The HTC Vive tracker is a little black "puck" that opens the door to a new wave of VR simulations, the kind where we aren't confined to the limitations of a controller.
Imaginez un frigo connecté, une télé connectée et un PC de bureau qui soient tous les trois munis d’une petite encoche permettant d’y glisser un morceau de métal de 94.5 mm de long pour 55 mm de large et 5 mm d’épaisseur. A l’intérieur, un coeur de PC complet : Processeur, mémoire vive et stockage avec en prime une connexion Wifi, c’est le Intel Compute Card.
L’idée n’est pas nouvelle, de nombreux constructeurs ont déjà promis ce genre d’idée au travers différents formats. Des fabricants de téléviseurs qui ont promis des formats de cartes évolutives pour rendre leurs solutions un peu plus évolutives. D’autres type de produits avec ce genre d’évolution au travers différents formats. Jusqu’à Nvidia qui a lancé un format Tegra sur carte SoDIMM capable d’être intégré facilement à diverses machines. On ne peut pas dire que cela fût un succès, à chaque fois la promesse de pouvoir changer le coeur de l’engin était faite, à chaque fois le constructeur n’y donnait pas suite.
La position d’Intel est un peu différente. D’une part le fondeur a les moyens de rendre son Intel Compute Card populaire auprès des fabricants, d’autre part sa proposition n’est pas construite autour d’un format de machine sortant des standards actuels.
La promesse d’Intel tourne autour d’un PC pouvant être un processeur Intel Kaby Lake de septième génération, vous pourrez avoir un core i7 dans ce boitier de 9.5 sur 5.5 cm… Et si un adaptateur sort un jour, ce qui semble des plus logique, le même PC pourra vous servir à piloter un appareil connecté ou devenir un PC classique en branchant un clavier, une souris et un écran sur le dock.
Le tempo est également différent, Intel promet un objet disponible dès la moitié de l’année et se base sur une connectique devenue un vrai standard aujourd’hui, l’USB type-C. Un seul port peut servir à alimenter la carte et ses composants tout en proposant une bande passante suffisante pour profiter à plein des capacités de l’objet. Intel parle d’USB, de PCIe, de HDMI et de DisplayPort et de fonctions additionnelles. Ce n’est pas un scénario de science fiction ou le vœu d’un unique constructeur de téléviseur ou de frigo mais bien une solution qui pourra être adoptée par l’ensemble des fabricants du marché, de manière assez simple.
Pour le moment, nous n’avons pas de date précise pour cet Intel Compute Card. Pas même de détails de ses caractéristiques complètes et encore moins de prix. Mais après le Compute Stick comme PC d’appoint à brancher sur un téléviseur, l’Intel Compute Card pourrait devenir un standard où de simples constructeurs n’auraient qu’à respecter un cahier des charge connectique: Une prise au bon format correctement alimentée et les éléments pour faire transiter les données vers les différents ports (affichage, USB, mémoire de masse) pour être, de facto, compatible.
Plusieurs partenaires internationaux se sont déjà déclarés intéressés : Dell, HP, Lenovo et Sharp pour commencer mais également des consrtructeurs ou développeurs plus locaux comme Seneca Data, InFocus, DTx, TabletKiosk et Pasuntech.
Si l’offre est intéressante, suffisamment performante et pas inabordable on peut imaginer foule d’usages pour cet Intel Compute Card, de la traditionnelle télé connectée au PC à brancher sur un dock, on peut imaginer plein d’outils qui seront ravis d’être boostés par une carte de ce type : Machines CNC et autres imprimantes 3D pour les plus connues mais également tout type de robot et autres développement industriels : Affichage numérique, écrans d’information, distributeurs, systèmes de sécurité ou domotique. On imagine que pour un partenaire industriel, réduire l’ensemble des “cerveaux” de ses machines en activité à une seule et unique carte de ce genre rendrait le dépannage et la manutention de ses engins beaucoup plus aisée.
Mise à jour à 18H36 : Gogogadgeto a pointé un lien vers Gizmodo en commentaire où l’on découvre des prototypes de docks et la connectique de l’Intel Compute Card.
Celle ci est donc bien originale et dérivée de l’USB-C. Elle servira à tous les éléments entrants et sortants de l’objet. De l’alimentation à l’affichage en passant par le pilotage des différents composants.
