's company.

Aside from the monthly sucking of funds from your account, there's one problem with subscription-only software such as Adobe Premiere Pro CC: it's easy to miss when a significant new version arrives.

Don't make that mistake with this latest incarnation, because it's a belter: along with some long-needed usability and collaboration improvements, there's also much better support for 360-degree video content.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018 review: Usability updates

Let's start with the usability and collaboration improvements. It seems like a bizarre feature not to have had over Adobe Premiere Pro's 25 years of history, but at long last you can now open more than one project simultaneously. Before, if you wanted to reuse assets created in one project within a new one, you would need to import the old project. This could get very messy.

Now you can just open both projects, then copy and paste between them. You can grab elements from the timeline of one sequence, and when you paste them into a sequence in another project, their related file references come with them. This is a much more convenient way of working.

Vaguely related is the new Shared Projects facility. Premiere Pro CC has had a team project capability via Creative Cloud storage for a while, but Shared Projects are aimed at collaboration using communal storage on a local network. A user can now lock a project that has been loaded from a central storage repository, say a NAS or SAN, so that other workstations can only open it in read-only mode.

Once Project Locking has been enabled in the Premiere Pro Preferences, you give your workstation a User Name in the same dialog. Then you create Shared Projects, and can use a little padlock icon in the bottom left-hand corner to toggle read-write mode or release a project for others to work on.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018 review: VR editing

The other significant area of improvement is for creating 360-degree VR content, which Adobe is labelling Immersive Video. Premiere Pro CC had received some support for 360 content with version 2015.3 in the middle of 2016. But for CC 2018 this has been beefed up considerably, with a selection of 360-aware effects and transitions that derive from Adobe's acquisition of the Mettle SkyBox Suite (sadly Adobe hasn't included the latter's 360 stitching tools into Premiere Pro).

Although you could apply 2D effects already, these introduce unwanted artefacts along stitching lines. But the new effects are seamless, and include Blur, Chromatic Aberrations, Color Gradients, De-Noise, Digital Glitch, Fractal Noise, Glow, Plane to Sphere, Projection, Rotate Sphere and Sharpen.

The Plane to Sphere effect is particularly useful; without this, when you import a 2D image it will automatically look curved. Apply the VR Plane to Sphere, and the image will instead appear like a 2D placard within 360-degree space, with tools to adjust how far away it looks and orientation. Even better, all these effects are GPU-accelerated, so they gain a performance advantage from your graphics hardware.

The VR Rotate Sphere effect lets you correct orientation issues with your 3D sphere, and you can add keyframes to animate the default view direction within the 360-degree space. The VR Projection tool is also handy, because it makes it easy to use footage shot on different 360 cameras on the same timeline. For example, we imported footage shot on a Ricoh Theta S alongside Garmin VIRB 360 output, and the VR Projection filter stretched the Ricoh footage perfectly to match the Garmin's.

The remaining effects are essentially 360-aware versions of their 2D counterparts. The immersive transitions include Chroma Leaks, Gradient Wipe, Iris Wipe, Light Leaks, Light Rays, Mobius Zoom, Random Blocks and Spherical Blur.

All eight use the 360-degree space in an interesting way to move between clips, and are a welcome addition because most 2D transitions introduce unwanted visual artefacts. Premiere Pro itself also now works in VR, so you can edit while wearing a VR viewing device such as the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018 review: Extra features

There are a couple of other significant new features. The Essential Graphics Panel, introduced with Premiere Pro CC 2017 to replace the legacy titler, has been improved by the addition of Responsive Design. The Time element lets you pin a range of intro and outro keyframes at the beginning and end of a motion graphics clip, which are preserved when you make ripple edits.

This also includes a rolling credits feature. The Position element lets you pin a graphics layer to another layer or the video frame itself. The graphics layer will then respond to changes to the pinned layer or video frame, so when these are added to a sequence with a different aspect ratio they will maintain relative position.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018 review: Verdict

There are sundry smaller improvements, including the ability to preview fonts and edit motion graphics templates created in After Effects directly within Premiere Pro. There are now also eight new label colours to aid clip organisation. But the ability to load multiple projects, shared project controls and extended VR support are the killer new features. Premiere Pro CC 2018 is even easier to use than ever, and now also a serious contender for creating 360 content.

Verdict

The ability to load multiple projects, shared project controls and extended VR support are killer new features. Premiere Pro CC 2018 is even easier to use than ever, and now also a serious contender for creating 360 content.

Eyebrows were rightly raised when Facebook spent $2 billion on Oculus VR. Now, though, it seems the world is starting to understand Zuckerberg's insight.

Back then in 2014 virtual reality seemed to be limited to games. Three years later and we're already seeing global rollouts of commercial VR products, such as Audi's Configurator: this not only switches colours but lets customers configure add-ons such as alloy wheels and see the effect in virtual reality. And it's not just cars. Everything from films and games to immersive advertising is making its way to the platform: it's time to ask not if you should join them, but how?

Immersive experiences

Ikea has never been slow to innovate, and saw the potential of VR early on. Its showrooms have a magnetic pull on price-sensitive, fashion-conscious home owners, but not everyone lives within striking distance of one of its warehouses. So, in 2016 it saved them the journey by rolling out a "virtual" kitchen through Steam. Built using Ikea cupboards, filled with Ikea accessories, it was a fully interactive, immersive environment, with sliding drawers, chopped food and pans that you could virtually "cook" with.

"We see that virtual reality will play a major role in the future of our customers," said Ikea's new chief executive, Jesper Brodin, when the product launched. He believes that VR will soon be an integrated part of people's lives. "Someday, it could be used to enable customers to try out a variety of home furnishing solutions before buying them."

The kitchen experience (watch a demonstration here) isn't Ikea's only venture into virtual worlds. It commissioned Hamburg digital agency Demodern to build an immersive interactive showroom delivered using VR headsets, which allowed shoppers to both view the contents of a flat, and change its fabrics, wall colours, and even lighting. They were effectively trialling the environment before slipping off the headset and taking home the parts they liked from the store's real-world shelves.

In each environment, the customer sat at the centre of a 360-degree world, which for many creatives accustomed to video and web is an unfamiliar environment in which to start work.

Matt Beverage is co-founder and creative director of London-based Pebble Studios, a specialist in VR and immersive content. He sees the need to think about what's behind you while moving away from traditional cuts between scenes as one of the most important considerations for anyone who wants to produce VR content. In many ways, he believes, developers need to adopt a gaming mindset."Games have always concerned themselves with taking the viewer through a narrative, and VR is closer to that than it is to traditional TV and video content. With film, you can cut between shots and environments but if you do that in VR you lose people because they suddenly realise that they've got a headset on, rather than buying into that world."

VR won't suit every environment, or use case, so it's important to think about what and how you're selling, and whether VR is the right medium. Often, said Beveridge, it isn't.

Narrative and quality

"Narrative" comes first, he said, and relying on the technology to generate interest probably isn't enough. "GoPro cameras are a great analogy. The GoPro website is full of great footage, but in reality, 99% of them are used by idiots like me and their mates on their snowboarding holiday, to shoot terrible videos that they bore all their friends to death with."

VR is at the same stage, he argued, and brands can't put out sub-standard footage and hope to find an audience. Even companies that spend time and money on their offering should be conservative when estimating who might see the result.

There are fewer than a million VR headsets in Britain, and with Facebook cutting the price of the Oculus Rift twice since the start of the year, some may assume that demand isn't currently outstripping supply. Yet, as prices fall ,the barriers to entry will also come down. It's already possible to buy sub-200 360-degree cameras on the high street, but placing these in a room and stitching together the poorly thought-out result is likely to turn people off the idea of VR as a promotional medium.

"VR is changing so quickly that narrative will likely outlast the technology itself," Beveridge warned. "You can watch great movies from the 1940s now, and they'll have stood the test of time if the narrative was good, but if you watch a ten-year-old movie that was built around effects, it's already going to look terrible."

This applies directly to VR. It still has a novelty factor but, in a world where content hangs around longer than we might like on the web, it pays to think carefully about how you want to present your products or service.

Building transient worlds

A striking Pebble Studios project is a VR tour of the Bowmore whisky distillery. Aware that drinkers who find a whisky they like tend to stay loyal to the brand, Bowmore wanted to help them identify with the unique factors that contributed to its product's distinctive taste, including the location, water source and even weather. Quantifying the return on its investment would be difficult, but VR was considered appropriate because it lent itself well to playing out at whisky conferences and in airport duty free lounges, where shoppers could be transported to the distillery's base on the Hebrides .

On a smaller scale, VR is making strides in real estate. Like Ikea's virtual rooms, VR house viewings give the user an idea of what it would be like to live in an environment, by giving them the opportunity to see it from the inside. Rightmove's early ventures are available on its YouTube channel, as are those of Nottingham agency Walton & Allen. Do these videos tell a story? Not in the traditional sense, but they do have a narrative that this is what your life could be like if you moved here.

Reality vs unreality

Real estate and furnishings are logical uses for VR. The same could be said for media, cars and holidays, but the case is less clear-cut for products that don't envelop the user in the real world.

And that's the key. Successful VR recreates reality on a virtual plane, allowing the audience to experience something that would otherwise be out of their reach at least without them making a not-inconsiderable journey.

"When you put on [a headset], you enter a completely immersive computer-generated environment," wrote Zuckerberg when he announced Facebook's interest in Oculus VR. "The incredible thing about the technology is that you feel like you're actually present in another place with other people. People who try it say it's different from anything they've experienced in their lives."

On a raw, technological level, he's right, but from what we've seen so far it seems that, when it comes to VR promotion at least, making the results as familiar as possible, rather than different, may be the key to success.

Main image credit: Shutterstock

Some five years since the Kickstarter debut of the Oculus Rift, we now have access to all manner of VR headsets, ranging from the smartphone-powered basic Google Cardboard goggles to fully immersive headsets.

But whereas VR has been catapulted into the public eye of late, the technology in various guises has been around for some time, though not exactly in the form we would recognise today.

University College London has had a VR cave facility since 2000, offering a way for one or more people to immerse themselves in virtual environments without wearing heavy headsets.

And as one of the UK's top universities it has arguably been spearheading VR research for the some time.

Virtual exploration

"For a long time this was the only show in town if you wanted to do good VR simulation, albeit with fairly limited computer graphics," Dr David Swapp, research fellow and Immersive VR Lab manager at UCL's Department of Computer Science, tells IT Pro.

While technology consultancies and enterprises are actively exploring the business uses for VR, they are mostly working with headsets that are commercially available to anyone with deep enough pockets or a decent smartphone.

But Swapp and the lab are exploring VR for a more classic research point of view, looking at how it can be made more effective.

"It's about understanding what makes it work. Virtual reality is all about sensory illusions, tricking people into thinking something that's not there is there," says Swapp.

"On a very mundane level it's projecting an image of something [for] you to interact with it, not necessarily believe it's real but act and behave as if it's real; that's a crucial element of [VR]."

This may seem simple, but the lab is doing a lot of interesting work that is not simply reliant on extracting more convincing visuals out of VR hardware but making virtual environments more believable and thus more effective in their use.

Immersive research

Swapp details an early experiment with the VR cage aimed at helping people with fears of public speaking. The simulation replicated a small crowd of people who could be programmed to be attentive or disruptive as needed.

Despite the lack of high fidelity graphics, Swapp explained the people attempting to deliver a talk found the experience to be very convincing.

Through learning how such VR experiences can be used and improved, that knowledge will filter down to the development of VR hardware and applications which will inevitably lead to improved technology for businesses to put to use.

The potential for VR to be used in all manner of businesses and industries is significant as well, if the other work the lab carries out is anything to go by.

"The way we've worked tends to have been through collaborations. The idea would be we'd work with scientists who are trying to solve some kind of problem using VR and we would use this study to advance our own knowledge of how well VR works," said Swapp, detailing an experiment designed to test the bystander effect.

Working with psychologists the lab was used to test how people react to an aggressive situation unfolding in front of them; do they get involved or stay out of it?

Swapp said testing had previously been limited to questionnaires but in the VR cage the bystander effect could be safely simulated, resulting in more realistic results for the psychology researchers and feeding the lab's knowledge of how effective its simulations are.

In the early days of the lab, there was a lot of focus on creating effective visual illusions and establishing tolerances, such as finding out how accurate movement tracking needs to be.

Swapp notes these issues still exist but as the technology has advanced, they become less of a critical issue. The goal now is on making simulations feel real and induce a feeling of presence to track "the degree to which you feel that you are inhabiting the virtual world as opposed to standing in a lab looking at projections".

"Ideally we want people to be unencumbered, not have to wear lots of equipment, and if they don't notice the technology supporting the illusion, that's great," highlights Swapp.

"My informal measure of that in here is how often people walk into the screens; if people walk into the screens we think 'fantastic it's working really well, hope they didn't hurt themselves!'."

Beyond visual illusions

The lab's current studies are looking at tackling how other senses work in VR, such as hearing audio in virtual environments, something which can be neglected in large projects. Audio is an important factor if people are to respond to something as if it's real even though their eyes are taking in less than photo-realistic graphics.

"At the end of the day it all comes down to sensory tricks. Some of the best discoveries in VR have been ways to fool our senses or see what you can get away with," says Swapp.

"One of the big projects we are involved in now is taking a look at multi-sensory and collaborative VR over very low-latency networks.

"One of the big foci of this project is haptic interaction, touch interaction, and this is a bigger element in a number of spheres industrially, whether it's teleoperation or just telepresence.

"Haptics are not very tolerant to delay for a number of reasons; you need to have very, very high update rates, otherwise our solid virtual surfaces feel spongy. If you're trying to interact remotely with somebody - the classic example is the virtual handshake - you can't do it with delay because you're just not quite in the right place at the right time.

"So we've been given access to some of the experimental network infrastructure that's all optical, very, very low latency where we can experiment with [haptics and latency], and we're doing this with the University of Liverpool; that's where our testbed is going to extend to."

Again, the work here will lead to the evolution of VR technology and its effectiveness as a whole, given UK university grants are now only awarded if they can prove a societal or industrial impact.

So while the VR Lab isn't working in any projects that will directly yield a Google-branded VR platform, for example, a lot of the work will filter into the VR sector as it matures.

Swapp notes those companies that are truly interested in VR saw the potential of it relatively early, leading to the likes of Jaguar Land Rover to hurry off and build their own VR cages to aid product and project design.

"When we first looked for industrial collaborators because we just built a cave and it was very exciting, the people who were really serious about [VR tech] went off and built their own ones," he explains.

However, Swapp said there is a 2020 grant that will look to open up the cave for European SMBs and universities to carry out work and experiments without incurring the hefty expense of making their own VR caves for potentially one-off projects.

This could sow the seeds for follow-up VR research and see the technology and its adoption spread.

With a lab festooned with VR headsets, a VR cave, haptic arms, and telepresence robots, UCL's VR Lab is clearly not being browbeaten by the idea that VR is and always will be a niche area.

Rather the lasting impression is one that there is a lot more to be seen from the immersive technology in terms of hardware, software and techniques to make virtual simulations feel less like thin illusions and more like real environments.

While limits still exist, Swapp is quietly confident there is a lot more potential to VR than ever before, and research and innovation will pave the way.

"I've lived through a number of cycles of hype and disappointment in VR and there was always a sense with this last wave, which started two or three years ago now, that this might actually get some traction this time," he concludes. "And it seems to be panning out that way."

