Virtual reality
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Valve’s flagship Half-Life VR game will land in March of 2020
As expected, Valve just dropped some details about Half-Life: Alyx, the flagship VR game it teased earlier this week.
Here’s what we know so far:
- It’s scheduled for release in March of 2020.
- Players will take on the role of Alyx, wearing a pair of “gravity gloves” that allow you to grab things otherwise out of reach.
- It’ll take place sometime between Half-Life and Half-Life 2. Alas, for anyone hoping for something that takes place after the events set in motion in Half-Life 2: Episode 2 12 years ago, it sounds like this ain’t it. With that said, they told The Verge in an interview that players should play through Episode 2 first… so Valve might have surprises in store there.
- It’s built on the Source 2 engine, and will work on “all SteamVR compatible VR systems” — so HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest when hooked to a PC, Windows Mixed Reality headset, or Valve’s own Index VR headset.
- It’s built to be played whether you want to move around your room, stand in one place or sit in a chair.
- It’ll cost $60, but be free for anyone who owns Valve’s Index VR headset. Index owners will also get alternate in-game gun skins, and “Alyx-themed content” in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
Valve also posted a trailer, showing everything from headcrabs to the Citadel from Alyx’s first-person VR perspective… plus a special little cameo if you stick around to the end. Check it out here:
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Valve confirms it’s making a ‘flagship’ Half-Life VR game
After what feels like years of rumors, it’s official: Valve is making a virtual reality Half-Life game.
Official word of the new title comes via Valve’s (brand new, but verified) Twitter account, where the company is promising more details later this week:
While it’s a bit curious to drop news like this as the first tweet from a brand new account, Valve’s long-established official Steam twitter account retweeted it — so signs are pointing toward it being legit.
Alas, we know next to nothing besides the name — Half-Life: Alyx — until 10 am on Thursday. Will we finally get a proper conclusion for Alyx Vance, whose storyline ended so abruptly when Valve dropped the Half-Life storyline mid-sentence 12 years ago ?
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HTC’s new CEO discusses the phonemaker’s future
On September 17, HTC announced that cofounder Cher Wang would be stepping down as CEO. In her place, Yves Maitre stepped into the role of Chief Executive, after more than a decade at French telecom giant, Orange.
It’s a tough job at an even tougher time. The move comes on the tail of five consecutive quarterly losses and major layoffs, including a quarter of the company’s staff, which were let go in July of last year.
It’s a far fall for a company that comprised roughly 11 percent of global smartphone sales, some eight years ago. These days, HTC is routinely relegated to the “other” column when these figures are published.
All of this is not to say that the company doesn’t have some interesting irons in the fire. With Vive, HTC has demonstrated its ability to offer a cutting edge VR platform, while Exodus has tapped into an interest in exploring the use of blockchain technologies for mobile devices.
Of course, neither of these examples show any sign of displacing HTC’s once-booming mobile device sales. And this January’s $1.1 billion sale of a significant portion of its hardware division to Google has left many wondering whether it has much gas left in the mobile tank.
With Wang initially scheduled to appear on stage at Disrupt this week, the company ultimately opted to have Maitre sit in on the panel instead. In preparation for the conversation, we sat down with the executive to discuss his new role and future of the struggling Taiwanese hardware company.
5G, XR and the future of the HTC brand
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Amid AR/VR experiments, Apple buys UK visual effects studio
Apple has reportedly acquired U.K. special effects studio IKinema, a startup that may be useful in Apple’s quest to bolster its mobile devices with AR special effects and in its more far-flung attempts to enter the AR/VR headset market.
The company issued its standard confirmation for the deal to TechCrunch “Apple buys smaller companies from time to time, and we generally don’t discuss our purpose or plans.” The news was first reported by FT after rumors were floated by MacRumors. .
IKenema has used motion-tracking work to live-animate the bodily movements of digital characters, but the team has also stockpiled this information to create realistic models of movements of digital characters in digital environments, specifically in the context of games and virtual reality titles.
These models were highlighted in the startup’s RunTime product that integrated into game engines like Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. RunTime was powering avatar interactions in experiences like The Void’s “Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire,” a virtual reality experience at Disney resorts, as well as in works by studios like Capcom Linden Lab, Microsoft Studios, Nvidia, Respawn and Square Enix.