Le format carte permet une intégration très discrète et efficace . Ce dock imaginé par Sharp en donne une bonne idée. On insère l’Intel Compute Card comme on manipulait une disquette auparavant. On pourra brancher ce type de dock affleurant à un bureau et profiter ainsi d’une connectique complète avec un clavier et une souris en USB ainsi qu’un port RJ45 pour un accès au réseau. D’autres connecteurs sont peut être disponibles de l’autre côté de l’engin.
On apprend, au passage, qu’Intel a développé l’engin avec Foxconn qui se chargera de sa fabrication. Le format carte de crédit est presque atteint ce qui, même si on n’a pas le détail précis des spécifications de l’objet, est assez impressionnant.
Ce dock prototype imaginé par Intel pourrait être votre PC de bureau du futur au travail. Avec un Intel Compute Card que l’on voit juste émerger via le liseré argenté en façade, on imagine très bien pouvoir l’éjecter pour le glisser au sein d’un portable d’entreprise pour retrouver ses données mises à jour en mobilité.
Flir, une référence dans le domaine des caméras thermiques, profite du CES pour lancer la troisième génération de son capteur One pour smartphones. Il est accompagné d'une version Pro avec une précision multipliée par quatre. Tarif de base, 199,99 dollars.
At its CES 2017 press event, HTC gave us the rundown on all of the latest Vive developments, including wireless adaptors, a Deluxe Audio Strap, and even a subscription service for virtual reality games and applications.
Touchscreen technology has redefined the ways we interact with electronic devices, but while controls have gotten more precise over the years, touchscreens themselves haven’t been able to truly replicate the human sense of touch. Tanvas wants to add the ability to feel texture on a touchscreen with a new haptic feedback technology showcased at CES.
In my short demo, I played with a few sample applications. One lets you drag your finger through a virtual pool with pebble floors. The haptic feedback makes it feel like water ripples are following your fingertips, and the pebbles underneath create a slight “bump” between every other stone. It feels really zen.
Another interesting application is with one of Tanvas’ partners Bonobos, the...
Every company tries to be the first with the biggest CES announcement, but Asus has been preempted today by hardware partner Qualcomm, which has revealed the upcoming ZenFone AR smartphone with Google Tango support. At the same, prolific leaker @evleaks has provided an image of both the front and back of the new phone.
Spotted by GSM Arena and others, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Blog today disclosed the news about the Asus ZenFone AR, which will follow in the footsteps of the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro, the first phone with Google Tango. Tango is a souped-up version of augmented reality from Google that holds a lot of promise, but still needs work.
The ZenFone AR will be powered by a Snapdragon 821 processor, same class of chip as in the Google Pixel...
Many of us will have seen robotics or prosthetics operated by the electrical impulses detected from a person’s nerves, or their brain. In one form or another they are a staple of both mass-market technology news coverage and science fiction.
The point the TV journalists and the sci-fi authors fail to address though is this: how does it work? On a simple level they might say that the signal from an individual nerve is picked up just as though it were a wire in a loom, and sent to the prosthetic. But that’s a for-the-children explanation which is rather evidently not possible with a few electrodes on the skin. How do they really do it?
A project from [Bruce Land]’s Cornell University students [Michael Haidar], [Jason Hwang], and [Srikrishnaa Vadivel] seeks to answer that question. They’ve built an interface that allows them to control a robotic hand using signals gathered from electrodes placed on their forearms. And their write-up is a fascinating read, for within that project lie a multitude of challenges, of which the hand itself is only a minor one that they solved with an off-the-shelf kit.
The interface itself had to solve the problem of picking up the extremely weak nerve impulses while simultaneously avoiding interference from mains hum and fluorescent lights. They go into detail about their filter design, and their use of isolated power supplies to reduce this noise as much as possible.
Even with the perfect interface though they still have to train their software to identify different finger movements. Plotting the readings from their two electrodes as axes of a graph, they were able to map graph regions corresponding to individual muscles. Finally, the answer that displaces the for-the-children explanation.
There are several videos linked from their write-up, but the one we’re leaving you with below is a test performed in a low-noise environment. They found their lab had so much noise that they couldn’t reliably demonstrate all fingers moving, and we think it would be unfair to show you anything but their most successful demo. But it’s also worth remembering how hard it was to get there.
We’ve covered a huge number of robotic and prosthetic hands here over the years, but it is a mark of the challenges involved that we’ve covered very few that are controlled in this way. Even those that have are usually brain-controlled rather than nerve-controlled, and are thus considerably more complex. We applaud this team for their achievement, and we hope others will pick up on their work.
