A day after Facebook’s rebranding as Meta (and simultaneous and unceremonious dropping of the Oculus brand), the company announced that it is acquiring Within. The Los Angeles firm is the developer of Supernatural, a Beat Saber-style workout app, Supernatural has been one of the real success stories in virtual reality fitness, with movement-based high-impact cardio…
Microsoft wants a piece of the metaverse, too, so at its Ignite conference today, the company announced 3D avatars for those Teams meetings where you don’t want to be on camera. Those animated personalized avatars are part of what Microsoft calls “Mesh for Teams,” which combines the company’s Mesh platform (not to be confused with…
Tinder has already undergone a big revamp with its recent launch of “Explore,” a new section inside the app that will enable more interactive experiences, including the second “Swipe Night” series, real-time chat, interest-based matching and more. Now, parent company Match Group is detailing its longer-term vision for Tinder and Explore, which will expand to…
Jacob Mullins Contributor Share on Twitter Jacob Mullins is a managing director at Shasta Ventures, where he has invested in VR/AR since 2016. More posts by this contributor The top 10 best of VR in 2016 Investment Banking 2.0 Says “Hello World!?” Facebook is in the fight for its life, but it won’t be the…
Qualcomm today launched a new developer platform for building head-worn augmented reality experiences: the Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform. The only supported hardware for the platform is currently Lenovo’s ThinkReality A3 smart glasses (paired with a Motorola phone), but it will expand to include hardware from Oppo and Xiaomi in the first half of 2022….
How could Tencent not jump on the metaverse bandwagon when Facebook is hinging its future on the new buzzword? At this stage, Tencent’s approach seems more measured than Facebook’s $10 billion investment into its metaverse division. But any early hint from the Chinese social media and gaming giant will provide enough fodder for investor speculation. During…
It was way back in 2017 that the company that became Ultraleap (Ultrahaptics) demonstrated at TechCrunch Disrupt a technology that pioneered ultrasound to replicate the sense of touch. The impressive “Star Wars” demonstration took the crowd by storm. It was quite the demo (see the video below). The underlying technology was based on post-graduate research…
Facebook, errr Meta, showed off a new prototype haptic feedback glove yesterday, which they detailed could eventually bring a new generation of AR/VR users closer than they’ve ever been to digital content. Today, a VR startup with that same mission called HaptX (which we’ve covered here before) released a fairly aggressive statement accusing Meta of…
Holoride, the Audi-backed startup that’s creating an in-vehicle virtual reality entertainment system designed for passengers, has begun publicly selling its Ride cryptocurrency token. The launch of the crypto is the latest move by Holoride to build up its extended reality (XR) ecosystem of games and experiences created by a community of developers. Vehicle passengers keen…
Donald R. Cravins Jr. Contributor Share on Twitter Donald R. Cravins Jr. is the executive vice president of the National Urban League. Systemic racism is nothing new in America, and the effects of unconscious racial bias have long created inequity in the workplace. So why — when presented with the task of developing new “normal”…