RunTime being used in Impulse Gears’ PSVR game, Farpoint
The company’s Orion product allowed motion capture with lower-cost input, essentially syncing limited input like head and hand movement with motion models that could allow for a hybrid solution that still looked realistic. The technology was being used for visualizations by teams at NASA, Tencent and others.
What does Apple want with this company?
There are a handful of spots that this tech could prove helpful, the most obvious of which would be bringing special AR effects to the iOS camera, juxtaposing the spatial data that the camera can gather from a real-world space with digital AR models. This could theoretically allow something like an AR figure to walk up your stairs or sit on a chair. The issue iKenema doesn’t solve in these scenarios is computer vision segmentation to be able to tell what surface is a table versus a floor versus a couch cushion, but enabling digital models to interact with these spaces is a big advance.
Where else?
Well, a little bit more of a reach for Apple would be using this tech in the context of a VR or AR avatar system. And although iKenema worked a lot with motion capture, they did so with the explicit purpose of designing models for digital humans to interact with digital environments in real time. Their solution was already being used by virtual reality developers to give VR gamers a way to visualize how their own bodies moved in VR given limited inputs.
Facebook Horizon’s legless avatars
Virtual reality systems typically only know the location of your head and hands, given trackers are on the controllers and headset, but IKinema’s solution allowed developers to make the rest of users’ in-game bodies look more natural inside games. This is a pretty difficult challenge, and it’s the reason plenty of VR titles have made avatar systems that are missing legs, necks, arms and shoulders, because everything looks awful if the movements are off.
Apple’s computer vision needs are only heightening as they bowl forward on AR and VR devices while also aiming to bolster the camera on the iPhone as a point of differentiation from Google and Samsung devices.
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Not all is predictable on Facebook’s social Horizon
Most of the people I spoke with at Facebook’s Oculus Connect see the proliferation of virtual reality as a foregone conclusion, one that’s just a matter of timing at this point. For Facebook, the conference’s “The Time is Now” catchphrase showcased that they feel their hardware is ready for everyone.
But despite the success they feel like they’ve tapped into when it comes to hardware iterations, the company’s bread and butter social networking prowess feels like it’s barely improved in-headset in the past several years of VR experimentations.
“On the social side, looking back, it’s kind of embarrassing all of the stages we’ve gone through at Oculus,” Oculus CTO and veteran programmer John Carmack conceded onstage during his signature rambling annual keynote, noting that his own social APK was followed by Oculus Rooms, Oculus Venues, Facebook Spaces and now the company’s latest shiny pearl Facebook Horizon.
Horizon’s debut this year included a flashy trailer for what quickly seemed to be the company’s biggest gamble and first potential social hit, a massive multi-player online world. In introducing the software, Zuckerberg talked about people-centric software as Facebook’s “bread-and-butter,” noting, “We build a lot of the best social experiences for phones and computers, and we want to do this for virtual reality as well.”
But Facebook does not actually appear to hold that much of an advantage over much smaller game studios in terms of understanding how to make social virtual reality experience take off.
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Oculus and Respawn announce a Nazi-killing VR shooter
Two years ago, Oculus announced a radical departure in how they were funding virtual reality developers. Instead of partnering with a ton of upstart teams looking to explore the medium and help fund their low-budget pursuits, the company would be pursuing fewer, more expensive projects with established studios. Their crown jewel would be a made-for-VR first-person-shooter coming in 2019 done in partnership with Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment.
After two years with no further details, today, at its Oculus Connect 6 developer conference, it was announced that Respawn will be releasing a World War II shooter titled “Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond” on the Rift platform next year. That release is pushed back from the original 2019 timeline; Respawn wouldn’t nail down the release date any further than “2020.”
The game disappointingly will not be launching on Quest, the company’s all-in-one headset, but with the newly announced Oculus Link software feature launching in November, it seems you’ll be able to play the title, albeit in tethered mode.
It’s not at all clear how much Oculus invested in this title, thought it was clear from the press event that the scope of the title’s development was extensive and expensive. Oculus has pumped hundreds of million getting developers to bring their products exclusively to their VR platform, though, at this point, exclusivity is less of a concern as the company’s VR competitors have largely either folded, shifted to higher-end price points or moved to the enterprise market.
On to the game itself, I had a chance to demo several levels of “Above and Beyond,” and it’s clear that the title will be a hit among Rift and Rift S users. It very much seems to be a full game, with around a dozen hours of campaign in single-player, as well as a robust multi-player mode, which I was not able to demo.