Apart from Iron Man’s transparent smartphone looking exceptionally cool, it really doesn’t make much sense to have one.
“Transparent screens by their very nature make what’s happening on the front of the screen happen on the back of the screen,” Jennifer Davis, vice president of marketing and product strategy at Planar Systems, explained in an interview with Inverse.
“There are lots of things people do on their phones that they don’t want everybody watching.”
The transparent smartphone may still be some years away. Credit: Paramount Pictures/Marvel Studios
Besides, today’s technology still hasn’t advanced to the point where it can recreate these see-through smartphones. But that’s not to say we can’t have some form of cool tech inspired by Tony Stark’s gadget arsenal.
For larger screens, like televisions, not only is the technology more appropriate, it’s also more feasible—and is actually commercially available. In fact, Panasonic already showcased a demo screen at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, which featured a widescreen TV that could go partially transparent to display the shelves behind it.
Planar Systems
But Planar Systems is taking this concept a step further—by adding touch screen functionality. The screens will be given a sense of functionality, which opens up a wealth of new possibilities.
“If your experience with the display is going to be transparent, and I mean that in every sense of the word, and it’s going to be visible and [have] an element of publicness to it, why not make it a social experience?” Davis says.
As a television screen, the many applications for the technology would be pretty extraordinary. Imagine having a living room window that could transform into your TV?
But beyond interiors, Planar Systems has some very interesting ideas about how their technology can be used.
For instance, museums could use the screen as interactive, augmented reality displays that allows guests to enjoy the experience minus clunky headgear. Visitors could view a particular artifact through the glass, with graphics and visuals overlaid to provide more information. It can basically transform the traditional augmented reality (AR) experience—which is largely a personal activity because of the required headsets—into a more social setting.
A concept for interactive museum glass displays. Image Credit: Planar Systems
In retail, it can be applied as a storefront window that incorporates the actual products and the digital visuals. Or imagine the technology’s use in hospitals, where such display screens could be used in tandem with a digital assitant that provides instructions, directions, and assitance for filling out digital forms through mobile interaction with patients for added privacy.
What Planar Systems wants to do is go beyond the obvious display applications and integrate these screens into the very architecture of structures—so that they become as natural a building material as concrete, rebar and I-beams.
“We’d like to see video walls and displays and transparent displays be integrated into the design—in fact, integral to the design,” Davis added.
For now, the screens are currently commercially available for $18,500 (for the smallest, 55-inch 1080 full HD display). That’s a hefty price tag, but hopefully, as businesses and wealthy private owners shell out the money for these early models, the prices will come down and someday we’ll consider transparent, invisible TV screens just a normal part of 21st Century life.
Last week we announced a comprehensive list of nominees for our 2016 Game of the Year Awards. There were over 20 categories selected with approximately 4-8 different games and experiences nominated for each category. That all adds up to a ton of amazing content we saw in VR’s first full year of consumer adoption.
We teamed up with the prolific Christopher Sabat (the voice of Piccolo, Yamcha, and of course Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z as well as Roronoa Zoro in One Piece) to record a video announcing each winner in every category. In my opinion, getting a glimpse of gameplay combined with that epic voice is absolutely the best way to experience our award selections. Check it out:
Since there were so many categories to decide and so many voices to hear, we actually had a true deliberation process in real-time using AltspaceVR. That means for three hours I, the Games Editor at UploadVR, Staff Writer Joe Durbin, Staff Writer Jamie Feltham, and Senior Editor Ian Hamilton, all discussed the nominees and who we thought deserved to win each and every category. That entire process was recorded, so get your popcorn ready.
We know it is three hours long, at the very least the first 25 or so minutes are pretty funny. The whole thing is embedded below.
We also have the third, and quickest, way to digest our selections and that’s in plain old text format.
Check them out below!