Main image credit: Shutterstock. All other images: Roland Moore-Colyer

Once the stuff of science fiction pipe-dreams, virtual reality is finally, officially here. After a few false starts, the technology to fully immerse yourself in a digital world has been realised, with multiple high-end VR headsets like the Oculus Rift,HTC Vive, and Sony'sPlayStation VRall competing to fulfil your holodeck dreams.

Although some have dismissed it as a mere gimmick, virtual reality technology has actually drawn a substantial amount of interest from the business market. Companies are already using VR devices for things like training and education, prototyping and even architecture.

At a glance

Design and appearance

Let's face it: VR headsets do look a little silly and although the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Playstation VR are all very well-respected contenders in the virtual reality space, when choosing which one to go for, what they look like on your face is a pretty vital consideration.

The PlayStation VR looks like a ski mask, with a halo-style strap wrapping round the crown of your head, easily adjustable and pretty comfortable compared to its competitors. The headset certainly looks like tech from the future, with a more space-age design than the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, with its tracking technology lights up around the edges of the headset, making it look even more futuristic.

The HTC Vive is a bulky piece of kit, heavier than both the Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR and less well thought out in terms of style. It's generally comfortable, however, with three super-secure Velcro straps wrapping perfectly round your skull, ensuring it doesn't slip off while you're engrossed in a virtual world.

The big negative of the HTC Vive headset is that it's still tethered by a cable, which can break the experience when you're exploring a virtual world.

From one end of the scale to another, the Oculus Rift is probably the best looking VR headset of the three. Unlike the bulky design of the Vive, this headset is a more slender-looking pair of ski goggles. Wrapped in a special fabric that stops condensation forming as you get all hot and bothered playing enthusiastically, it also feels nice and lightweight. Like the Vive, the Rift isn't wireless, so you'll have to avoid the wires as you play.

Price

All three headsets are objectively pretty expensive, but there's also quite a lot of variation between them. The HTC Vive is the most expensive, clocking in at 759. Next is the Oculus Rift, which at 549 is almost 200 cheaper. Finally, there's the almost affordable PlayStation VR, which is just 349.

It's worth noting, however, that both the Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR don't quite come as complete packages. Neither one includes motion controllers as standard, and Sony's headset even forces you to buy the PlayStation Camera separately, which it requires to function. The HTC Vive, however, includes everything you need in the box - including motion controllers.

Specs and performance

The key performance indicators for VR are the frame rate, the refresh rate and the latency. The often imperceptible delay between moving your head and the game responding was a persistent cause of motion sickness in early VR tests, as were the frame rates of the first headsets.

While 60fps is widely regarded as the gold standard for current-gen gaming, it's not sufficient when the screen is inches from a user's eyeballs. The usually near-imperceptible flickering effect caused by the missing' frames is greatly exacerbated by the user's proximity to the display.

As they're both PC-based, exactly how well the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift perform will be partly dependent on how powerful your hardware is.

However, the majority of VR-ready PCs will be able to run smoothly, with only occasional lags and framerate drops. PS VR, on the other hand, is guaranteed to work with any PS4 out of the box - although the PS4 Pro promises more powerful performance.

In terms of display quality, while PlayStation VR is nominally lower-resolution than the other two headsets, in practise the difference is all but imperceptible. Part of this is the fact that most VR games are designed to be low-res, cartoony or retro experiences, but a larger reason is that the experience is generally so immersive that you simply don't notice minor anti-aliasing or artifacting issues.

All three headsets can sometimes have issues with the motion controllers - tracking and recognition problems can cause the player's hands to briefly and unexpectedly warp to different positions as the system momentarily forgets where they are in the real world. This is to be expected of such nascent technology, however, and it's not a big enough problem to be a dealbreaker.

Software

Given that they're PC-based headsets, the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are both well-suited to applications outside of gaming and entertainment, as they're comparatively easy to develop for. They've both got open SDKs for developers to use in creating their own apps and tools to run on the hardware, and they'll run on a wide variety of hardware.

PlayStation VR, by contrast, is much more restrictive in terms of what software it can run. It's not designed for use with business or non-gaming applications, so creating and distributing your own custom VR apps isn't as simple and straight-forward as with the Rift or Vive. On top of that, they have to be run on a PS4, which limits their usability.

Steam VR is Valve's answer to virtual reality devices like PlayStation VRand the Oculus Rift. Long rumoured to be in the pipeline, Valve's first virtual reality headset was initially unveiled at Game Developer's Conference 2015.

Gamers everywhere remain hugely excited by the prospect of Valve, operator of the biggest distribution platform in the world and a critically acclaimed developer in its own right, entering the VR space.

HTC Vive latest news

30/11/2017:HTC announced yesterday it has chosen 26 AR and VR startups for the next round of its Vive X accelerator programme.

The programme is based in Beijing, San Francisco, Taipei and Shenzhen and is now expanding to Tel Aviv too. The company aims to grow a global VR ecosystem through its accelerator programme.

This is the programme's third batch of companies, taking the total number of startups it's invested in to over 80.

"Our focus with VIVE X is to partner with companies across the globe that will solve industry pain-points and improve user experiences across AR and VR. This third batch is filled with incredibly talented and promising teams who are focusing on foundational technologies and key verticals including enterprise, healthcare, entertainment, and education," said Marc Metis, VP at HTC VIVE.

"We continue to invest very actively in both VR and AR, and are excited to work with the next group of innovative teams and technologies that will shape the future."

One of the companies is Neurable, a San Francisco based startup, which is developing a brain-computer interface for VR control using innovations in neuroscience.

Another is Future Tech, based in Chengdu, that creates games and VR content and has a team made of veterans from Ubisoft, Gameloft, PDE and Virtuos.

In Taipei, HTC invested in COVER, which are developing a virtual livestreaming platform where users can perform with their avatars for an audience.

HTC have also invested in startups based in Tel Aviv, one of which is Astral Vision which turns theme park rides into VR attractions.

You can see the full list of 26 startups here.

Vive X companies receive up to $200,000 convertible notes or a warrant although the final amount depends on the startup's growth stage. Startups benefit from mentorship, promotional support, engineering support, connections to the Vive X network, office space and more.

25/08/2017: HTC may be looking into selling its Vive business

HTC might sell its Vive arm as part of a strategic change for the company.

The company is looking at options ranging from divesting its VR business to a full sale of HTC, according to Bloomberg.

It is said to be working with an adviser and has held talks with companies such as Google, though the search giant told IT Pro does not comment on such rumours. And HTC may be looking into either selling the Vive business or spinning it off.

One of Bloomberg's sources said a full sale of HTC is less likely "because it isn't an obvious fit for a single acquirer". They added that no final decisions have been made and the company may not make any strategic decisions at all.

HTC shares rose by 4.7% on Friday giving the company a $1.9 billion market value.

IT Pro has contacted HTC for comment.

Earlier this week, HTC cut the Vive price to 599 in the UK. All purchases are to come with a free Viveport Subscription trial where consumers can select up to five titles per month to experience.

The aim of the price cut was to make the VR device more accessible to a wider audience and to drive the VR industry forward.

In early August Neurable announced a brain computer interface for VR which uses an upgraded headband for the Vive. The device uses brain sensors and neurotechnology and Neurable hopes that in the future AR/VR companies will integrate brain sensors directly into their products.

21/08/2017: Vive gets a price cut

The HTC Vive has had a price cut and will now be599 in the UK. HTC said that all Vive purchases will come with a free Viveport Subscription trial where consumers can select up to 5 titles per month to experience, including Google's Tilt Brush, Everest VR, and Richie's Plank Experience.

Cher Wang, chairwoman at HTC, said that the new price for Vive would make it "more accessible to a broader audience" and drive "the entire VR industry forward".

According toSteam statistics, HTC Vive maintains a 60% share of access to the Steam platform for high-end VR headsets.Over the past year, Vive has maintained its lead by more than 20%, the firm claimed.

Paul Brown, GM for Europe at HTC Vive, said: "Reducing the price of Vive during a key purchasing season we believe will significantly boost VR adoption to bring in even more consumers and content creators to Vive."

08/08/2017:Neurable VP Michael Thompson has announced a brain computer interface for virtual reality, using an upgraded headband for the HTC Vive.

Users can "simply remove the elastic straps in the back and replace them with our straps," Thompson said, adding that the device is a prototype of how brain sensors and neurotechnology can be integrated with AR/VR devices.

The platform is built so that developers can make brain-controlled content for virtual reality. Thompsonsaid: "This incredible experience is made possible by Neurable's machine learning platform, which interprets your brain activity in real time to afford virtual powers of telekinesis.

"Our complex machine learning pipeline has been distilled into an SDK compatible with Unity. With the Neurable SDK, Unity developers can easily integrate brain-activity as a control input into any game."

Neurable is showcasing a VR game preview of its game Awakening, which is "a futuristic story reminiscent of Stranger Things". The game allows players to manipulate objects and battle foes with their mind, and is played entirely without any handheld controllers.

In the future, Thompson expects AR/VR companies to integrate brain sensors directly into their products."What the touch interface became to smartphones, [brain-controlled interfaces] will become to mixed reality headsets," said Thompson.

Elon Musk, CEO of Neuralink, a company dedicated to directly linking computers with human brains, hopes to make brain interfaces that will eventually replace the need for human language. Musk hopes to go further and enhance humans with cybernetic implants, and believes that humanity may have tomerge with AI to survive.

21/06/2017: HTC has signed a number of deals with leading retailers and distributors that will expand the availability of its Vive headset in the US and UK.

The company has recently formed a partnership with distributor Westcoast Retail, which will see the firm responsible for shipping Vives exclusively across the UK and EU.

"Entering the VR market is an important strategic step for us so we needed a partner with the reputation and team that can deliver a robust approach to the supply chain," said Louis Lin, HTC operations director, speaking to PCR. "Westcoast Retail is a true specialist in the field with the ability to help us fulfil the varying needs of HTC Vive customers and retailers throughout Europe."

HTC also recently announced a "large retail expansion" for customers in the US, which can now buy the Vive through BestBuy.com, Walmart.com, Jet.com and B and H.

"These retailers mark a massive expansion of our online retail presence and are a testament to VR's march toward the broader consumer market," said Dan O'Brien, GM of HTC Vive. "Interest in VR and Vive continues to grow. Paired with recent news with Apple, Google and Intel, we're seeing major retailers and direct-to-consumer companies endorse Vive as the premier VR experience."

To celebrate the expansion, all HTC Vive purchases throughout June will ship with Ubisoft's Star Trek: Bridge Crew, as well as Everest VR, Richie's Plank Experience, and one free month subscription to the Viveport app store.

HTC Vive review

After doing a full review of the HTC Vive, we found it to be slightly underwhelming. Make no mistake, the technology is still hugely exciting, but it's hamstrung by a lack of compelling experiences, aside from a handful of standouts.

It's got heaps of potential, and it's a tantalising glimpse of the future of VR, but right now, there's just not that much reason to shell out the exorbitant 700+ asking price.You canread our full review of the HTC Vive here.

HTC Vive price and release date

The launch price for the HTC Vive was $799 over $200 more expensive than the Oculus Rift, which was itself criticised for its high price point.

However, HTC dropped the UK price to 599 in August, making it "more accessible" to the market. The device is available to buy immediately through the HTC Vive's website, as well as from Currys.

"Our goal at Vive has always been to offer the best and most advanced VR system and drive mass market adoption for VR across the globe," said Cher Wang, chairwoman at HTC, when the price drop is announced. "We're continuing to deliver on that commitment with this new price for Vive, making VR more accessible to a broader audience and driving the entire VR industry forward.

HTC Vive specs and hardware

Due to its background in mobile technology, HTC already has something of a pedigree when it comes to working with the type of hardware that goes into VR headsets. Looking at the specs for the developer edition of the Vive, it's easy to see where the company's smartphone history has come into play.

The headset has a resolution of 1080x1200px, split across both eyes. It's also got a 90Hz refresh rate, which translates to a framerate 90fps. Both specs are generally on par which what we'd expect at this stage in the device's development.

The consumer version of the Oculus Rifthas a 2160x1200px display, which equates to the same resolution as the Vive when split across both lenses.PlayStation VRlists a slightly lower 960x1080 per eye display.

HTC Vive room tracking

Where the HTC Vive starts to get really interesting is in the Lighthouse technology it uses for motion tracking. Like other VR visors, the Vive uses a gyroscope, accelerometer and laser position sensor' to track the user's head movement, and to detect where they're looking.

The Vive's unique feature, however, is that it uses position tracking as well. The headset is supplied with two base stations' sensor boxes that sit in opposite corners of whichever space you're using for your VR experience.

Over a maximum area of 15 square feet, these sensors will track your physical movement, allowing you to get up, walk around and interact with the virtual world in real time. This is an innovative feature, as both Oculus Rift and PSVR offer no support for physical movement, relying instead on stationary head-tracking.

In addition to this, Vive uses a set of handheld motion controllers to allow users to realistically manipulate objects on the virtual plane. PSVR has incorporated this feature from the start of its development, utilising Playstation's ill-fated Move controller. Oculus also recently announced the Oculus Touch prototypes for the Rift, which use similar tracking and input methods.

HTC Vive games

Vive is powered by Steam VR, which is an extension of Valve's existing game distribution platform, initially developed to support the Oculus Rift DK2. As such, there's already a pretty hefty list of titles which should support the Vive on launch, as well as a few Vive-exclusive games.

The majority of the HTC Vive's launch library has been produced by indie developers, and many of the games are physics-based titles created with the Unity engine. While there are a handful of big-budget games, they're decidedly in the minority for now.

HTC Vive additional content

As with the other headsets we've seen, the HTC Vive won't just be a gaming peripheral. The company are aiming to leverage it as a total multimedia platform and have signed up Game Of Thrones network HBO, film studio Lionsgate and Google as external content partners to provide non-gaming experiences.

Steam VR: other headsets

Much like Valve's Steam Machines initiative, Steam VR will see Valve team up with multiple hardware partners in order to provide the actual devices themselves. The first and best-known hardware provider is HTC, although LG has also unveiled its own SteamVR headset.

Valve has confirmed that its goal is to see more companies using the technology. Co-founder and MD Gabe Newell stated: "We're building tools and hopefully they're valuable to hardware partners who want to do it. In some cases, we'll take the leadership role in shipping stuff. But we're really just building tools for other people to continue. So you'll see more headsets."

Previous News

15/05/2017:Half-life 2: VR coming to Vive and Oculus Rift thanks to mod

Modders have developed a version of Half-Life 2 that works with HTC Vive and Oculus Rift headsets.

The new version includes updated effects, textures, models and maps to make the gamplay more immersive, a UI developed specifically for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, more realistic weapon interactions, including reloading them differently according to the real-life mechanism and motion controller support that means it will work seamlessly with the VR environments. The modding team is also planning to add a whole raft of new features in the near future.

Although there was previously a version available for VR environments, Steam stopped support of it and so fans of the game stopped playing when it went out of date. It meant anyone using a modern VR headset like the HTC Vive were unable to play it at all.

"While Valve had added support for the Rift development kits to their Source engine, as the software that the headsets relied on advanced over time,Valve didn't update the Sourceimplementation, leading to the present situation which is that the mod can't be played on anything but old development kit headsets,"Road to VR reported.

Although Half-Life 2: VR is free to download, anyone wishing to play the game will need players to have Half-Life 2, Episode 1&2 installed before they can start playing it.

12/05/2017:Valve has made it easier for users to watch immersive videos on their VR headsets by releasing a beta version ofSteam 360 Video Player.

The video player allows for instant playback of VR movies and other linear VR shorts and shows including The Hunger Games 360, Lego Batman and (for the braver players) Alien Covenant in Utero.

