24 Feb 2020 | Emily Friedman

Weekly Spatial: Public Interest VR, Virtual Concerts & Project Proton

AR/VR Weekly

Highlights

Whitney Houston is touring again...as a hologram. Base Hologram announced the new stadium tour and apparently Houston's estate is directly involved. The production will feature real dancers alongside the 3D version of Whitney. 

Meanwhile, Kathy Bisbee, founder of Public VR Lab and co-director of the Brookline Interactive Group (BIG), spoke about making VR publicly accessible in Ms. Magazine: "We hope to help communities facilitate less polarized dialogue."

Finally, HTC has updated the Vive Cosmos with new faceplates: Cosmos Elite is intended for advanced PC VR games, while Cosmos Play is for entry-level VR apps. The Cosmos XR faceplate has high-quality passthrough cameras, enabling high-end AR applications. HTC also revealed a prototype AR headset: The Proton.

The XR Market

LYNX Has Raised $2 Million for Its R-1 Headset (Road to VR)

JDI Starts Mass Production of 1,058 ppi High Pixel Density LCD for VR Glasses (Road to VR)

Brand New: Launches & More

Stable version of Chrome 81 with Support for Web-based AR apps Expected Next Month (Road to VR)

YouTube's Latest Project Witness VR Campaign Shines Spotlight on Child Incarceration (VR Scout)

J&J rolling out VR headsets to train surgeons (MedCityNews)

Nreal Partnering with Spatial to Bring Collaboration to Nreal Light (Twitter)

Sandbox VR to Release SDK for its 'holodeck' VR attraction platform (Road to VR)

VR World Decentraland Goes Live, Users Spending Real Money to Buy Digital Assets (Bloomberg)

BTS & Samsung Launch Partnership With 'Connect, BTS' AR Experience (Newsweek)

Perfect Corp. partners with PRIV to add virtual try-on beauty trends to YouCam Makeup app (Retail Dive)

Microsoft to Host US and International MR Dev Days (UploadVR)

Unisys deploys Vuzix smart glasses for remote support ([AI]thority)

Snapchat's New Lenses Show Ground Transformation Technology (Interesting Engineering)

Upcoming Events + discounts

Global Tilt Brush Art Fest and Tournament: Soon in a city near you! London 2/13, South Carolina 2/15, Seattle 2/16, Connecticut 2/19, Toronto 2/20, Ontario 2/22, NYC 2/25 + Santa Barbara, Boston, Brooklyn, Melbourne and Sydney in March/April 

VR and Healthcare Symposium '20: March 2-3 (Nashville, TN) Use code awe2020 for 30% off registration!

Virtual Medicine: March 25-26 (Los Angeles, CA) Use this link for a 20% discount!

ImmersED Summit: May 2 (Los Angeles, CA) VR/AR K-12 Education Summit fueled by Survios

AWE Asia 2020: May 9-10 (Shenzhen, China) AWE ASIA HAS BEEN PUSHED BACK! Check out the new dates.

AWE USA 2020: May 27-29 (Santa Clara, CA) EARLY BIRD tickets on sale now!

2020 Games for Change Festival: July 14-16 (New York, NY) Early Bird pricing just launched! Check out: Open call for G4C Awards submissions and VR for Change Alcove Challenge with AARP

AWE EU 2020: October 15-16 (Munich, Germany) Super Early Bird tickets are on sale!