Best Music/Sound Design Winner: Thumper
Bound
EVE: Valkyrie
The Gallery: Episode 1 – Call of the Starseed
Thumper
Until Dawn: Rush of Blood
Best Art Direction Winner: Bound
ADR1FT
Bound
The Climb
Obduction
Robinson: The Journey
SUPERHOT VR
Thumper
Best Online Game Winner: Werewolves Within
Arizona Sunshine
Battlezone
Dead and Buried
EVE: Valkyrie
Onward
RIGS
The Unspoken
Werewolves Within
Best Narrative Winner: The Gallery: Episode 1 – Call of the Starseed
The Assembly
Edge of Nowhere
The Gallery: Episode 1 – Call of the Starseed
Obduction
Robinson: The Journey
Best Immersive Film Winner: KÀ The Battle Within
Ctrl
Gnomes and Goblins
Henry
KÀ The Battle Within
Best Productivity App Winner: Bigscreen
Bigscreen
Envelop
LightVR
Virtual Desktop
Best Creativity App Winner: Tilt Brush
Gravity Sketch
Medium
Quill
Tilt Brush
Best Racing Game Winner: DiRT Rally
Blaze Rush
DiRT Rally
Driveclub VR
Project CARS
Redout
Best Horror Game Winner – A Chair in a Room: Greenwater
A Chair in a Room: Greenwater
The Brookhaven Experiment
Dark Days
Sisters
Until Dawn: Rush of Blood
Best Action/Adventure Game Winner: Vanishing Realms
Chronos
Edge of Nowhere
SUPERHOT VR
Vanishing Realms
Windlands
Best Puzzle Game Winner: SUPERHOT VR
Fly to KUMA
Hitman GO: VR Edition
Neverout
Please, Don’t Touch Anything
SUPERHOT VR
Water Bears VR
Best Shooter Winner: Onward
Arizona Sunshine
Damaged Core
Onward
Raw Data
RIGS
Space Pirate Trainer
Most Surprising New Game Winner: Onward
The Brookhaven Experiment
Eagle Flight
Onward
Space Pirate Trainer
Thumper
The Unspoken
Vanishing Realms
Best Mobile VR Game Winner: Minecraft
Dark Days
End Space
Minecraft
Neverout
Sisters
Tactera
Wands
Best Rift Game Winner: The Unspoken
Arizona Sunshine
Chronos
The Climb
Damaged Core
Edge of Nowhere
Lucky’s Tale
SUPERHOT VR
The Unspoken
Best Vive Game Winner: Arizona Sunshine
Arizona Sunshine
The Brookhaven Experiment
The Gallery: Call of the Starseed
Job Simulator
The Lab
Onward
Raw Data
Vanishing Realms
Best PS VR Game Winner: RIGS
Battlezone
Bound
How We Soar
Job Simulator
Rez Infinite
RIGS
Thumper
Until Dawn: Rush of Blood
Best Social Variety Experience Winner: AltspaceVR
AltspaceVR
Bigscreen
Destinations
High Fidelity
Rec Room
Toybox
Most Innovative VR Game Winner: Fantastic Contraption
Accounting
Damaged Core
Eagle Flight
Fantastic Contraption
The Gallery: Episode 1 – Call of the Starseed
Job Simulator
The Lab
SUPERHOT VR
Breakout VR Game Studio Winner: Owlchemy Labs
CCP Games (EVE: Valkyrie, Gunjack, Project Arena)
Cloudhead Games (The Gallery)
High Voltage (Damaged Core, Dragon Front)
Insomniac (Edge of Nowhere, The Unspoken)
Owlchemy Labs (Job Simulator, Rick and Morty)
Playful Corp (Lucky’s Tale, Wonderland)
Squanchtendo (Accounting)
Survios (Raw Data)
Best VR Game of the Year Winner: Arizona Sunshine
Arizona Sunshine
Damaged Core
The Gallery: Episode 1 – Call of the Starseed
Job Simulator
Onward
Rez Infinite
SUPERHOT VR
The Unspoken
Most Anticipated Upcoming VR Game of 2017 Winner: Star Trek – Bridge Crew
Arktika.1
Fallout 4 VR
Farpoint
Lone Echo
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Rock Band VR
Star Trek: Bridge Crew
Wilson’s Heart
What are your picks for some of the best games and experiences this year? Did your favorite not win what you thought it would? Let us know in the comments below!
There’s a lot going on with the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro smartphone, a dizzying array of things to consider. The first is that it’s massive, barely qualifying as a phone, with a 6.4-inch display and hard, chamfered edges that make it feel like a weaponized phablet. The second thing to consider is that this a Lenovo phone. For people in China, India, or Vietnam, this is not an anomaly. But in the US, where we prize our high-priced iPhones and Samsungs and various other Android phones, Lenovo is a brand-new entrant.
The third and most important thing to consider is this is the only device you can buy right now that supports Google Tango. Tango is Google-made software that, combined with specific hardware, offers advanced 3D sensing. If basic...