The player uses Pixvana SPIN Studio technology to stream in virtual reality and this means there is no need to launch a separate application which is what users had to do before.

As it is in beta, Steam have launched acommunity hubfor for questions and discussions of the player.

Valve says that in the minimum specifications for 360 video playback are basically the same for the Virtual Reality HMD. The general specifics are Windows 10, an Intel i5-4590, AMD FX 8350 equivalent or better processor and 50 MB available space. Head to theFAQ pageto see the full specification.

There are four different types of 360 videos on Steam. There is Mono, where the video was captured from a single position in space meaning there is no sense of depth during video playback. Stereo is where the video was captured from two positions and each eye in the VR will see a slightly different image, providing depth and distance in the video. The third type is Equirectangular which captures and playbacks a 360 view in a rectangular photo frame. Lastly, there is FOVAS (Field of View Adaptive Streaming) which is where only the content needed is presented in front of the user's eyes in order to make the most of a reduced network bandwidth. The rest of the 360 view is lower quality and as the user moves their head, different areas are loaded.

06/04/2017:HTC Vive has celebrated it's first birthday yesterday with a"Vive Day"celebration. Customers could redeem a free copy of Vive Studios' game Arcade Saga and new customers could celebrate by purchasing a Vive with a 100 discount (659 as opposed to the standard price of 759). The celebration was only meant to last till the end of the day, but it ended up spilling over into this morning.

At the same time on Steam there is aVR anniversary salewhere you can get huge discounts on games including EVE: Valkyrie, Tilt Brush and more.

HTC also launched its Viveport subscription on the same day which is the first-ever subscription model for a VR app store. Subscribers can discover new content for a monthly fee of $6.99 on the VR app marketplace and it includes a one month free trial for all new users, who get to choose five titles each month to play as well as unlimited access to apps.

03/04/2017:HTC is planning to launch virtual reality-powered ads for its Vive headset users, offering a more immersive experience, while also offering developers and advertisers a better platform with which to attract customers.

"Innovative VR ADs [offer] an unprecedented ad viewing experience, delivering immersive VR environment on cinema-scale screens, and offering interactive elements to further promote user engagement,"HTC said. "Therefore, VR Advertising is not simply an interruption, but a synonym of exceptional experience.

"Ads that appear in immersive VR environments can not only provide more effective impressions, they can also track whether the users have viewed them or have turned away their gaze. Accordingly, the multiplied effect of effective impressions and verified viewings will bring you higher advertising revenue.

HTC said it would be carefully tracking how users interact with the ads and will feedback to developers about their success, helping them work out how to make them better and receive a more favourable response from end users.

The company explained that these ads are more likely to result in conversions for advertisers, making them more profitable in the long run - even if developers have to invest in the format before re-developing their ads for a virtual environment.

"Therefore, promotion of your applications would have much more effective impression, which not only arouses the attention of potential users and enhance brand image, but further attracts interested users directly to download your apps in the VR environment," HTC said.

08/03/2017:HTC is set to open source a full-body tracking system for the Vive, allowing developers to build full-body avatars to represent players.

HTC's president of Vive for China, Alvin Graylin, said that a solution was the company's Chinese research teams is working on a solution to be rolled out to all developers for free once ready, according toUploadVR.

The technology is reportedly a "similar system" to that shown off by Cloudgate Studios, which is built on HTC's new Tracker peripherals - add-on devices that attach to real-world objects allowing them to be tracked and represented in VR environments.

Cloudgate uses the Vive Trackers - which are set to go on sale to developers in late March for $99.99 - to map the player's body, with one attached to the waist and one on each foot.

Graylin was keen to point out, however, that use of full body tracking will not be mandatory, and developers are still free to use whatever control scheme they wish.

03/03/2017:LG has demoed the first prototype of a new VR headset built with Valve at the Game Developers Conference, following confirmation on Monday that the two companies will be working together.

LG is now the second company to make use of Valve's OpenVR platform, following Valve's development of the Vive headset with HTC.

The LG SteamVR headset addresses some niggling problems found on the Rift and HTC Vive. Most notably, the device borrows from the Playstation VR by using an adjustable headband that evenly distributes the weight of the headset.

The display itself is bound to a swivel that allows you to slide it forward and lift it up above your head like a visor. This means you can take a break without the need to remove the headset entirely.

LG has also opted for a single OLED screen at resolution of 1440 x 1280, rather than two separate 1080 x 1200 displays per eye on the HTC Vive, although it matches the Vive's field of view at 110 degrees.

Speaking toArs Technica, LG confirmed it is planning for a late 2017 release, although no price point has yet been decided. LG is also interviewing VR developers for feedback on potential changes to the design.

Competition with two Valve headsets on its open VR platform is also likely to drive down the prices of rival headsets, particularly as Oculus has already announced a $200 price cut on the Rift.

25/11/2016:HTC's President of Smartphone and Connected Devices, Chia-Lin Chang, has revealed the company has sold more than 140,000 units of the Vive VR headset.

"I don't know [how] this 140,000 number came up. It's higher than 140,000. It's much more than that number," Chang said on an earnings call transcribed bySeeking Alpha.

"But I will not be able to give you a number, and I would encourage you guys not to refer that number. That seems to be anchored fully on something that we have no idea where it came from."

"I would never disclose [the exact figure], because this is the best protection of HTC interests, shareholders, in the long term," he added.

"I'm very happy to report to you that we continue to be happy with the current selling condition in last quarter," Chang said.

He also explained the company sells each Vive at a profit, despite critics saying it must be impossible with a price tag of $800 apiece.

18/11/2016:Google is adding a new twist to its Earth app, by allowing HTC Vive users to explore the world in VR.

An app listing onSteam's websiteoutlines some of the system requirements for the app in VR, which can be used on computers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or later, or Windows 10.

At present, Google Earth VR is only available for HTC Vive users, but it could become available for other VR headsets in future.

Google Earth VR allows users to virtually visit spectacular places around the world, through cinematic tours to destinations such as the pyramids, Grand Canyon, the Amazon River, the Niagara Falls, the Manhattan skyline and more.

Google Earth VR was released on Steam on 16November and can be downloaded for free.

This is one of the latest VR introductions byGoogle after its CEO Sundar Pichai recently announced the company is bringing VR experiences to one million children in UK schools.

The tech giant also introduced its own VR platform, DayDream VR, in October, alongside its new Pixel smartphones. Google said DayDream users can use DayDream to view all YouTube content, even if the video does not have a 360 degrees view. The company also extended this toGoogle Street View and other apps.

14/11/2016:HTC Vive users will soon be offered the possibility of using the headset without wires, purchasing an upgrade kit that costs 175.

HTC Vive partnered with TPCAST in developing the kit, which was created as part of the Vive X Accelerator program; a program ran by the Taiwanese company aimed at improving VR.

This new wireless tool was introduced at e-commerce company Alibaba's 11/11 shopping centre, on Singles day, China's version of Black Friday.

In an interview withWired, China regional president of Vive, Alvin W. Graylin, said: "We are very proud and supportive of teams that develop great accessories and game changing peripherals to the Vive ecosystem. The fact this was developed in such a short time, and delivers such high quality is remarkable. It will allow Vive customers worldwide to gain untethered mobility in VR from their existing devices while satisfying the biggest feature request of potential PC VR customers."

The kit allows HTC users to modify their headsets so that it works without any wires attached.

Other companies such as Quark have also been prototyping wireless adaptors for HTC hardware, but the release date for these has not been disclosed.

HTC and TPCAST have not yet explained how this new addition works, and the kit is currently being marketed as a "preview edition".

Graylin also said the kit offers no noticeable difference in latency, which could suggest the computer will still be processing VR content and sending the signal to the VR headset's add-on.

The kit preview edition is available for pre-orders in China for 1499 (175) and should be delivered in the first quarter of 2017.

It is not clear when the kit will reach the UK.

17/10/2016:Valve's HTC controller prototype has been shown off at last week's Steam Dev Days event, with advanced gesture detection technology that can identify even the smallest of hand movements.

Velcro straps securing the controller to hands aren't a built-in safety device, but a psychological feature that means when you're throwing an object in the virtual world, you can put all your effort into it, because you know the controller won't slip out of your hand. It's more natural than other VR efforts, attendees at the event reported.

"It further breaks down the barriers between people using VR and their experience, and encourages more natural interactions," says Fox Buchele, VR designer and developer at Idean, a brand agency attending the show. "The Vive controllers are definitely abstractions, but the prototype was the first controller I tried that actually felt like my real hand."

Buchele said the experience was better than Vive's main competitor Oculus Touch, even though some interference from the static of he carpet at the event venue made it run a little less fluidly in one hand.

"It really was far more immersive than doing the same scene using the Vive controllers," he toldRolling Stone."It didn't track individual fingers, only the entire hand pose from open to closed, but I was told there isn't a technological restriction keeping them from tracking the individual fingers."

02/09/2016:HTC is apparently developing a wireless version of its Vive headset.

It is working with Valve and Quark VR tocut the cords of the headset, meaning gamers can wander around their entire home, fields or wherever else they wish to roam while playing games using virtual reality.

However, don't go expecting a second version of the HTC Vive quite yet, because Quark was very quick to explain the technology won't be a complete overhaul of the HTC Vive, but will be a stop-gap before the company releases the official upgrade.

Quark said in a statement: "The way the headset will become wireless is through a small gadget, connected to the headset, but not wired with cables to the PC itself. Instead, the small transmitter, that may be placed in the pocket of the user, sends and receives the signal between the PC and the HTC Vive through Wi-Fi."

However, losing the wires isn't necessarily going to change the gaming experience that much, because the fantastical graphics are all down to the computer powering the games, rather than just the headset.

Another problem with using a wireless headset could be latency, as the Wi-Fi signal tries to keep up with not only downloading and rendering the massive game files on the computer, but also transmitting this data to the headset.

"Getting the experience to feel seamless through Wi-Fi, keeping in mind the inevitable connection delay, was a huge challenge, but we're getting extremely close to being able to show it in action!" Quark said.

09/08/2016:HTC has announced a hub for people to discover the latest content on its VR device, Vive.

Fittingly called Viveport, the hub collects virtual reality content across various categories 360 video, news, sport, health, education, shopping and travel.

With a developer beta due to come available in the next few weeks, Viveport will also include an update to Vive Home, HTC Vive users' personalised desktop-like display of their games and features.

Viveport will roll out to users in 30 countries from autumn this year, HTC said, inviting both developers and users to try it out.

Its success will rely on content developers putting their games on the platform, HTC admitted. It referred to vague "monetisation options" and other new features to encourage developers to support the hub.

"Viveport will play an important role in giving access to virtual reality experiences that will enhance our daily lives and the way we connect with friends and family," Rikard Steiber, senior vice president of Viveport, said in ablog post. "The Vive team and our customers cannot wait to see what new experiences will be shared by our partners in the developer community."

01/08/2016:The HTC Vive is going up in price, and it's all thanks to Brexit.

The South Korean company's blog for the virtual reality device confirmed the price hike on Friday, blaming the UK's decision to leave the EU for forcing its hand.

Previously 689, from today the HTC Vive costs 759, after Brexit caused sterling to plummet to a 31-year low valuation against the US dollar it is currently worth just $1.32. It has also devalued significantly against South Korea's own currency, the won, hitting a 10-year low of 1,461 today (value at market close).

Theblog postread: "HTC continuously monitors and adjusts pricing to ensure we are providing our customers with the best value possible. Due to recent currency valuation changes and the current value of the GBP we are adjusting the price of the HTC Vive in the UK to 759 + P&P. The adjustment will come into effect on Monday 1st August.

"We are committed to providing the best possible VR experience with Vive and would like to thank our UK customers and partners for their continued support."

The news comes after OnePlus put up the price of the OnePlus 3 by 20 to 329.

22/06/2016:Valve's VR division makes up around a third of the company, hardware engineer Alan Yates has revealed.

"I was super fortunate to start at Valve right around the time Michael Abrash had begun the AR/VR research team," he told a thread onthe HTC Vive subreddit."It has since grown to encompass about a third of the company."

Yates was effusive about the pleasures of working on VR at Valve. "Short of human space flight or life sciences," he said, "I can't imagine working on something of more significance right now."

He also added that Valve is not resting on its laurels after the launch of the Vive, stating that "the key individuals that solved most of the really hard technological problems and [who] facilitated this generation of consumer headsets are still here working on the next generation."

09/06/2016:HTC has just unveiled the HTC Vive Business Edition, aiming to attract enterprise users with a specialised commercial offering.

As well as all the standard features of the consumer edition, the Vive BE will include commercial licensing, a dedicated support line and a 12-month limited warranty.

It will be priced at 849, and will launch in the UK, US, Canada, Germany and France in June, with a global launch to follow. Businesses will also be able to bulk-order the Vive BE for large-scale rollouts.

Although gaming is currently the most visible use-case for VR, many experts and industry analysts are predicting that key vertical markets will quickly overtake it.

"The wider implications for education are huge," said Context's UK manager Jonathan Wagstaff, adding that "other major potential markets include corporate training and retail".

Daniel O'Brien, VP of VR at HTC said, "with Vive BE, we are answering the overwhelming demand from global industries for a complete VR experience, to provide innovative solutions for their business needs. "

"Expediting the growth of partner organisations through application of Vive technology is an incredibly important part of our ongoing VR strategy, and will ensure Vive continues to be at the forefront of the enterprise sector."

"Vive's room-scale VR... is a great way for professional users to work interactively and move around within their designs," said Bob Pette, vice president of professional visualisation at Nvidia. "From design to manufacturing to medicine, virtual reality will revolutionise how business gets done."

Logitech is working alongside HTC to develop a virtual reality keyboard that could solve the problem of text entry in virtual environments.

The set-up comprises a Logitech G gaming keyboard, an accessory to integrate HTC's Vive Tracker on the keyboard and software to power the hardware package. Initial tests mean it works across the Steam VR system, overlaying a virtual representation of a keyboard in a VR application, with real-life feedback when a key is presses in the virtual world.

Logitech has said it's planning to test the equipment with the help of 50 developers who can create "compelling" experiences for end users.

"During our initial explorations of VR, we were struck by the fact that keyboard use and text entry were necessary but not natural and we've heard similar complaints from others," Vincent Tucker, director of innovations and strategy at Logitech, said.

"Our motivation comes from the research-backed understanding that in certain situations the user still needs a keyboard to interact with applications, particularly in productivity-driven or desktop scenarios, but also in games, social applications and content browsing."

The company has invited developers interested in taking part to apply for one of the 50 places on its developer programme, although only US-based individuals are eligible. Logitech said it would offer out more development kits if these first trials prove successful.

06/07/2017: BBC launches new virtual reality app

BBC Taster has launched a virtual reality app available for free on Android and iOS.

The app currently contains content from BBC Three and Planet Earth II, with more content expected to be added from across the BBC soon.

The BBC is aiming to put its early and experimental ideas in the hands of audiences. There will be a variety of content including animated VR, interactive 360 videos, dynamic binaural audio and branching narratives where users decide which path to follow in a story.

The first pieces of VR to be published is a trailer for the BBC Three documentary One Deadly Weekend in America, a VR experience about gun crime, and also interactive 360 content from Planet Earth II.

Controller at BBC Three Damian Kavanagh said in a press release that the BBC is exploring new technologies to tell stories that will engage its audience.

He underlined that the new VR trailer is a fantastic first step for the company: "Using virtual reality it literally puts the audience in the shoes of the victims of gun crime featured in our truly brilliant feature-length documentary, One Deadly Weekend in America. It's the first time the BBC has ever used VR in this way, and offers a whole new way to engage an audience."

