Your weekly roundup of VR news, videos and recommendations
Put those VR headsets down, it’s Field of view time. Your place to find out what’s been going on in the wonderful world of virtual reality.
In case you missed out on the headline news with all things VR, Leap Motion is bringing hand tracking technology to VR, while in all things Vive, HTC is launching its own game studio. Plus, Oculus’ Touch controllers have finally landed and we’ve had a good play with them.
We’ve also tried to help you build that ultimate Oculus Rift setup and picked out our current Rift game faves to put those Touch controllers to good use.
Here’s our collection of the other VR stories you may have missed this week, plus we pick our favourite VR game and video you need to check out pronto.
Read this – News blips and tidbits
Google, Sony and Oculus want to create VR standards
This is potentially huge news as Google, HTC, Oculus, Samsung and Sony have joined forces to help create better compatibility for different VR hardware and software. The Global Virtual Reality Association (GVRA) will apparently, “promote responsible development and adoption of VR globally”. With Acer and Starbreeze on board that covers a lot of the major players, making this a good starting point to help get the various VR platforms to play nicely with each other.
Asus, Dell and HP VR headsets coming in 2017
In bid to make mixed reality mainstream, Microsoft has confirmed that we can expect to see VR/AR headsets from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, and Lenovo all in the coming year. While we still don’t have a full breakdown of the kind of specs we can expect, they are expected to run on Intel Integrated graphics and feature position tracking that doesn’t require the same sensor setup as the HTC Vive.
VR invasion at 2017 Sundance Film Festival
Virtual reality will once again star at Sundance with 20 VR experiences and 11 installations planned for next year’s film festival. These will be showcased across three venues from 19 – 29 January 2017 and include three projects that will feature as part of The New Climate program.
Samsung wants to help people conquer fears with VR
Samsung Canada has teamed up with Facebook and Oculus to develop the #BeFearless campaign, which aims to help people who are scared of heights and public speaking. The four week gamified experience aims to help “users gradually face typical situations in a controlled environment.”
New Google Daydream games land
Good news if you’ve just picked up Google’s new VR headset, a bunch of new compatible games arrived this week including Need for Speed: Limits and Gunjack 2: End of Shift, which makes use of the Daydream’s motion controller. Away from gaming, HBO Now has also gone live letting you sit inside a big cinema and watch content from hit shows including Westworld and something called Game of Thrones…
Watch this: The sneaky urban fox
If you haven’t been watching Planet Earth II, well, you should be. This latest brilliant 360 vid released by the Beeb takes you on a journey of the urban fox out on a nighttime adventure in Bristol, England. Watch and enjoy.
Play this: Lego Brickheadz Builder VR
Building Lego in VR? Sold. Brickheadz Builder lets you make characters that you can bring to life, build models or just freestyle it. You can unlock new characters and items and best of all, it’s free with not an in-app purchase in sight.
You can download Lego Brickheadz Builder VR for free from the Google Play Store now. You’ll obviously need a Google Daydream View headset and a compatible phone whether that’s either of the new Google Pixels, the Moto Z and Moto Z Force.