Does it feel like the only time you hear about Bitcoin is when the price is either abruptly soaring or sinking? Us too! This time it’s soaring. Bitcoin is up about 30% over the last month, and about 50% over the last 3 months. The current price is hovering right around $950. The last time it traded this close to $1,000 was in January 2014 when the price hit $1,023 – right before… Read More
I’d wager most people who bought the HTC Vive love the unit but wish a new version would bring key improvements. A slimmer design and lighter cord, a better fit for the face and more ergonomic controllers without hard-to-reach grip buttons are all near the top of the early adopter wish list.
HTC relies on Valve’s lighthouse tracking technology to make the Vive and its controllers work. Earlier this year, Valve opened up that technology to a wide range of partners. While none of these partners have officially announced products compatible with this SteamVR Tracking technology yet, early buyers are anxious because future headsets and accessories could be lower cost if you already have the VR tracking system installed.
This means anticipation is high for CES next week. Really high. The event, spread across Las Vegas, is one of the world’s biggest consumer electronics conferences. Last year, HTC used CES to offer a first hands-on demo with the Vive Pre developer kits, giving early adopters their first look at what consumer room-scale VR looks like. Given this anticipation, rumors have been circling that HTC is set to reveal the next iteration of its Vive VR headset at CES. To put it plainly: they’re not true.
HTC confirmed to UploadVR that it will not be announcing a “Vive 2” at this year’s show.
“There is no truth to the rumor of launching Vive 2 at CES 2017,” the official statement from HTC reads. “At Vive, we are laser focused on building out a strong and growing ecosystem for current and future Vive owners so they can experience the best room-scale VR with the most compelling content available.”
It is also worth noting that, while we expect major announcements and VR-related reveals next week, Oculus is not listed as an exhibitor at CES this year. Facebook is, but there is no booth listed. Last year at CES Oculus had a very large booth on the show floor at the Las Vegas Convention Center. That doesn’t appear to be the case this time around. It makes sense on multiple levels, given that Facebook seems to be absorbing the Oculus brand, and they just shipped Oculus Touch a couple of weeks ago. CES isn’t really necessary for Facebook because if you want to check out their latest VR efforts you can go into one of hundreds of stores around the country for a demo of the Oculus Rift.
Lorsque vient le moment de préparer un paquet cadeau, certains prennent à peine le temps de faire la chose correctement et d’autres, a contrario, y mettent une intention toute particulière. Il fallait au moins ça pour réaliser ce troll parfait. À première vue, c’est une guitare qui se trouve sous le sapin, mais… « Mon frère […]
Police in Bentonville, Arkansas are turning to Amazon to help prosecute a suspected murderer. The case, which was first spotted by The Information and goes back to 2015, shines a light on how smart home devices might start playing a larger role in future criminal investigations.
James Andrew Bates was charged with first-degree murder after a man named Victor Collins was found dead in Bates’ hot tub in November 2015. Bates owned a few connected devices, including a Nest thermostat, a Honeywell alarm system, and an Amazon Echo. During the course of their investigation, police issued a warrant to Amazon requesting data in the form of audio recordings, transcribed records, and other text records from Bates’ Echo. The police also sought more...
Une carte de voeux ou d’anniversaire fait toujours plaisir. Mais si on parvient à surprendre son interlocuteur avec une mélodie, c’est encore plus sympa ! Au Royaume-Uni, la startup Recards commercialise des kits qui vont vous permettre de créer des cartes créatives qui cachent une platine vinyle.
Pour Noël, vous pouvez donc prévoir de préparer des cartes de voeux qui vont déclencher un vinyle jouant des mélodies festives. À noter que Recards propose également des kits pour les anniversaires. Pour en savoir plus, rendez-vous sur le site officiel du fabricant.
Artificial intelligence can imitate the works of Bach so well that you (probably) can’t tell the difference. Don’t believe me? Try it for yourself.
The computer-generated music in these samples is the work of DeepBach — a deep learning-powered program created by Gaetan Hadjeres and François Pachet of the Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Paris. This is the institution that previously gave us the “world’s first” AI pop song (though that had quite a bit of help from humans) and has used its AI music software FlowMachines to mimic musicians ranging from Mozart to the Beatles.
Now, though, FlowMachines has conquered Bach — and its success says a lot about the current capabilities (and limitations) of current AI.
Watch Simon’s Cat in this super cute guide to preparing for Christmas all in one handy checklist! Featuring the kitten and the cat in a series of adorable coloured vignettes...(Read...)
Placée en redressement judiciaire fin novembre, l'ex-pépite française sauve une grande partie de ses postes.