BBC Taster VR was developed using technology from EEVO, a company which helps to build VR apps, so that the BBC can learn more about how its audience uses this new technology. Along with user feedback the app provides analytics and VR heat maps to highlight where users are looking when in virtual reality. BBC developers and editorial teams hope to learn more from their content in order to tailor it and refine storytelling techniques in the future.

13/03/2017: Google looks to fill VR vacancies

Google may be looking to significantly ramp up its VR and AR efforts, new job postings suggest.

The tech giant released its first major consumer VR product last year, in the form of its Daydream View headset. However, while this was more akin to a proof-of-concept than a mainstream device, recruitment efforts spotted by Road To VR have indicated that Google could be building up to releasing a mass-market VR headset.

Google has now started looking for a hardware validation manager and a technical lead product design engineer. The latter role will involve travelling to visit vendor-operated manufacturing facilities overseas, while the former partly concerns "transitioning product to mass production, and [assisting] with product sustaining efforts".

Earlier in the year, the company was spotted recruiting for roles on its VR and AR team who had "experience supporting high-volume overseas manufacturing builds" and could "lead electrical hardware development for consumer electronic products from concept into production".

While Google has yet to confirm the development of a new headset, the new hires imply that the company is looking at a much more significant investment in VR/AR technology than it has previously made - potentially a standalone VR headset, or even a successor to the original Google Glass.

Nokia plans to axe 310 jobs from its technologies unit and halt production of its virtual reality hardware, citing slower than expected growth in the industry.

The Nokia Technologies unit, which employs around 1,090 people and has been responsible for the development of Nokia's VR camera "OZO", will instead redirect efforts towards digital health, according to a statement today.

The job cuts are expected to affect teams in the UK, Finland, and the US. As part of that process, Nokia has invited employee representatives from Finland to appear at "cooperation negotiations".

"In digital media, the slower-than-expected development of the VR market means that Nokia Technologies plans to reduce investments and focus more on technology licensing opportunities," the company said in a statement. "The unit aims to halt development of furth versions of the OZO VR camera and hardware, while maintaining commitments to existing customers."

The OZO camera was to be used in the creation of 3D movies and games, which could then be loaded onto virtual reality headsets.

Nokia's development into VR camera hardware was only launched last year, as the company attempted to create future growth opportunities beyond its bread and butter network and telecoms business. It was also the company's first new hardware product since selling its mobile business to Microsoft in 2013, although its brand has since been revived for future devices through a licensing deal with HMD.

Nokia's push into the digital health market will be supported by its acquisition of Withings, a French developer of wearable health devices, bought for $190 million earlier this year.

"Nokia Technologies is at a point where, with the right focus and investments, we can meaningfully grow our footprint in the digital health market, and we must seize that opportunity," said president Gregory Lee.

"While necessary, the changes will also affect our employees, and as a responsible company we are committed to providing the needed support to those affected."

Microsoft, which paid 4.6 billion for Nokia's phone business, only this week announced that it would be finally ditching its Windows Phone/Windows 10 Mobile platform, which never quite took off among consumers and struggled to attain a significant market share.

Image: Bigstock

A new VR headset is coming to Windows 10, courtesy of Samsung.

The company, which already has a line of virtual reality hardware in the form of the Gear VR, is branching out into mixed-reality with this new device, named HMD Odyssey.

Samsung's announcement was made at a Microsoft event in San Francisco, where the release date for another four headsets, made by Dell, Acer, HP and Lenovo, were also announced.

The HMD Odyssey has been designed specifically for use with Windows 10's mixed-reality platform and boasts some impressive specs, including 2880 x 1600 resolution OLED display, up to 110 field of view, and a refresh rate of up to 90Hz.

Commenting on the announcement, Alanna Cotton, VP and GM of Samsung Electronics America, said: "When we began designing and engineering the Samsung HMD Odyssey with Microsoft, there was only one goal in mind, create a high performing headset that's easy to set up and can transport people to the incredible world of virtual reality.

"Samsung is committed to working across platforms to build cutting-edge technology, and we're excited to partner with Microsoft to shape the future of virtual reality. But most of all, we can't wait for you to take the Samsung HMD Odyssey out for a spin, and see it for yourself."

The Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo headsets are available to preorder today and will all go on sale on 17 October the same day the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is released.

The HMD Odyssey is also available to preorder immediately, but won't be on sale until 6 November.

Main image credit: Samsung Electronics

PlayStation VR - previously known as Project Morpheus - is Sony's answer to virtual reality devices such as the Oculus Rift.

As one of the industry leaders in the gaming space, the fact that it wants to get in on the ground floor of the virtual reality revolution is unsurprising, but PlayStation VR looks like it could be a very strong start for Sony.

Latest news

02/10/2017: An updated PlayStation VR headset is coming next week

Sony is planning to release a new VR headset next week (October 14th), with a new cable management design that will allow headphones to be connected via a new headphone jack at the back of the device. The updated design will also merge the VR headset and processor unit's cables into one.

According to the announcement on Sony Japan's blog, it'll also feature an updated processor to support HD-passthrough - a technology that means users can watch HDR content without having to unplug the headset's HDMI from a PS4 and plug the headset directly into the TV, for example, which is how the previous version of the headset worked.

The VR headset will be available from 913 stores across the world, giving it the biggest distribution footprint for Sony's VR products to date. It'll come in new packaging so customers don't get confused with the old and new versions, the company said.

Existing games and content will work with the new Sony VR headset, which is good new for existing owners that simply want to upgrade.

The second-generation Sony VR headset will cost 44,980 yen+tax (300+tax), although Sony hasn't revealed when it'll be available in the UK. It will arrive in Japan first, with rest of world launches later.

08/06/2017: Sony VR sales pass one million milestone

Sony's PlayStation VR headset has passed one million sales, with the company saying the device has exceeded expectations.

Sony's Interactive Entertainment head, Atsushi Morita, said virtual reality, and specifically its headset, will become even more popular as time goes on and people begin to realise the potential of the technology.

"VR technology is the greatest innovation since the birth of television," he said, as quoted by the BBC. "VR allows you to travel to World Heritage Sites or to space while staying at home. It's like a time machine or a door to anywhere."

One major advantage Sony has over its competitors is that the Sony VR headset is a whole lot cheaper than rivals including Facebook's Oculus Rift and HTC's Vive at just $399 (300).

Piers Harding-Rolls, a gaming analyst at research company IHS Markit, told the BBC that another reason Sony is proving so successful in the space is because it has a market-ready userbase to try out the VR headset, whereas other companies don't have such a large existing set of customers.

However, Sony shouldn't rest on its laurels just yet, because until there's enough immersive content to support VR gaming, users may get bored of the device, causing sales to slump, he added.

"There have been games that hint at VR's potential, but there is still more to come I'm sure," Harding-Rolls commented. "The introduction of peripherals with haptic feedback is a step forward, so it's likely we will continue to get games such as first person shooters being made that use these new technologies, but I'd also like to see more exploration based titles, which build on the immersion delivered by VR."

27/02/2017: Playstation VR sales impress even Sony

Sony has revealed it's sold close to a million Playstation VR headsets in the four months since the hardware went on sale.

Speaking to The New York Times, CEO of Sony, Andrew House, said the company was "a little bit careful" about its sales expectations.

"It's the classic case in any organisation - the guys who are on the front end in sales are getting very excited, very hyped up," House told the newspaper in an interview. "You have to temper that with other voices inside the company, myself among them, saying let's just be a little bit careful."

House said the company aimed to sell one million VR headsets in the first six months. Wit two months to go, it's already sold 915,000 and that's been partially held back by a lack of stock, though Sony said supply would improve by April.

Sony may well be happy with the sales figures, but stats for the full year suggest the industry hasn't taken off quite yet. Research firm SuperData said 6.3 million devices shipped last year, below expectations for the hardware however that was based on an estimate of 745,000 for the Playstation VR, so perhaps sales are rosier than analysts realise.

Hands-On

We got the chance to sit down and test out PS VR, and we were pretty impressed by what we saw.

The headset itself was light, comfortable, and easy to put on. In fact, it's noticeably more comfortable than its PC rivals, and the quality is remarkably close.

PS VR is half the price of the HTC Vive, but while you might expect a corresponding dip in quality, you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference.

Objectively comparing the two, the Vive's picture clarity is a shade better, but when you're actually using the PS VR headset, you honestly won't notice the difference.

We tested out two of the system's flagship experiences: gangland shooter The London Heist and team-based multiplayer title Rigs. The London Heist uses the PlayStation Move batons for motion control, while Rigs uses a traditional Dualshock controller.

As one of the first PS VR demos, The London Heist has probably been one of the most talked-about experiences for the system. The demo we played involves taking down waves of gangsters on motorbikes and in SUVs from the passenger seat of a moving van.

It's heaps of fun, and is a great showcase for the PlayStation Move controllers. There's loads of stuff to pick up and interact with in the cab, and the combat involves physically reloading by picking up spare magazines.

Unfortunately, the move controllers are noticeably less precise than the ones included with the HTC Vive, and picking up objects can sometimes be a little fiddly.

We were pleasantly surprised by Rigs. A 3-vs-3 multiplayer shooter, Rigs is one of the 'sport-combat' games popularised by titles like Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch, with players piloting various types of battlemech.

Rigs on the PS VR

The game uses a form of 'tank controls' - the left analogue stick is used for movement, while the right stick handles orientation on the horizontal axis. In order to aim your mech's weapons, players have to physically turn their head to look at their target, which can take a little getting used to.

Once you've got the knack, however, Rigs is a fast-paced and incredibly enjoyable shooter, with just the right balance of 'easy to pick up, tough to master' challenge.

Overall, while PS VR can't quite compete with the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift in terms of tech specs, its value proposition is immense. It's an absolute bargain compared to its rivals, and is only going to get more impressive with the introduction of the PS4 Neo.

Release date & Price

PS VR launched on 13 October 2016 with an RRP of 349, making it the cheapest of the big VR headsets to make it to the market. Given the previous shock at the high price-points of both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, many lauded PlayStation VR's comparatively affordable cost, including Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, who called it "totally fair".

Sony's top brass had previously established that affordability was a key concern; PlayStation vice president Masayasu Ito confirmed to Polygon that PS VR "is not for the person who uses a high-end PC. It's for the mass market".

For the price, you get a VR headset, headphones, a discrete processing box, and a demo disc. Sony has opted to exclude the PS camera from the core bundle, which is required for VR play. PS Move controllers, supported by some VR titles, must also be bought separately.

Features

As we'd expect from a modern VR device, PlayStation VR features full positional tracking, sensing where the user is in real time. This allows users to experience immersive 3D games in a full 360-degree environment.

Users can interact with their games via the standard Dualshock gamepad, which has certain motion-control functions built in. However, Sony has also opted to incorporate elements from its PlayStation Move products, a rival to Microsoft's Kinect motion control system that never really caught on.

Using handheld batons, PlayStation VR can independently track players' hands, allowing for a range of action such as manually reloading weapons and completing coordination challenges.

The London Heist on PS VR

The Move controllers, along with Dualshock controllers and the PS VR visor itself, can be used in a number of different combinations for asymmetric multiplayer gaming. This means different players use different control schemes and inputs to perform different roles.

The headset also features a 'Cinematic Mode', putting players in a virtual theatre, allowing them to get the effect of playing their games on the big screen. Interestingly, this also works with Xbox One or Wii U games, though you can't access any virtual reality functions.

Specs

PlayStation VR sports a 5.7in 1,920 x 1,080 OLED display. Since PS VR uses stereoscopic 3D using two screens with identical images for each eye - this translates into a resolution of around 960 x 1,080 per eye. The choice of OLED over LCD means that Sony's VR games will really pop, thanks to the increased colour saturation and brightness.

The head-tracking uses the PlayStation Camera, and Sony claims that it can capture the headset's position up to 1,000 times every second. This makes PlayStation VR both incredibly smooth and fantastically accurate.

Improvements have also been made to the frame and refresh rates, bringing them up to 120fps and 120hz, respectively. This is critical to comfortable VR experiences, as it makes the visuals smoother and more immersive, with a latency of less than 18ms.

Although the PlayStation 4 is currently incapable of rendering games at such a high frame rate, Sony's chief of PlayStation has stated that a software update will address this. It is also aided by a small processor unit, roughly the size of a Nintendo Wii, which connects to the PS4 in order to convert the headset's visuals for display on a standard TV.

To run PS VR you have the choice of using the original PS4, the slim, or the more powerful Pro. The extra horsepower provided by the PS4 Pro should provide a better all-round experience, including high resolution outputs during Share Play and Remote Play.

PS VR does not come with built-in audio, but you can plug headphones directly into the headset, which will then provide 3D audio. To really get the most out of the audio, we recommend using some over-ear headphones which will sit nicely over the headband.

Design

While the Oculus Rift is rather boxy-looking, PlayStation VR's headset is made of rounded, matte-finish plastic that looks sleek and professional.

It has nine LEDs the standard method of positional tracking for VR which are spaced around the front, back and sides. However, rather than hiding them as some of its competitors do, Sony has opted to use the front-mounted LEDs as a design feature, dotting the visor with glowing colour segments.

The headset is secured around the back of the head with a single solid headband, but rather than being elasticated, it pulls out and expands via a push-button system.

There's also a button on the front, allowing the main visor to be moved closer or further away from the eyes. It's a useful touch, as it makes it easier for those with glasses to use the device.

However, the device also features a strange flappy rubber fringe around the outside. This is to reduce the amount of light bleed from the outside, but unlike other VR devices, it doesn't form a complete seal. We're led to believe this is a deliberate effort to counteract the motion sickness that has intermittently plagued VR.

There's no integrated audio either, but the ability to connect your own earphones or speakers means gamers can be more flexible about what level of audio quality they require.

Name

At the 2015 Tokyo Game Show, Sony finally took the lid off Project Morpheus's official name - PlayStation VR.

While 'Morpheus' was always designed to be a temporary codename, the lack of official branding had previously led some to speculate that Sony would simply continue to brand the device as Project Morpheus.

However, the new name is much more straightforward and explanatory, and will presumably make the technology much more accessible to first-time users.

Games

PS VR launched with 30 titles, but this number has been bolstered by a steady stream of triple-A and indie releases. Rhythm game Thumper and horror title Until Dawn: Rush Of Blood were early successes, with Resident Evil 7 and Star Wars: Battlefront garnering attention towards the end of the year.

The 3v3 multiplayer brawler 'Rigs' also brought eSports to the platform, allowing players to pilot huge combat mechs in a Monday Night Combat style arena.

Rigs

The UK-based studio Guerilla Cambridge has delivered something that eschews the dark brown and gunmetal grey palettes of other games, in favour of garish colours and the branded sponsorship style seen in Nascar and NFL.

Other features

VR isn't just a platform for games, however. Along with traditional games, PS VR comes with a suite of entertainment options, including a 360 degree media player that works with photos and movies. You can also make use of the Cinematic Mode to watch YouTube videos, and a number of VR-supported apps coming to the device over the next few months, such as Hulu.

Review

If you're looking for a full PlayStation VR review, head over to our sister site Alphr, who called it "quite easily the most compelling and exciting games product on the market right now".

Images courtesy of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

This article was originally published on 09/06/15 and has been updated multiple times (most recently on 05/12/2016)

To see, or not to see?

