29 Mar 2019
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Tom Emrich
AR+VR Weekly: Viveport Winners, AR/VR Quotes, and Consumer VR
AR/VR Weekly
Catch up on the latest AR+VR highlights, funding news & launch announcements: Week of March 25
Image Source: HTC
Highlights
It’s been another busy week in AR+VR! In addition to keeping you up-to-date on the top AR+VR news, funding activity, and launch announcements, here are the three stories you need to know: Viveport Winners, AR/VR Quotes, and Consumer VR.
HTC announced its third annual Viveport Developer Awards, which included Apex Construct by Fast Travel Games and Bait! by Resolution Games.
Meanwhile, a recent Fast Company post gathered quotes from leaders in spatial computing on where the tech is and what challenges still need to be tackled. I love this quote from Ficus Kirkpatrick, Facebook's Director of Engineering, AR/VR: "I think it's going to end up being this multimodal mixed world where some people are going to have headsets, some people are going to have Portals, some people are just going to have their phones, and we need to maximize that feeling of togetherness for any of those participants."
Finally, a new report from YouGov found that just over one-third of consumers now say they're somewhat familiar with the companies developing VR games and applications.
Funding News
Epic Games Launches $100 Million Fund to Support 3D Experiences Created Using Unreal Engine (Next Reality)
Ario Technologies, Inc. Raises $1 Million in Seed Funding for Augmented Reality Software Platform (PR Newswire)
Google Backs Mojo Vision's 'Invisible Computing' Augmented Reality Platform in $58 Million Funding Round (Next Reality)
Scope AR Snags $9.7 Million to Expand Its Enterprise Augmented Reality Platform (Next Reality)
WarDucks raises $3.8 million for augmented reality game studio (VentureBeat)
Launch Announcements
Facebook announces $399 Oculus Rift S to launch in spring (Mashable)
Qualcomm is working on standalone wireless VR headsets that can also connect to PCs (The Verge)
HP's new Reverb VR headset sports super high resolutions and a lightweight design (The Verge)
Make ARKit and ARCore Development Easier With Unity AR Foundation (VR Focus)
Angry Birds Returns to Its Mobile Roots with 'Isle of Pigs' Augmented Reality Game (Next Reality)
Mapbox Beta Gives Developers Tools for Integrating Augmented Reality into Car & Mobile Device Navigation Apps (Next Reality)
Tobii Unveils New Eye Tracking Tools and Resources for VR, AR, and PC Development (PR Newswire)
Magic Leap Unveils Latest Multiplayer VR Prototype (Variety)
HTC Vive Pro Eye is NVIDIA's Preferred Headset for its VRS Technology (VR Focus)
Torch App Teams with 6D.ai to Add Occlusion & Persistence to AR Creations (Next Reality)
Nvidia Says GeForce Now Will Enable Wireless Streaming VR/AR (UploadVR)
Pimax Releases ASW-Like "Smart Smoothing" And Static Foveated Rendering (UploadVR)
Event Listings
Collegiate XR Student Festival (VRARA, Oculus & Microsoft): Friday, April 12 (Los Angeles, CA)
Women of Silicon Valley 2019: May 2-3 (San Francisco, CA)
AWE USA 2019: May 29-31 (Santa Clara, CA)
SIGGRAPH 2019: July 28-August 1 (Los Angeles, CA)
Tech Inclusion 2019: September 11-12 (San Francisco, CA)
EWTS 2019: September 17-19 (Dallas, TX)