Bonne affaire ou achat à perte ? LeFigaro Classifieds, filiale du groupe LeFigaro CCM Benchmark, qui détient entre autres Cadremploi.fr et Keljob.com, a été retenu par le tribunal de commerce de Paris le 23 décembre pour reprendre Viadeo. Montant...
So you’ve been lucky enough to get a tethered VR headset for Christmas: Now what? VR headsets are still very new platforms, and you’ll probably be a little short on really high-quality games and apps for the near future. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to try out, no matter what headset you have. (Unless some prankster got you this monstrosity.) Here’s some of the best stuff to get you started.
We've rounded up our favorite and most-used apps and utilities for the technology we use every day. Check out our other picks for iPhones, Android phones, PCs, and Macs. We've also listed our favorite games for iOS and Android from this year.
All platforms
Every VR platform has some unique advantages, but there are also a lot of...
T’is the season to hack, and the maker brigade won’t disappoint — there’s no better way to crank out a few cute holiday tchotchkes than to fire up the 3D printer. [Niklas Roy] has released gDraw, a software package that creates G-code to print out 2D drawings on your 3D printer.
The interface is simple, allowing the quick and easy creation of basic vector drawings. The program then converts the paths in the drawing to a G-code representation that your printer follows to squirt them out in plastic. Think of it as the 3D printed equivalent of the “Stroke Path” tool in Photoshop.
[Niklas] chose to demonstrate the software by creating some interesting greeting cards that Big Christmas is sure to rip off next year and sell for $30 a pop. The printed plastic drawings give a fun 3D effect to the cards, and we’d love to see more examples of art created with this technique. The software was designed to work with the Ultimaker 2, but with tweaks, it should be able to generate code for other printers, too.
HTC just sent out an invitation for an event on January 12th. As per usual with these teaser invites, there are minimal details about what the announcement will unveil. All we have to go by right now is that it’s something “For U.” If you notice, the U is also mirrored with the C in HTC’s logo.
The event will be held right after CES, but well over a month before Mobile World Congress. Maybe we’re looking at some new wearables or VR, but a new flagship smartphone isn’t out of the question either. We’ll know more in a few weeks.
A Korea company called Korea Future Technology is building a Life-size mech, which is called METHOD-1: a big, real, functioning mech. Here are a couple of compilation videos showing the mech waving its arms around and, more importantly, walking. Awe..(Read...)
Les petites filles jouent dès leur plus jeune âge avec des poupées aux visages surmaquillés. Et si on les rendait plus naturelles pour changer le regard sur la femme dès l’enfance ? En Australie, l’artiste Sonia Singh s’est lancée dans un projet créatif baptisé « Tree Change Dolls ».
Le principe est simple : elle récupère des poupées Bratz Dolls et change leur visage pour littéralement les démaquiller. Elles sont ensuite vendues pour symboliser l’importance de savoir rester naturelle, dès le plus jeune âge. Bonne idée !
Be quiet, Alexa! Stop talking, Siri! A new virtual assistant is about to launch in Japan, and her name is Azuma Hikari. She's not just a disembodied voice either, she's a holographic-style virtual character living inside an Amazon Echo-like gadget called the Gatebox.
As we’ve no doubt mentioned a few times before, casual and social experiences are going to be fundamental to the growth of virtual reality. Despite whatever level of quality, people are inspired to engage with experiences they can share with their friends. First reported by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed via regulatory filing, social platform High Fidelity is raising $22 million in fresh investment.
High Fidelity is led by Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life, so the social interaction pedigree is plain as day. Second Life is one of the most well-known Internet-based social phenomena and Rosedale is no doubt working hard to create another heavy-hitting experience. The immersion of virtual reality can deliver a second life more true to the name, transporting users into new worlds in a way non-VR just simply can not.
As the number of virtual reality users grows and more headsets make their way into the wild, social platforms like High Fidelity will be able to grow their audience and add new features. Thus, the $22 million will be useful in creating those new options while also hiring new faces to help with the growing workloads.
You can download High Fidelity’s beta right now for Windows or Mac OS X and create or explore the shared virtual worlds.
Does it feel like the only time you hear about Bitcoin is when the price is either abruptly soaring or sinking? Us too! This time it’s soaring. Bitcoin is up about 30% over the last month, and about 50% over the last 3 months. The current price is hovering right around $950. The last time it traded this close to $1,000 was in January 2014 when the price hit $1,023 – right before… Read More