The year 2016 will be remembered for many things, including when humanity was introduced to the world of virtual reality. Following five years of development, and a lot of hype, the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive were released that year and are now available to buy. Sony's Playstation VR was also introduced, another contender to fight for the crown of VR king.

Despite this, these headsets can cost upwards of 350, with the Vive priced at 750 or so. Additionally, Oculus and HTC's headsets also need a powerful PC in order to run, meaning that only hardcore PC enthusiasts will be able to use them properly.

South Korean company Samsung, on the other hand, has decided to mix things up a bit. After analysing Google's do-it-yourself Cardboard technique, Samsung's Gear VR headsets cost only 119 with a controller (99.17 exc. VAT). Its only requirement is that you have a Samsung smartphone which works with the headset, and in the UK these are the Galaxy S6,S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, Note 5,S7,S7 Edge, Galaxy S8 and S8+.

For this to work, you will have to install the Oculus app and make an account before you get started. Take off the headset's plastic cover, slide in your phone, adjust the velcro straps and turn the wheel on top of the headset to bring your new world into focus. Easy.

Samsung has provided a quick and easy way to impress your family, friends or co-workers. There is no way they won't be wowed by suddenly being transported to a floating apartment in the sky as they sit back and browse the Gear's menu. It is very convincing and after getting the hang of it they won't even notice that the headset is there. It weighs a meagre 500g or so (depending on the phone you use) and we didn't feel any undue pressure on our head when we were testing it out.

The straps are secure, and even the eyes and nose padding is comfortable. It needs to be said that the cushioning could do a better job at blocking out external light, but the device feels just as good to wear as the Vive and Oculus Rift. If you want to pass the Gear VR around to other users quickly, you can always avoid using the head straps and simply hold it up to your face.

We tested the Gear VR with a Galaxy S7. This is arguably the best choice when it comes to delivering a smooth virtual reality experience, as it not only has more powerful components than any of Samsung's S6 phones, but its 5.1in, 2560x1440 screen resolution will also, in theory, provide the sharpest picture, as it has a higher pixel density than the 5.5in S7 Edge.

In practice, you can still see the screen's individual pixels no matter what you're looking at, but this is a problem we've encountered on the high-end headsets as well, so it's certainly not unique to the Gear. The edges of our black-rimmed porthole were also never quite as sharp as objects in the centre of the display, but again this is something we've noticed elsewhere, too. If anything, it's impressive that Samsung has managed to come this close to other VR headsets, which in some cases cost almost ten times the price.

However, the Gear's mobile origins start to become clear as soon as you start moving your head, as the phone's 60Hz refresh rate can occasionally produce a noticeable amount of ghosting. The worst culprit is the menu crosshair showing your line of sight, as this can quite often leave a prominent trail of pixels behind as you move your head. It's not bad enough to immediately make you grasp for the sick bucket, but it can be off-putting, particularly when it's accompanied by regular drops in framerate.

Of course, how much you'll be bothered by these technical hitches will depend on the kind of content you're using. The Gear's most obvious attraction is its virtual reality games. Most can be controlled by simply moving your head, but many require the use of the headset's four-way directional touchpad as well. This is found on the side of the headset, and can be tapped in the middle or used to swipe up and down or left to right. Considering its lack of haptic feedback, it's surprisingly responsive, and we were never left wondering whether we'd tapped or swiped it correctly.

Holding your hand to the side of your head can get tiring pretty quickly, though, so you may want to pair the headset with an optional Bluetooth controller instead if the game supports it. In fact, apps such as the Oculus Arcade won't load without one, so you may need to invest in an additional gamepad if you're absolutely desperate to have the original Sonic the Hedgehog writ large in front of your eyeballs.

However, beyond the type of retro classics you'll find in Oculus Arcade, the vast majority of the Gear's free gaming titles are pretty throwaway. Some are quite impressive, such as the endless flight game Polyrunner, but most, like In Cell or Cerevrum, aren't any more compelling than the average mobile game you'd play to while the time away on your phone.

No one's going to sit down for half an hour to play Temple Run VR, for example, and the games that solely relied on head-tracking made us feel quite nauseous, forcing us to quit after just a few minutes of play.

It's only when you venture into paid VR games that you begin to see where the Gear's magic lies. Puzzle game Esper 2 was particularly brilliant, and it's clear that titles like this have been designed with VR in the mind right from the ground up rather than simply had it tacked on in a quick port.

The 360-degree video experiences are a bit hit and miss, too. For instance, as much as we love the idea of sitting right in the middle of the Saturday Night Live studio, complete with its live audience behind us, the resolution of the video footage in the VRSE video app is so poor and grainy that you can barely see the actors in front of you.

The same goes for some of the sports videos inside the NextVR app as well. It's a great idea putting viewers right in the middle of the Youth Olympics ski jumping, but when each jumper quickly descends into a mere blur of grainy pixels, the awe and wonder of the experience becomes disappointingly underwhelming.

There's also Netflix to enjoy if someone else is using the TV. Here, you're placed in a virtual living room, and watching films on its virtual big screen really does make it feel more impressive than bending over a real-life phone or tablet. That said, our eyes got quite tired after a while, and we found that 30 minutes was about all we could take before we had to take a break.

All this poses some big problems for the Gear VR. As with any new platform, more (and hopefully better) content is undoubtedly on its way, but the sheer number of problems we experienced does call into question the headset's overall longevity.

For instance, outside of its entertainment possibilities, the Gear could be a useful tool for virtual meetings or professional simulation and training experiences, such as medical procedures or military situations. But unless the footage resolution becomes a lot sharper, we're not sure it will provide any more benefit than traditional videos and demonstrations.

The Gear VR's micro USB connector is used for communication between your Galaxy phone and the headset's various sensors. It also has a passthrough socket for charging your phone while in use - essential as VR can quickly drain your phone's battery.

Likewise, the Gear is inherently limited by the hardware inside Samsung's smartphones, from the processor and GPU to the display's refresh rate. This is possibly why the Gear's initial selection of apps feels very much like the worst side of the Google Play Store as opposed to an enticing glimpse into the future, but there is some good stuff there if you're willing to hunt for it and, more importantly, pay for it.

This lack of quality experiences is perhaps understandable when the headset is so much cheaper than its rivals, but whereas other headset demos have continually blown us away with their ingenious use of VR technology, our time with the Gear left us feeling distinctly unimpressed.

What's more, we can't help but think this is the type of experience Oculus founder Palmer Luckey might have been talking about when he said that 'really bad VR is the only thing that can kill off VR'. The Gear VR might surprise us by becoming a mass market hit, but we fear its novelty factor will be pretty short-lived.

Previous news

01/08/2016:The next Gear VR headset will support older Samsung phones, as well as this year's Note 7.

This is according toNowhereelse.frandOnLeaks, who published a leaked photo, purportedly real, of Samsung's next VR device.

Rumour has it the new Gear VR will hit the shops in August, meaning it could well get a preview alongside the Note 7 at Samsung's Unpacked event on 2 August.

The new headset will support phones as old as the Galaxy S6, and its 96-degree range of vision will be extended to 100 degrees.

23/05/2016:Samsung is offering anyone who purchases the Galaxy S7 an opportunity to pick up an exclusive Gear VR content package.

This includes a collection of games such as Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes, Darknet, Drift, and Starchart, along with an unspecified discount on purchasing the Gear VR itself.

"The smartphone is already so fundamental to our lives," said David Lowes, chief marketing officer at Samsung Electronics Europe, "but connecting it with a product like the Gear VR opens up incredible new experiences that are often as emotional as they are immersive."

"With this new incentive, we're encouraging broader VR adoption so that more people can experience this amazing new technology for themselves."

The news follows the announcement of a first-party Google competitor to the Samsung Gear VR, known as Daydream.

Rather than a fully standalone headset with its own screen (as was rumoured), Daydream will be a housing allowing users to use any high-end Android handset for mobile VR, rather than just Samsung flagships.

Verdict

Samsung's virtual reality headset is a fun entry point for VR novices, but its technological flaws and lack of compelling content limit its long-term appeal

Requires: Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, S7, S7 Edge, Note 5, Glaxy S8 or S8+ handsets

Weight: 500g approx. inc. handset

Virtual reality is clearly here to stay. For those involved in the industry day to day, it doesn't seem like the flash-in-the-pan product following in the footsteps of the doomed 3D TV that naysayers think it might be. It's clearly the next big platform for consuming content. Dell believes it will become an integral part of the commercial workflow and it wants to be there from day one to facilitate that change.

Dell made a visible commitment to VR and AR with the reveal of its headset at CES 2017, as well as its push to bring VR-ready hardware to market at affordable prices across all of its relevant vertices. To show that same level of commitment to the commercial side of its business, at least in the UK, Dell had a big presence at this year's VR World and it's there I met Gary Radburn, Dell's global director of commercial VR/AR and workstation virtualisation.

"It's such a Wild West out there at the moment," Radburn explains as we sit in a meeting room with the show buzzing on around us. Lots of companies contact him claiming to be "the leaders in VR", but in reality offer little more than a mid-range 360-degree camera setup for shooting video.

Radburn isn't poo-pooing the ambitions of such companies; he's simply highlighting the problem Dell faces trying to filter out the choice cuts from a crowded industry. "If I'm not in the VR industry, and I'm looking to 'VR' my company but I don't know a lot about VR, I can look in a magazine or go to a tradeshow and come away more confused by it all than when I started.

"There are so many different ways of accomplishing the same thing. How do you know when you're backing the right horse?"

That's where Dell steps in. Dell's visible contributions to the VR industry come in the form of promoting its own VR-ready hardware alongside its own VR headset, but it knows switching to an advisory role will help cement its place in the industry as the company that businesses should be dealing with. "We're obviously going to be promoting [our] hardware, but we want to be a trusted technical advisor to you. As your business grows, we grow with you."

Credit: Dell

The reality of virtual reality

Its plan to become a trusted advisor starts with its Technology Partner Programme. Already implemented in other areas of Dell's business, the Partner Programme is now turning its hand to vetting VR-applicable technologies to help businesses adopt the tools they need. "We're going out and looking at all the technologies available, deciding what we think will become an emerging technology. We'll test it on Dell equipment, sanction it and see if it does what it says on the tin."

Vetting services and software is just one facet of what Dell sees as its responsibility in fostering commercial interest in VR. The other is in educating businesses in what VR could actually do for them. "When you talk to people about VR and what I do, the general response is 'oh right, so you play games?' I always have to go 'erm, no I don't'. That paradigm is, thankfully, shifting and the word is now getting out -- VR is so much more than games."

To help get the word out even further, Dell is investing in VR centres of excellence for clients to visit and try out the technology themselves. "With the VR centres of excellence, we're doing what we did with [educating about] workstation virtualisation and it's been hugely successful," Radburn explains. "[Workstation virtualisation] was a brand-new technology area, people didn't understand it. Investment was needed to understand it so there was a leap of faith that needed to be made [when adopting the technology].

"Now our customers can register time inside the VR centre of excellence. We have experts on hand that can take them through a VR experience that's relevant to their business and, at the end of it all, they'll know what VR is about and how their business can utilise it."

As an education experience, Dell's centres have managed to help business better understand VR implementation in the workplace. "When people put on a VR headset, it's almost like VR takes over and common sense goes out of the window. People think 'oh, now I'm in VR I can do all this stuff in VR and I don't have to bother with a desk!'"

Naturally, that's a rather optimistic view of VR implementation. "You're not going to suddenly abandon your creation workflow; 80% of your workflow is still going to be the same -- VR is the destination. You're not going to put on your headset for eight hours a day and work with all the tools you had before but in a VR environment. That's not what's going to happen.

"It's a bit trite, but when we get to the Minority Report-level of floating windows and interactive screens, then yes, that might happen. This isn't a case of putting your designers in VR headsets and then suddenly they'll become more productive!"

Dell's bigger picture

"We're at a confusing time [right now]. VR is just about to take off and go mainstream and yet everybody is now talking about AR. It's just like 'hang on, give us a chance...'," Radburn explains to me as we discuss when, and where VR and AR tools should be used. "The draw for [AR or VR] depends on what you want to do. If you want to shut yourself out from the world and be immersed or go into training, [it's VR]."

Dell won't be delving into the training marketplace itself with its efforts in VR, but it's clear its focus is on allowing businesses to confidently invest in VR tools. "You can read something and learn very little," says Radburn. "Someone lectures something to you and you'll learn and retain it a bit more. When you experience something, the retention level is through the roof.

"In terms of education and training, VR lets you retain far more information and training than simply reading a manual -- you're learning by doing and seeing, you're immersed in your environment and that experience."

There are already VR training tools on the market. As I explored the show floor, there were dentistry simulators, VR-enabled medical training tools and concepts for AR-based education applications. We're still a way off from VR and AR becoming the norm but, as Radburn so succinctly explains it, "everyone wants VR to be successful".

Dell wants a role in that success as the company that comes to mind first for VR workplace implementation. For an industry that's almost exclusively focused on consumer products over commercial ones, Dell wants to become the go-to company for any business curious about VR.

Main image credit: Bigstock

HP has revealed a new virtual reality (VR) wearable focused on on-the-job simulated training and collaboration solutions for professionals, designed to avoid real-life hazards by virtual environments.

The Z VR Backpack should allow workers to train in a variety of environments via the HTC Vive Business Edition or other hardware such as the Oculus Rift. The wearable is untethered and its docking solution allows users to easily transition between desktop and VR mode, HP said.

As for specs, it's not messing around. The backpack meets military-grade drop, dust and water resistance standards, and sports a VPro-enabled quad Core i7, Quadro P5200 graphics, and 16GB of video memory.

"Virtual reality is changing the way people learn, communicate and create," said Xavier Garcia, vice president and general manager at Z Workstations. "Making the most of this technology requires a collaborative relationship between customers and partners. As a leader in technology, HP is uniting powerful commercial VR solutions, including new products like the HP Z VR Backpack, with customer needs to empower VR experiences our customers can use today to reinvent the future."

The VR market has so far been very focused on entertainment and its significant implications for the future of gaming, but the potential applications in other areas - such as product design, architecture, healthcare, first responder training and automation - are vast.

To show off what the product could potentially do, HP has partnered with companies such as Autodesk, Epic Games, Fusion, HTC, Launch Forth and Technicolour for Mars Home Planet - a project that will offer a global collaboration experience using its VR technology.

The description on the website reads: "Welcome to the next giant leap for humankind. We invite you to join us for HP Mars Home Planet: a universe-changing design, architecture, engineering and virtual reality project for the imaginative problem solvers and technology enthusiasts of tomorrow."

"In 2016, we conquered the International Space Station with our HP ZBook Workstations, powered by NVIDIA Quadro graphics, and now we have our sights set on Mars," said Josh Peterson, vice president of product management for workstations at HP. "Through HP and partner technology, we are unleashing engineers, architects, designers and students to help anticipate and solve the real world problems we'll face to inhabit Mars one day."

You can join the mission yourself by signing up at hp.com/go/mars.

Picture: The HP Z VR Backpack in action, courtesy of HP

Oculus founder and VR champion Palmer Luckey is consulting with US lawmakers over the possibility of developing a "smart" wall as an alternative to President Donald Trump's costly campaign promise, it is reported.

The "Secure Miles with All Resources and Technology" act, known as SMART, is a new piece of legislation proposed by Texas Republican representative Will Hurd, who is seeking to apply technology to the issue of border patrol, a moderate counter-proposal to President Trump's aggressive show of force, according to a CNN report.

To shore up the bill, Hurd has called on Luckey's new company Anduril Technologies, a Silicon Valley-based startup founded by the entrepreneur following his departure from Facebook-Oculus.