The mechanics are crafted for VR — every time you empty a clip you have to eject it from the gun you’re holding and insert a new magazine into the gun, then cock your weapon all with the Touch controllers.
So many of the games made for VR haven’t had direct comparisons to console titles, but diving through bunkers shooting up Nazis kind of showcased where Oculus pushes boundaries and where it falters. Interaction mechanisms are rich and immersive and where the Rift and Quest shine, but Oculus keeping the recommended PC system specs largely the same since launch hasn’t aged well. The Rift just can’t push pixels with outdated PCs, and “Above and Beyond” showcases the max capabilities of the recommended spec systems, but it seems like this generation is fully smashed against the glass wall — which was the risk Oculus took when it launched the Rift S rather than a fully upgraded class of hardware.
The game is tons of fun, and was clearly thought out to extreme lengths, but one wonders whether Oculus would have invested so much energy into a PC-first title again had they known that two years later they would be pushing standalone experiences with Quest publicly with such fervor.
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Facebook announces Horizon, a VR massive-multiplayer world
Facebook today announced it’s building its own Ready Player One Oasis. Facebook Horizon is a virtual reality sandbox universe where you can build your own environments and games, play and socialize with friends or just explore the user-generated landscapes. This is Facebook’s take on Second Life.
Launching in early 2020 in closed beta, Facebook Horizon will allow users to design their own diverse avatars and hop between virtual locales through portals called Telepods, watch movies and consume other media with friends and play multiplayer games together, like Wing Strikers. It also will include human guides, known as Horizon Locals, who can give users assistance and protect their safety in the VR world so trolls can’t run rampant.
Users interested in early access can apply for the beta here.
As part of the launch, Facebook will on October 25 shut down its existing social VR experiences Facebook Spaces and Oculus Rooms, leaving a bit of a gap until Horizon launches. Oculus Rooms debuted in 2016 as your decoratable private VR apartment, while Spaces first launched in 2017 to let users chat, watch movies and take VR selfies with friends. But both felt more like lobby waiting rooms with a few social features that were merely meant as a preamble to full-fledged VR games. In contrast, Horizon is designed to be a destination, not a novelty, where users could spend tons of time.
How Facebook Horizon works
At first glance, Horizon seems like a modernized Second Life, a first-person Sims, a fulfillment of the intentions of AltspaceVR and a competitor to PlayStation’s PSVR Dreams and cross-platfrom kids’ favorite Roblox. Back in 2016, Facebook was giving every new Oculus employee a copy of the Ready Player One novel. It seems they’ve been busy building that world since then.
Facebook Horizon will start centralized around a town square. Before people step in, they can choose how they look and what they wear from an expansive and inclusive set of avatar tools. From inside VR, users will be able to use the Horizon World Builder to create gaming arenas, vacation chillspots and activities to fill them without the need to know how to code.
Facebook Horizon lets you build objects from scratch
You could design a tropical island, then invite friends to hang out with you on your virtual private beach. An object creator akin to the Oculus Medium sculpting feature lets you make anything, even a custom t-shirt your avatar could wear. Visual scripting tools let more serious developers create interactive and reactive experiences.
Facebook details its Horizon safety features on its “Citizenship” page that explains that “As citizens of Facebook Horizon, it is all of our responsibility to create a culture that’s respectful and comfortable . . . A Horizon citizen is friendly, inclusive, and curious.” Horizon Locals will wander the VR landscapes to answer questions or aid users if they’re having technical or safety issues. They seem poised to be part customer support, part in-world police.
Facebook Horizon will include human Locals who provide safety and technical support
If things get overwhelming, you can tap a shield button to pause and dip into a private space parallel to Horizon. Users can define their personal space boundaries so no one can get in their face or appear to touch them. And traditional tools like muting, blocking and reporting will all be available. It’s smart that Facebook outlined the community tone and defined these protections.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Horizon today at the Oculus Connect 6 conference in San Jose. He discussed how “Horizon is going to have this property where it just expands and gets better” as Facebook and the community build more experiences for the VR sandbox.
Facebook lets you build your own islands and other locales in Horizon
Horizon makes perfect sense for a business obsessed with facilitating social interaction while monetized through ad views based on time-spent. It’s easy to imagine Horizon including virtual billboards for brands, Facebook-run shops for buying toys or home furnishings, third-party malls full of branded Nikes or Supreme shirts that score Zuckerberg a revenue cut or subscriptions to access certain gaming worlds or premium planets to explore.