The startup was working on a project that would develop a virtual version of Donald Trump's campaign promise, a border wall using surveillance technology and drones rather than bricks and barbed wire, the New York Times reported last month. The startup is currently on the lookout for "brilliant, dedicated, and patriotic engineers", according to a recruitment page, to work on optics, camera systems and LIDAR and RADAR technology.

Trump's wall running between the southern US states and Mexico was a central pillar of his campaign, however the president has since admitted that the topology of the border would make it difficult to build a physical wall. Trump has also faced roadblocks in Congress, which has so far denied his funding requests to begin construction.

Initial consultations have priced the wall at $500,000 per mile, according to the report, a fraction of the $24.5 million per mile detailed in Trump's fiscal year 2018 request. The proposals include the use of virtual reality headsets, computer imaging, and sensors supplied by Anduril Technologies, which would help bypass the geographical limitations of a physical wall.

"People that are dealing with this issue know that a third century solution to a 21st century problem is not going to fix this long term," Hurd told CNN. "We haven't looked at all 2,000 miles of our southern border at the same time, and for the last eight years we've tried to have a one-size fits all solution to the border, and that doesn't work."

Hurd, whose Texas constituency covers more than 800 miles of the southern border, is supported by Texan Democratic moderate Henry Cuellar, and representatives from California, New Mexico and Pennsylvania.

Although it represents a moderate solution, this isn't the first time Luckey has publicly shown support for Trump and his policies. His views came under fire when it was revealed in September that he had quietly donated $10,000 to Nimble America, a non-profit political organisation working to denigrate Hillary Clinton online. Although Facebook never confirmed the reason for Luckey's departure from the company, it is rumoured his brush with politics was a deciding factor.

Picture: Bigstock

IDC expects big things from virtual reality in 2017, predicting it'll hit triple digit growth this year thanks to the introduction of new products and services in the sector.

The company'sWorldwide Quarterly Augmented and Virtual Reality Headset Trackerrevealed 2.3 million AR and VR headsets shipped in the first quarter of the year, with VR headsets accounting for 98% of sales. Because there are so many new products on the horizon, growth will accelerate rapidly as consumers have more choice and begin to realise the potential of virtual reality headsets.

However, the company explained the sector won't come without challenges. The industry needs to educate consumers and ensure they have the support needed to discover new uses for VR outside of just gaming.

"The VR market is still very young and consumers seem to be taking a cautious approach," saidJitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst for IDC'sMobile Device Trackers. "With plenty of headset options already in the market and even more coming soon, hardware isn't the issue. The bigger challenge is the slow growth in content that appeals to a mass audience, combined with the confusion associated with a lack of cross-platform support."

The top performers in the VR headset space in the first quarter of the year were Samsung with its Gear VR in partnership with Oculus, Sony, with its Playstation VR headset that only started shipping late last year, HTC's Vive for those with lots of money to spend on the best of the best and Facebook's Oculus Rift.

Although augmented reality headsets saw a shipment growth of over 77% year-on-year, the AR headset market is still dwarfed by VR, and IDC reckons this is because it's a relatively new technology. Consumers are more likely to use AR on their mobile device than use a headset to access such services, the analyst house said.

"It's very early days in terms of augmented reality headsets, with the vast majority of products shipping into the market focused on getting hardware into the hands of developers,"Tom Mainelli, vice president of devices andAR/VRat IDC added. "Meanwhile, we expect most consumers to experience their first taste of augmented reality through the cameras and screens of their existing mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Facebook has unveiled its plans for using virtual and augmented reality technologies to grow its platform, including new Snapchat-style camera features.

Speaking at the company's F8 developer conference yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed new technologies designed to take advantage of the boom in AR tech. These are primarily centered around the Facebook Camera, with examples like interactive filters and animated masks.

The company's new Camera Effect Platform includes two products; an online editor for image frames and AR Studio for more in-depth AR creations, which is currently in closed beta. Zuckerberg showed off several examples to demonstrate the technology, including AR games, art and social messages.

"Over time, I do think that this is going to be a really important technology that changes how we use our phones, and eventually all of technology," he said during his keynote. However, he warned the technology would take a while to reach it's full maturity, saying "it'll take a while for this to develop. Experiences are not going to change dramatically overnight".

Augmented reality technology, which overlays digital images onto the real world, has been popularised primarily by Snapchat, which features a variety of animated effects. It's been adopted with particular interest by marketers and advertisers, who are looking to take advantage of its high usage within the coveted 'millennial' demographic.

The company also took the wraps off a new social VR environment, called Facebook Spaces. The shared virtual experience allows you to hang out with digital avatars of your friends, relive memories on Facebook and watch 360-degree videos together. It also supports Facebook Messenger, meaning your friends can get involved even if they don't have VR headsets.

The new products are part of Facebook's effort to further establish social VR and AR as a key part of its platform, which it hopes will prompt new growth and continued engagement within its userbase.

Worldwide spending on virtual and augmented reality technology could reach $13.9 billion (11.2 billion) in 2017, jumping almost 131% over last year's figures, according to recent research by the IDC.

In an update to its Worldwide Semiannual Augmented and Virtual Reality Spending Guide, the IDC expects the technology to achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 198% during the 2015-2020 period, raking in over $143 billion.

As a comparison, spending on VR and AR in 2016 reached just $6.1 billion.

The largest portion of this growth will come from the consumer market, with spending on hardware and software set to reach $6.2 billion this year. Although VR started as a crowd-funded project with the Oculus Rift, consumers are now able to take advantage of a vast array of different products from leading technology and entertainment companies.

Unsurprisingly, industry will lag behind in spending as businesses continue to explore new applications of the technology. The biggest uptake is expected within the manufacturing and retail sectors, the only industries set to exceed $1 billion on VR and AR this year. Online retail outlets alone may sink almost $462 million into the technology, providing a way for users to experience select products using AR through a website.

By the end of the forecast period, transportation is expected to be the fastest growing sector at 233.7% CAGR, closely followed by healthcare at 231.8%.

"At this stage, to make the transition to a robust technology spending environment, third-party custom application development and systems integration will fill a vital role in bringing projects to life," said Marcus Torchia, research director at IDC's Customer Insights and Analysis.

"We expect initial AR spending to lean on mobile workforce-based use cases, where AR headsets are a natural enhancement to existing mobility investments. And we will see education, research and design applications form a foundation of adoption in professional environments," added Torchia.

Gaming and entertainment will see spending on VR headsets outpace that of AR during 2017 and 2018. But after this period, the research expects AR spending to surge ahead as the technology finds a firm place within industry, particularly within healthcare.

Although VR has found limited success outside the commercial space, in areas such as education and architecture, AR is proving massively more popular within industry. Following our hands-on demo of Microsoft's Hololens, we can safely say the technology provides a promising tool for improving business productivity.

Microsoft's HoloLens headset is the company's latest moonshot; an augmented reality device designed to overlay computer-generated digital images onto the user's vision in real time.

It's been available in the US and Canada since March, but last week the company finally opened up UK preorders for the headset, and invited IT Pro to come and try it out.

First of all, let's get the obligatory disclaimer out of the way: this is not a consumer product. Yes, the company has shown off consumer applications like an AR Minecraft demo and various other games, but it's a business device first and foremost.

It's also not officially available yet. While you can preorder a HoloLens unit, they're only development kits, intended to let software creators and companies start producing apps for the headset's Windows Holographic operating system. You'll need some serious cash to get your hands on one, too - they cost over 2,700 each.

However, once you actually put it on, it's easy to see where all that money's gone. While dev kits for VR headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive looked boxy and unfinished, the build quality of the HoloLens is incredible. The headset's design and finish makes it feel like a sophisticated, premium unit - much closer to a finalised product than other early prototypes or dev kits we've seen.

HoloLens design

It's also very well-designed in terms of the weight distribution and fit. Other VR headsets have a tendency to feel front-heavy and can get uncomfortable after long periods of use, but HoloLens uses a counter-balancing system. The bulk of the unit doesn't actually rest on your head - instead, it's attached to a second concentric headband inside the main body's circumference that can be adjusted to fit the user.

With that having been said, our unit did take a bit of adjusting, and we found ourselves repeatedly fiddling with it throughout our demo session is order to reposition it for optimal fit - although this might be down to the fact that we were wearing it with glasses.

Thankfully, adjusting it is very easy and intuitive. The inner headband can be tightened with a dial on the back, while you can move the visor itself closer to or further from your eyes, and once it was comfortably seated, we didn't feel like it was in any danger of slipping off.

Rather than using dedicated peripheral devices, HoloLens features gesture and voice controls, with the primary method of interaction being the so-called 'Air Tap'. Simply point the visor at whatever you want to interact with, then pinch your thumb and forefinger together to 'click' it. Don't worry if that feels a bit too 'Minority Report' for you - it's also got Bluetooth support, which means you can connect a keyboard for traditional input.

Audio is provided via a built-in array of speakers, which provide positional sound based on the holographic object's location in the room. The accuracy is good, as is the volume - the speakers are loud enough to hear perfectly clearly, but not so loud as to overly disturb anyone else in the room.

The most impressive feature, however, is that HoloLens is totally untethered. Unlike every other high-end headset, HoloLens doesn't need a thick umbilical of trailing wires in order to function. In fact, it doesn't need to be paired with a computer at all; the unit is entirely self-contained, with all of the computation done by HoloLens' onboard 'holographic processing unit', or HPU.

This is a serious game-changer; not having to connect it to a mightily powerful PC or carve out a huge space to use it makes the HoloLens much more versatile. Because it's actually portable, employees can use it out in the field, which opens up a huge number of business use-cases.

We didn't notice the device's performance stutter or struggle at any point during our time with it - although it is worth bearing in mind that we don't have a clear indication of HoloLens' processing capabilities yet, and none of the demos seemed particularly strenuous.

HoloLens field of view

HoloLens does have one major problem, however, and that's the tiny field of view (FOV). While the transparent visor means you can see your surroundings perfectly, the actual frame in which the holographic content is visible is a tiny subset of your field of vision.

It's roughly equivalent to viewing a 24in monitor from around a meter away. This may not sound like a big deal, but when you're looking at room-scale or large format content, it can feel like trying to watch a film through a cardboard tube.

We also found that the frame's placement was a little odd - it was just above the centre of our vision, meaning we spent a lot of time with our head angled down in order to get key content into view. This could simply be an issue of calibration or headset fit, though.

The limited FOV is particularly jarring after using VR, where the user's field of vision is much closer to real life, but this is partially a problem of attitude. VR very much encourages getting up close and personal with whatever you're interacting with, whereas HoloLens works best when you step back and look at the big picture. In fact, get within about a foot of the actual image and it'll disappear, as your proximity starts to interfere with the HoloLens's sensors.

On the other hand, once you get past the issues with the miniscule FOV, HoloLens's picture quality is staggering. Given that AR is a very new field, even more than VR is, you might expect the display itself to be a little rough around the edges. You'd be wrong, though; in terms of image quality, the HoloLens is up there with consumer-grade VR headsets.

As part of our hands-on, we were taken through a couple of experiences that Microsoft has been using to show off HoloLens's capabilities. They weren't particularly interactive affairs - we were essentially just clicking through a 3D slideshow - but they showcase some of the more interesting applications.

HoloLens applications

Engineering and design modelling

One of the demos we were shown was for a piece of design software built by Trimble, a technology company which produces solutions for the architecture, engineering and construction industries. An extension for popular 3D design program SketchUp, the software allows users to bring 3D models into the real world.

In the demo we saw, a digital 3D model of a building was placed in a blank space on a real mockup, using mixed reality to show us what it would look like as part of a city block. Within SketchUp, we could even manipulate the structure, changing the height of various buildings and watching the digital model grow and shrink in real time.

What was really impressive, though, was when we moved the mouse over to the edge of the screen and our cursor simply kept going, moving into our virtual environment. We could transition our interaction seamlessly from the desktop SketchUp software to the digital model overlaid onto the real world.

It's one of the first HoloLens demonstrations we've seen where the business use case is both immediately apparent and widely applicable. Trimble's extension is available to purchase now, and any designer that uses SketchUp (I.E. most of them) can use it to view real-world recreations of any of their projects.

Anatomical modelling

The first demo we tried was an anatomical experience developed in partnership with Case Western Reserve University, which guided us through the body's various systems. The skeletal structure, muscle groups and cardiovascular system were all reproduced with excellent detail and image quality, including a close-up of the heart that actually let us peer inside the valves.

This type of use case is the most obvious and widely-posited benefit of both AR and VR headsets - letting students and trainees get a detailed, interactive look at subject matter that would be difficult and/or costly to play with in real life. A similar application involves allowing designers and architects to visualise products and blueprints in 3D space without having to do any modelling or prototyping.

Delivering presentations

A second example took us through how HoloLens can be used to create and deliver presentations, by showcasing an in-store display for a fictional watch brand. Assets could be dragged and dropped into the presentation, and there was even a virtual teleprompter to ensure that you can maintain eye contact while still having your notes handy.

You can also collaborate with other HoloLens users, who are represented by ghostly coloured figures. In a rather innovative twist, you can also see exactly where they're looking, thanks to a beam of light representing their gaze.

Skype

These collaborative uses are less commonly suggested but for our money, they're likely to be the more useful. Skype works straight out of the box (as do all Universal Windows Platform apps), which means that any maintenance worker or engineer faced with a particularly tricky job can simply pop on a HoloLens and get advice from colleagues around the world, who get a first-person look at the problem.

Similarly, having a business meeting via HoloLens means you can bring in 3D mapping data, product and brand assets and other digital information in a way that just wasn't possible before. More importantly, it doesn't cut you off from the rest of the world; meaning you can still communicate with colleagues in the real world, and use physical tools at the same time.

Is HoloLens fit for the enterprise?

HoloLens feels like something that could be very easily integrated with the workflow of most businesses, and there's a genuine value proposition there. It's certainly very impressive, as is indicated by the number of companies who are already using it. Customers include Thyssen-Krupp, Audi, Japan Airlines and many more.

However, there's one major stumbling block stopping Microsoft's AR headset from being ready for the big-time, and that's the FOV. Because the rest of your vision is unobstructed, you're always made acutely aware of the limited FOV by the fact that whatever you're looking at will just abruptly end in mid-air. This can make it a frustrating experience - if only because the rest of the headset shows so much polish and potential.

Given the limitations and design niggles mentioned above, it's clear that HoloLens is still far from a finished product. We'd also have liked to stress-test the hardware a little more, alongside testing how well UWP apps work - Microsoft's record with compatibility isn't exactly the best, after all.

However, based on our initial experiences, we can safely say that HoloLens is going to seriously shake up the future of computing. It's not going to replace traditional desktops any time soon, but beyond question, Microsoft has served up a slice of the future.

Virtual reality has gathered a lot of interest within the last few years, and tech giants such as Samsung, HTC, Sony and even Facebook have all launched their own VR headsets. But one belief that's common in this area of technology is that it's only really suitable for gaming.

That couldn't be more wrong. Although VR products and applications offer gamers a more immersive gameplay experience, virtual reality is starting to make an impact in other areas. In fact, interest in VR is widespread, with companies and individuals in industries such as education, healthcare and hospitality all realising the benefits.

There's also broad appeal in the general business world. Firms are actively exploring ways they can integrate the latest VR products into everyday operations. This technology is beginning to help them streamline business processes, improve efficiencies and make staff more productive.

Revolutionising training

In today's interconnected world, it's almost impossible to shy away from the latest technology. Businesses around the world are using the latest connected technology to produce better results and stay ahead of the curve. Mobile products such as smartphones and tablets are great examples, but VR could be about to take over.

Tony Parisi, head of VR and AR strategy at Unity Technologies, believes VR has the potential to become as widespread as smartphones in the business world. He says companies can use virtual reality headsets for a variety of purposes, but training is currently one of the most promising use-cases.

"Eventually, VR will be as ubiquitous as the smartphone in offices. The first place we expect to see VR in the workplace will be for training. A huge range of industries can benefit from using technology to develop employee skills and cut down costs," he tells IT Pro.

"Just consider industries like aviation, manufacturing, or medicine, where individuals could use VR to practice their roles and simulate various situations with zero potential of catastrophe, or in cases where access to large, expensive equipment may simply be out of the question.

"These types of training applications are already being built in VR, and we could see an explosion of VR training in the next few years, as VR-capable hardware systems ship in large numbers and costs continue to drop. By contrast, an idea that has generated a lot of excitement but will take quite a while to deploy commercially is teleconferencing in VR."

Combining VR with IoT

When businesses get larger and more focused, they can sometimes become opposed to change. Virtual reality is still a new area of technology and new possibilities are constantly emerging. There's a wide belief that VR presents businesses with a unique opportunity to create new experience for themselves and customers.

Chris Lawrence, UK and Ireland head of media at tech consultancy Cognizant, says that VR already offers businesses a range of possibilities but that more can be achieved when it's combined with the Internet of Things.

"VR has emerged as an application of choice across multiple industries, for bespoke experiences such as live events and to enhance the customer experience. A whole range of further possibilities will also open up once VR is combined with the IoT and sensor technology. The data gathered will be able to be 'seen' and acted on immediately, leading to the rise of entirely new businesses and jobs," he says.

"For example, a telecoms company can use IoT to monitor set top boxes, which allows for predictive maintenance and completely changes the business process. The telecoms provider does not have to wait for a phone call when a customer has a problem. Instead it calls its customer to say the box is about to fail and asks when they want to schedule maintenance.

"This can be taken to another level when VR is added to the process imagine if engineers could fix the box remotely using the technology. More and more of our everyday objects are connected to the internet, with sensors collecting data continuously, and once this sensor data is combined with VR technology, it's possible to create a fully immersive, shared and real-time experience whereby the 'screen' represents our reality."

Virtual working

There's now more pressure on businesses than ever before to be flexible and develop internal strategies to make the everyday working lives of their employees easier. The fact is, if employees aren't happy and feel like they have too many commitments on top of them, then they'll likely fail at their jobs. VR can change all this.

Angelo Di Ventura, director of end-to-end technology services provider Trustmarque, says companies can adopt VR solutions to introduce greater flexibility and more collaborative approaches into their daily operations. There's nothing stopping employees from accessing virtual work environments by chucking on VR headsets.

"Years ago, if an employee wanted to work then they had to be in the office, but the future of work is outside of the office and Virtual Reality solutions are one of the tools that will enable this shift. Colleagues want to communicate and collaborate with each other via channels outside of email and from whatever location they find themselves in," he says.

"Virtual Reality gives users another channel of communication that doesn't tie them to a single desk, and improves the quality of interactions. So while the vision of workers holding meetings with each other using virtual reality headsets (for example, Microsoft HoloLens or Oculus Rift) over a range of locations might sound like a vision from Star Trek, I have no doubt we'll see this type of initiative in business before too long."

Streamlining specialist tasks

Jeff Rubenstein, VP of product at video technology firm Kaltura, also takes the view that virtual reality will transform all aspects of business management and operations. He points out the potential of this technology being used to help professionals conduct specialist tasks in real-time. While such experiences may prove costly for companies, there'd be less risk and better safety involved.

"With a combination of VR headset and paddles, users can virtually manipulate tools to learn how to repair a specific defect in an apparatus, for example. This would obviously be expensive to do in reality, or in simulated dangerous conditions - such as during a fire, or underwater," he says.

"VR will also be used to enhance some aspects of work. For example, adding augmented layers on top of a live video experience will help to guide repair and maintenance workers. A diagram or repair instructions can be superimposed on a task, which is either being repaired directly in the physical environment or at a distance via robotics. Even things like tele-guided and VR-enhanced surgical procedures are on the not-too-distant horizon.

"It's also worth keeping a close eye on what's happening in VR in education. We're starting to see interactive courseware with VR features being used for aspects of learning for example, virtualised images of the human body, and engineering simulations. As students learn with these tools, they will expect them to be available in their workplaces after graduation, which will further drive adoption in the business environment of the future."

As can be expected, businesses can sometimes show a sense of distance when it comes to adopting new technologies and trends. Trying something new not only costs money, but it can be also be time consuming to weave into everyday business operations. But virtual reality, it seems, is worth those risks. Using VR technologies, companies can produce better results for everyone: staff, investors and customers. And there's no doubt that more possibilities will come to light as the technology evolves.

Sales of PCs, mobile phones and tablets are stagnating, Gartner warned today, blaming market saturation and slower innovation.

The research firm predicts that sales will remain flat at 2.32 billion units until 2018, when they will increase to 2.35 billion units.

"The global devices market is stagnating. Mobile phone shipments are only growing in emerging Asia/Pacific markets, and the PC market is just reaching the bottom of its decline," said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner.

"As well as declining shipment growth for traditional devices, average selling prices are also beginning to stagnate because of market saturation and a slower rate of innovation."

PCs sold 219 million units in 2016, but are expected to sell just 205 million in 2017, 198 million in 2018, and 193 million the year after.

Devices like Apple's MacBook Pro and Microsoft's Surface range, will eat up some of the ailing PC demand, with sales rising 24% to 61 million units in 2017, according to Gartner's predictions.

But while emerging markets are quicker to replace their smartphones, as these devices function as their primary means of computing, mature markets take longer, the research firm states.

Therefore Gartner believes that while mobile phone sales will increase from 1.88 billion in 2016 to 1.89 billion in 2017, and 1.92 billion in 2018, most of that growth will be driven by demand from new markets.

Meanwhile, VR and voice assistants are expected to drive future device growth.

Atwal said: "Consumers have fewer reasons to upgrade or buy traditional devices. They are seeking fresher experiences and applications in emerging categories such as head mounted displays (HMDs), virtual personal assistant (VPA) speakers and wearables."

In order to meet that demand, hardware vendors will seek to pair with service providers offering those kinds of functions.

"As service-led approaches become even more crucial, hardware providers will have to partner with service providers, as they lack the expertise to deliver the service offerings themselves," said Atwal.

Main image: Bigstock

Google is bringing virtual reality (VR) to one million children in UK schools, accorsing to its CEO, Sundar Pichai.

The announcement came during Pichai's first visit to the UK as chief executive - the project is called Google Expeditions and the initiative will run throughout the next school year.

Google Expeditions are collections of VR content and learning support materials, which teachers can use during their lessons to help children learn curricular topics with the help of VR experiences. For instance, Expeditions could allow children to go on virtual trips to museums, inside the human body or in outer space.

Pichai said (via Wired): "Virtual reality can spark students' imagination and help them learn about topics like how blood flows through the human body or the impact climate change is having on the Great Barrier Reef, in an engaging and immersive way".

Within the next couple of months, a team delivering Google Expeditions will be visiting schools in Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast, Newcastle and Inverness.

During an event at Google's London headquarters yesterday, Pichai also announced the launch of an initiative aimed at providing free digital skills training to all those living in the UK. Google will provide five hours of free digital skills training to any individual who wishes to learn.

Pichai said: "No matter where you live, no matter where you're from, no matter what your job is - you deserve access to all the information, education and opportunity the web has to offer."

The digital skills training is part of a programme called The Digital Garage, which has already trained around 250,000 individuals in the UK.

From 2017, Google will also offer free online courses through the Digital Garage Academy, and training face-to-face in 100 cities around the UK.

The Google Expeditions initiative is free for all schools in the UK, and interested teachers can sign-up for it here.

Google's digital courses, on the other hand, can be accessed here.

Image Credit: Google

History is important; it reminds us of our heritage and provides a foundation on which future generations can build. But what happens when that history is lost to the ages? Historical buildings or landmarks can be destroyed by war, by natural disaster, or simply by the relentless march of progress.

When that happens, it usually survives only in historical record, but at least one architecturally significant site has been rescued from oblivion - thanks to the magic of virtual reality.

The Bank of England is one of the world's oldest and most respected financial institutions (up until June 2016, at any rate), but the building itself is actually less than a century old. Prior to the 1920s, the country's central bank was housed in a building designed by legendary architect Sir John Soane, who worked on it for over four decades.

Soane has become one of architecture's most respected figures, and the bank was considered to be one of his greatest achievements, featuring extensive classical features and use of natural light. The demolition of his work in 1925 to make way for a larger, more modern space is now regarded as a travesty, and academic Nikolaus Pevsner called it "the greatest architectural crime ... of the twentieth century".

HP agreed, and launched a project in 2015 to try and digitally recreate Soane's Bank of England with the help of New York firm Robert A. M. Stern Architects (RAMSA). The project had two stages, with the first being to recreate the bank using BIM modelling, a digital design technique used in modern architecture.

Luckily for present-day architectural historians, Soane kept a great deal of detailed notes relating to his work, including 3D models, illustrations and blueprints. Under the watchful eye of RAMSA, these documents were then transformed by crowdsourced volunteers into Autodesk Revit models.

"The Bank of England is vast and complex, and even with the cache of archives his will left for us, it's too long and challenging for a lone scholar," said RAMSA partner Melissa Del Vecchio, "but it's completely suited to a crowdsourced effort."

Andy Milburn, an architect and BIM expert who worked extensively on the project's first phase, noted that the process of BIM modelling bears some striking similarities to Soane's original design methodology, particularly his use of physical models and architectural drawings by Joseph Gandy.

"What struck me was that there's a very close parallel with the way we work now with BIM," he said, "because we have these default 3D views ... but we also have these set-piece camera views that we set up, which is trying to get a sense of 'OK, what would it feel like to be in that space?' And that's starting to move to VR as well now. In a way, that's the same kind of thing he was doing with Joseph Michael Gandy."

The second phase of the project was a competition, where architects, designers, renderers and others could use the completed models to produce digital renderings of what the building would look like if it still survived today. The contest included multiple formats and categories, including video, still images and real-time experiences that used cutting-edge VR to place users inside a virtual reconstruction of the original bank.

Looking around the virtual interiors of the various bank buildings, you may be tempted to wonder what all the fuss is about - after all, it's just a bank interior, and the experience doesn't really compare to some of the more thrilling VR experiences out there. However, look at the big picture and the significance becomes clear.

This building - though not necessarily the most immediately exciting to the average person - is hugely important to architectural history and for the first time since its demolition, students of Soane's work can experience it in person, the way he originally intended. "We'll always be great big fans of the work of Soane," Karam Bhamra, a CGI designer who worked on architecture firm Hoare Lea's category-winning VR experience, told IT Pro.

"This idea of being able to put yourself back in the space and experience it a hundred years after it's gone, see what it would have felt like - and not just see how it was, but then also see how it could be today - that was something that really resonated with us."

In fact, Milburn told IT Pro, the whole recreation process can be used in education to give architecture students a much more in-depth understanding of how Soane's buildings worked on a technical level. "I would hope it would be used to involve students. I think the really great thing for architecture students would be for them to become hands-on," he said.

"Not just walking through the space - that would be great as well - but for them to be asked to take a small part and recreate it," Milburn continued. "My experience on the project has been that being really hands-on and setting problems to yourself, that's where you really start to learn a lot more than reading books."

"I think it's a brilliant way of letting people experience lost architecture," Bhamra told IT Pro, explaining that for many of history's forgotten buildings, recreating them would simply be impossible. "The talent that was there when they made buildings like this... you just wouldn't be allowed to make something like that any more."

It's not just Soane's Bank of England that can be brought back into the present, either. This same technique could potentially be used to digitally restore countless lost architectural and historical wonders. Even something as ancient as the Parthenon, Milburn said, could be rebuilt in VR - it all depends on how much documentation there is.

"Obviously, [it's] still partly there, so you could probably figure out quite a lot of the Parthenon. People have measured [it] in the past; there must be quite a lot of documentation around. It would be a challenge to trace it all down and put it together, so I think that's a big part of it - how you get that stuff. But there must be photographic records of quite a lot of buildings that have been demolished; photography goes back a hundred years."

However, undertakings like Project Soane require a considerable amount of investment, not to mention time and manpower, and HP Inc. is unlikely to sponsor the reconstuction of all of history's forgotten buildings. Thankfully, Milburn has some ideas as to who could pick up the baton.

"I think academic institutions, schools of architecture and so on, should get more involved with this kind of thing. They have some of the money to put in, but also they've got the academics who can do the quality control and they've got the labour force - they've got students who would learn a lot from it and could do a lot of the work."

While it may be an instrument of the future, it seems that VR can also help us recapture the past, and the fact that Soane's Bank of England - once thought lost to time - has been resurrected is inspirational, as RAMSA partner Graham S. Wyatt notes. "Recapturing what it was like to walk through its spaces has become a persistent dream for me and many others," he said. "I'm confident Sir John Soane would have been impressed."

Oculus Rift at a glance

• Oculus Rift now on sale in the UK
• Available at John Lewis, Currys PC World, GAME, Amazon
• 'Oculus Touch' motion control system delayed till second half of 2016
• Retail price set at £549
• First launched back in 2012

Latest news

20/09/2016: The Oculus Rift is finally available in the UK, four years after the hardware was first unveiled on Kickstarter.

The virtual reality headset will cost £549 and is available online at Amazon as well as in-store at John Lewis, Currys/PC World, and GAME, among others. If you want to try it out, you can schedule a demo at an Oculus Live site here.

The headset first went on sale in the US earlier this year, with more-expensive rival HTC Vive hitting shelves in April. PlayStation VR is expected to arrive in October, but unlike the headsets from HTC and the Oculus Rift, won't need a separate computer.

One thing missing from the Oculus Rift at launch is the Oculus Touch hand-tracking controllers. Instead, you'll have to navigate using an Xbox One controller, which is included with purchase and shell out for Oculus Touch when it's made available later this year, while the HTC Vive motion system is included in the box.

Oculus Rift: key specs and details

Virtual reality has been the hot trend of the last few years, and it all began with the Oculus Rift. First developed in 2011 by an 18-year-old Palmer Luckey, the Oculus Rift is a fully immersive VR headset that allows users to look around a virtual world in real time.

After a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign and a lengthy development process, the final consumer version of the Oculus Rift finally officially arrived in March of this year. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, with some heralding it as the first step towards a new era in technology.

The technology itself is highly impressive, with a 2,160 x 1,200px resolution split over twin OLED displays, and a refresh rate of 90Hz. This ensures that picture quality is sharp and high-definition, while latency is kept to a minimum.

However, the Rift’s launch hasn’t been without problems. One of the biggest criticisms that has been levelled at the Oculus Rift is its expensive price point. The headset costs £549, and that’s without additional charges like shipping costs.

In addition, Oculus has struggled with demand significantly outstripping its ability to fulfil orders. When pre-orders first opened, some customers were waiting as long as six months for their headsets.

These delays have lessened over time, however, and customers ordering today can expect to receive an Oculus Rift within 2-3 months.

On top of this, it also requires inordinately powerful gaming PCs in order to properly run. The recommended specifications for powering an Oculus Rift include at least 8GB of RAM, as well as an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 graphics card.

Oculus Rift: how good is it?