As Facebook starts to grow stale after 15 years on the market, users are looking for new ways to socialize. Many have already ditched the status updates and smarmy Life Events of Facebook for the pretty pictures of Instagram and silliness of Snapchat. Facebook risked being cast aside if it didn’t build its own VR successor. And by offering a world where users can escape their real lives instead of having to enviously compare them to their friends, Horizon could appeal to those bored or claustrophobic on Facebook.
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Hackers to stress-test Facebook Portal at hacking contest
Hackers will soon be able to stress-test the Facebook Portal at the annual Pwn2Own hacking contest, following the introduction of the social media giant’s debut hardware device last year.
Pwn2Own is one of the largest hacking contests in the world, where security researchers descend to find and demonstrate their exploits for vulnerabilities in a range of consumer electronics and technologies, including appliances and automobiles.
It’s not unusual for companies to allow hackers put their products through their paces. Tesla earlier this year entered its new Model 3 sedan into the contest. A pair of researchers later scooped up $375,000 — and the car they hacked — for finding a severe memory randomization bug in the web browser of the car’s infotainment system.
Hackers able to remotely inject and run code on the Facebook Portal can receive up to $60,000, while a non-invasive physical attack or a privilege escalation bug can net $40,000.
Introducing the Facebook Portal is part of a push by Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative, which runs the contest, to expand the range of home automation devices available to researchers in attendance. Pwn2Own said researchers will also get a chance to try to hack an Amazon Echo Show 5, a Google Nest Hub Max, an Amazon Cloud Cam and a Nest Cam IQ Indoor.
Facebook said it also would allow hackers to find flaws in the Oculus Quest virtual reality kit.
Pwn2Own Tokyo, set to be held on November 6-7, is expected to dish out more than $750,000 in cash and prizes.
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The Void’s Curtis Hickman on scaling, creative IP and the future of VR experiences
What can you do with virtual reality when you have complete control of the physical space around the player? How “real” can virtual reality become?
That’s the core concept behind The Void. They take over retail spaces in places like Downtown Disney and shopping malls around the country and turn them into virtual reality playgrounds, They’ve got VR experiences based on properties like Star Wars, Ghostbusters, and Wreck-It Ralph; while these big names tend to be the main attractions, they’re dabbling with creating their own original properties, too.
By building both the game environment and the real-world rooms in which players wander, The Void can make the physical and virtual align. If you see a bench in your VR headset, there’s a bench there in the real world for you to sit on; if you see a lever on the wall in front of you, you can reach out and physically pull it. Land on a lava planet and heat lamps warm your skin; screw up a puzzle, and you’ll feel a puff of mist letting you know to try something else.
At $30-$35 per person for what works out to be a roughly thirty-minute experience (about ten of which is watching a scene-setting video and getting your group into VR suits), it’s pretty pricey. But it’s also some of the most mind-bending VR I’ve ever seen.
The Void reportedly raised about $20 million earlier this year and is in the middle of a massive expansion. It’s more than doubling its number of locations, opening 25 new spots in a partnership with the Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield chain of malls.
I sat down to chat with The Void’s co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, Curtis Hickman, to hear how they got started, how his background (in stage magic!) comes into play here, how they came to work with massive properties like Ghostbusters and Star Wars, and where he thinks VR is going from here.
Greg Kumparak: Tell me a bit about yourself. How’d you get your start? How’d you get into making VR experiences?
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Frontier technologies are moving closer to the center of venture investment
As the technologies that were once considered science fiction become the purview of science, the venture capital firms that were once investing at the industry’s fringes are now finding themselves at the heart of the technology industry.
Investing in the commercialization of technologies like genetic engineering, quantum computing, digital avatars, augmented reality, new human-computer interfaces, machine learning, autonomous vehicles, robots, and space travel that were once considered “frontier” investments are now front-and-center priorities for many venture capital firms and the limited partners that back them.
Earlier this month, Lux Capital raised $1.1 billion across two funds that invest in just these kinds of companies. “[Limited partners] are now more interested in frontier tech than ever before,” said Bilal Zuberi, a partner with the firm.
Lux Capital just closed on a whopping $1 billion in capital, doubling the amount of money it manages
He sees a few factors encouraging limited partners (the investors who provide financing for venture capital funds) to invest in the firms that are financing companies developing technologies that were once considered outside of the mainstream.
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