Cost could be a problem for the Oculus Rift, though rival HTC Vive is more expensive, according to analyst firm Context’s UK head, Jonathan Wagstaff. “For the first generation of HMDs [head mounted displays],” he says. “The big barrier is the cost of the headset and the cost of the hardware to run one.”

“Mass adoption is to have a £500 PC that sits in the corner that runs VR,” says Rob Jamieson, AMD’s industry alliance manager for workstation graphics. Until the hardware reaches a reasonable price-point, he says, the market could struggle.

Oculus Rift: virtual reality and the channel

Oculus has attempted to mitigate these problems by partnering with manufacturers. The company offers bundle deals with OEMs such as Asus, Alienware and Dell, including an Oculus Rift and an ‘Oculus Ready’ PC certified to run it.

Vendors themselves are already adapting to keep up with VR, as Wagstaff notes. “AMD recently announced the launch of an affordable VR GFX card upgrade in the form of the RX480 which is VR-ready at the fraction of the cost of the top-end NVidia cards.”

Similarly, Intel has hopped on the VR bandwagon, with a new line of ‘Extreme’ Broadwell processors designed to make creating VR content easier and more affordable. This early adoption has paid off, Wagstaff says, explaining that “the channel is already reaping the benefits”.

“We tracked a surge in channel sales for high-end GFX cards after Oculus announced the system requirements for the consumer Rift,” he explains. “We also expect more HMDs to begin going through distribution across the EU by later this year as Oculus and HTC move from selling purely direct.”

He also pointed out that sales of gaming desktops and notebooks have been rocketing in the IT sales channel over the last year, with the launch of high-end PC VR being a primary driver. However, while gaming is predicted to be the main focus of initial VR sales, companies like Samsung have found that enterprise use is quickly catching up.

“I think that people are now genuinely understanding as to how they can utilise it within their organisation to be more efficient, just to adopt technology quicker,” says Graham Long, vice president of Samsung’s enterprise business team for the UK and Ireland. “I think virtual reality is something that is going to really move things on quite quickly.”

Oculus Rift: VR for businesses

While uptake of the Rift has thus far been relatively slow outside of its core gaming audience, analysts are predicting that the VR industry is going to rapidly expand. According to Gartner research forecasts, shipments of head-mounted displays, including the Oculus Rift, will reach over 6.3m by 2017, with Research and Markets predicting a market valuation of more than £23bn.

According to Wagstaff, key vertical markets are rife with opportunities to leverage VR technologies. “The medical profession has been using Oculus development kits for some time now to treat mental illnesses,” he says. “In terms of retail, imagine visiting the home section of a department store and being able to put on a headset and see exactly how a set of furniture would look in your house.”

“The largest architectural companies in the world are very, very interested in VR”, adds Jamieson. Architects and estate agents are already using VR to sell high-end properties to buyers halfway around the world, he says, without the clients having to physically view the houses.

According to Jamieson, the value of devices like the Oculus Rift is clear from the response it gets. “As soon as I show anybody, if I get them in front of a design or CAD and they see the VR,” he says, “they go ‘how can I have it?’”

“We’re happy to go and show what it can do, and I think that’s the first thing we need to do, is to go and show people.”

Chip giant Intel will swallow California-based chip outfit Movidius in a bid to improve robots' awareness of the real world.

Movidius is a company that specialises in low-power chip design for computer vision and machine intelligence algorithms.

By buying the firm, Intel hopes it will be able to use these capabilities to enhance its RealSense human-computer interaction camera technology that provides face, gesture and speech recognition and augmented reality capabilities.

"As devices become smarter and more distributed, we recognise that specific system-on-a-chip (SoC) attributes will be paramount to giving human-like sight to the 50 billion connected devices that are projected by 2020," said Intel's New Technology Group senior VP and general manager, Josh Walden.

"With Movidius, Intel gains low-power, high-performance SoC platforms for accelerating computer vision applications.

Walden said that these low-power and high-performance SoCs will make Intel's RealSense cameras able to track, navigate, map and recognise both scenes and objects more accurately, while opening opportunities in areas where heat, battery life and form factors are key.

"We will look to deploy the technology across our efforts in augmented, virtual and merged reality (AR/VR/MR), drones, robotics, digital security cameras and beyond," Walden added.

Movidius CEO Reml El-Ouazzane said the deal will provide the basis for new innovation in autonomous machines.

"Our vision processing unit platform for on-device vision processing [and] Intel's RealSense technology is a winning combination for autonomous machines that can see in 3D, understand their surroundings and navigate accordingly," he said.

Movidius is currently working with customers like DJI, FLIR, Google and Lenovo to give smart devices including drones, security cameras, and AR/VR headsets, the ability to see.

The deal has not yet been finalised, and terms between Intel and Movidius were not disclosed.

Intel has unveiled a new, fully wireless virtual reality headset, dubbed 'Project Alloy'.

Revealed by CEO Brian Krzanich at the Intel Developer Forum in Sans Francisco, the new headset is part of the company's 'merged reality' platform, which Intel claims is the future of VR.

"Traditional VR systems need a dedicated space to be all functioning and working, to me the funny thing is that's not really a virtual world. It doesn't feel virtual when you're tied to a confined space," said Krzanich. "Today I believe we are going to introduce something that will change all that."

"Merged reality delivers virtual-world experiences more dynamically and naturally than ever before," he wrote in a blog post, "and makes experiences impossible in the real world now possible."

Intel claims that merged reality will be able to provide full-motion virtual reality experiences without "the cost - and creep factor - of installing high-end sensors in every corner of your living room".

Unlike the HTC Vive, Alloy's 'merged reality' is made possible by Intel RealSense cameras attached to the headset and is not dependent on setting up any external sensors or cameras around the room.

The computing power is located in its Head-Mounted Device (HMD), allowing a free range of motion with 6 degrees-of-freedom across a large space, Intel said. This combined with collision detection and avoidance, enables the wearer to make use of physical movement to explore a virtual space.

Merged reality will also allow players to use their actual hands to manipulate objects in VR, rather than controllers - technology already being worked on by companies such as Leap Motion.

The Project Alloy headset is an all-in-one unit, with the computational hardware built into the device. This means that users can fully roam around a virtual environment without the need to be connected to a PC.

While devices like Google Cardboard and the Gear VR currently offer untethered, mobile VR, they are currently fairly low-quality, as they are powered by smartphone hardware. The HTC Vive and Oculus Rift offer much more impressive experiences but require a wired connection to a high-end PC in order to function.

Krzanich was quick to note that Project Alloy will not replace these top-quality gaming VR headsets, as it cannot replicate the high framerates and response times necessary for smooth VR gaming.

"Sure, the most aggressive, high-end gamers who value the low latency of tethered systems will continue to enjoy those systems," he wrote, "and their systems will continue to advance and improve."

"But for the rest of us, we now have the choice to experience our virtual worlds across larger spaces without pesky cords. No more being jolted out of your VR experience because you have reached the end of your cord."

Project Alloy will also be fully open, the company revealed. Intel will publish open APIs for the ecosystem and open up the hardware, so developers and partner companies can create their own products based on the platform.

Microsoft is also partnering with Intel to make sure Windows content is optimised for Project Alloy and other Intel-based VR devices.

"Regardless of whether you're seeking to experience augmented reality or virtual reality, your freedom in the world of your choice depends on how you merge your realities and the technologies that enable you to cross over from the physical to the virtual, and the virtual to the physical," Krzanich wrote.

"We're rapidly moving toward a world where the boundary between the digital and the physical is eroding, and merging in new exciting ways."

Job site Indeed has revealed that virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) related job searches are on the rise, driven by the likes of Oculus Rift, Playstation VR and Pokmon Go.

To meet this demand, job postings for AR and VR jobs have increased by 605 per cent since 2014 and have doubled in the last 12 months, showing businesses are trying to attract the next generation of coders to their company.

"The Pokmon Go effect could be a game-changer because it's likely to focus attention on a range of skills from programming and design to art and 3D modelling. These could be the hot jobs of the future," Indeed's UK managing director, Bill Richards, said.

"Employers may soon need an army of augmented reality architects to design the virtual worlds we'll all be accessing. The smartest thing companies can do to be part of this trend, is to hire switched-on, open-minded, and tech-savvy individuals to help them build workplaces of the future."

Indeed explained that AR and VR doesn't just relate to gaming though and businesses need to diversify in order to attract the right candidates. The company is starting to see more demand from companies outside gaming and leisure, as it begins to infiltrate all aspects of our digital lives.

For example, AR has a huge place in healthcare, where patients are using it to access e-clinics and will soon expect virtual doctors to visit their own home.

"Use of augmented reality in the workplace has exploded and it's beginning to transform the way we work," Richards added. "As its commercial application grows in tandem with mobile and tablet use, we expect to see more related job opportunities across numerous industries in the UK over the next five to 10 years."

Google has been working on a "high-end standalone" virtual reality (VR) headset, according to reports, billed as a rival to frontrunner devices Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

The tech giant was working on the headset at the Google X research lab, reports Recode, alongside a seperate operating system for the device, suggesting Google's VR headset would not have run on the Android operating system.

The project, however, has reportedly been scrapped in order for the company to focus its efforts on other work in the VR space. This would theoretically include its work in mobile VR and bringing VR to the Chrome browser.

Earlier this year, Google announced an Android-based VR platform called Daydream, which is set for release alongside Android Nougat.

At the same time, the company alluded to a new version of its Cardboard VR viewer, complete withupdated sensors, lenses and a sturdier plastic casing.

WebVR integration for the latest builds of Chrome Beta and Chrome Dev surfaced recently, making the browser compatible with VR-enabled websites.

Google declined to comment on Recode's article.

01/07/2016: Will Google bring VR to Chrome?

Google is reportedly looking to bring virtual reality (VR) to its Chrome browser, adding support for WebVR to the latest builds of Chrome Beta and Chrome Dev.

The Chrome Beta now sports a new WebVR setting, reports9to5google, which would make the browser compatible with VR-enabled websites.

This could mean Google is hoping to eventually make any website viewable in VR with the shell, similar to technology introduced by Samsung for its Gear VR.

Similarly, Chrome Dev now has a 'VR Shell' setting that will allow users toview websiteswith Cardboard or Daydream-ready viewers, according to Chromium Evandelist Francois Beaufort.

12/02/2016:Google may be creating a standalone VR device with its own screen

Google's next rumoured virtual reality headset will be a standalone device with its own screen and outward-facing motion-sensing cameras, new reports have claimed.

According to the Wall Street Journal (via Fortune), the new VR device will not be reliant on other hardware such as a smartphone or PC which, if true, would make it one of the first of its kind.

The outward-facing cameras will be used to track the wearer's head motions and, without the need to use a smartphone in conjunction with the headset, the problem of users experiencing headaches while wearing VR devices may be improved.

Rumours surrounding Google's follow-up to its low-end Cardboard VR viewer revealed the company could be planning a new plastic headset with updated sensors, lenses and sturdier casing.

If released later this year, the launch would coincide with new Android VR technology, allowing compatible smartphones to slot into the device in the same way as they do with Cardboard or Gear VR.

As noted by Fortune, the tendency for VR devices to pair with smartphones and computers is due to their ability to offload heavy processing to the device in order to save power. If Google's VR does away with this element, it's unclear how it will compromise between power and efficiency.

12/02/16: Is Google building a new VR device to replace Cardboard?

Google is getting ready to release a new virtual reality headset to rival Samsung's Gear VR, and will update the Android OS to support the device, it is claimed.

The new headset will succeed Google's low-end Cardboard VR viewer, and will boast updated sensors, lenses and a sturdier plastic casing, according to the Financial Times, citing "people familiar with its plans".

Its release will coincide with the launch of new Android VR technology later this year, with compatible smartphones able to slot into the device much like with Cardboard and Gear VR, the publication said.

Google's new headset will work with a wider range of devices than its competitors, the source said, and sports improvements to overcome Cardboard's latency issues that can cause users to feel dizzy when using it with their phones.

Google announced in Novemberthat users would soon be able to experience 360-degree virtual reality through the YouTube app when combined with a Cardboard viewer.

"Using the same tricks that we humans use to see the world, VR video gives you a sense of depth as you look around in every direction," said YouTube product managers Kurt Wilms, Sanjeev Verma, and Husain Bengali. "Near things look near, far things look far. So if you were excited about 360-degree videos, this is pretty freakin' cool."

The firm is not the only technology company looking to compete in the VR space, with Nintendo revealed to be working on its own hardware, whileMicrosoft's HoloLens and thePlayStation VRare both set to be released later this year.

The virtual and augmented reality market could be worth $80 billion by 2025, found a report last month, taking into account both hardware ($45 billion) and software ($35 billion) revenues.

"We see qualities in VR/AR technology that can take this from niche use cases to a device as ubiquitous as the smartphone," the report from Goldman Sachs said.

"In the long run, if VR/AR technology becomes as lightweight as a set of glasses, we see the potential for the evolution to be similar where multiple devices are combined into one, potentially replacing phones and PC environments."

Pokemon Go could be getting a virtual reality (VR) upgrade, with a mention of Google Cardboard features in the game's licenses page spotted by an eagle-eyed fan.

Discovered by the PokeSteal fan page on Twitter (via 9to5Google), the page cites Google Cardboard as one Open Source Software that went into the making of the augmented reality smartphone game. Currently, however, the game does not offer any features that could be used with Google's VR viewer.

This indicates that an upcoming update would involve VR integration of some kind a shift from the real-world interaction the game currently requires. With VR in the mix, users could theoretically play while stationary.

The game in its current form allows users to find and catch Pokemon based on physical location in the world. In-game items can also be re-filled by visiting 'PokeStops'.

Despite its success, Pokemon Go has been marred by various security issues and opportunistic attacks from hackers and real-world criminals alike. This week alone has revealed that the game has been gaining full access to some users' Google accounts, a fake app has been masquerading as the real game downloading malware onto victims' phones, and robbers have used it to lure gamers to secluded areas in orderto steal from them.

In this regard, while removing much of the social element from gameplay (which has arguably been one reason behind the viral success of the game), VR integration could sidestep some safety issues.

Following the robbery, a statement posted by O'Fallon Police Department's Facebook page said: "If you use this app (or other similar type apps) or have children that do we ask you to please use caution when alerting strangers of your future location."

Snapchat has allegedly hired a Hollywood visual effects specialist to work on the company's augmented reality (AR) efforts.

Raffael Dickreuter posted the job title 'Concept Designer' for Snapchat on his LinkedIn page, Business Insider spotted, and he describes himself as a 'virtual reality specialist, director and creator of VR content'.

Snapchat has previously shown interest in entering the AR and VR space, with its 'lenses' also putting the central app near that category.

Product designers have already been seen using Oculus-like VR headsets, according to sources cited by Business Insider, and Oculus's head of user research, Gareth Griffiths, has already joined the company.

According to Dickreuter's profile, he has worked in Hollywood for 11 years as a virtual reality specialist, director and creator of VR content.

Facebook and Twitter already support 360-degree video, and YouTube introduced 360-degree livestream support earlier this year.

The company has also launched Snapchat Memories, a feature that allows users to save their photos and videos for later use, a big departure from the traditionally 'ephemeral' platform. Users can then search through previous snaps, even keeping some private in a 'My Eyes Only' folder.

"We realised that Snapchatters want to feel comfortable showing their Memories to friends while they're hanging out together, so we made it easy to move Snaps and Stories to My Eyes Only and avoid awkward moments when a friend stumbles upon a Snap meant just for you," Snapchat said in a blog post.

The feature will be rolling out to select users over the next month.