Gear VR 2017: remote is the new mouse

2 days ago with a post on its blog, Oculus announced the launch of the new Samsung Gear VR. As always, with respect to the older version it is more powerful, more comfortable, more epic, it has more compatible content and blah blah blah. Honestly despite all the marketing words, I’ve not seen that much innovation in the different versions of Gear VR: the only thing that truly changes is the phone that you put inside it and that gives more horsepower to the graphics you see inside virtual reality.

This year, finally, Samsung and Oculus have introduced a true innovation: the remote. Oh, well, actually this is not a true innovation, since something similar was already present inside Oculus CV1 and Daydream, but it’s surely an innovation for this headset. And you know, I love remotes: if  you’ve read my Daydream review, you know that I found it super-comfortable. Gear VR had to introduce it to not fall behind its competitor. Remote of Gear VR has 3-DOF so you can point objects and has 4 buttons and a touchpad to have super-easy interaction with the VR environment. If you’re thinking “it’s almost exactly like Daydream one”… yes, you’re right.

This handsome guy is trying a VR experience using Daydream and its 3DOF controller…

Vive reveals Tracker price and other stuff at MWC 2017

Yesterday finally we got to know the price of the Vive Tracker and all other add-ons Vive revealed at CES! If you forgot what I’m talking about, you can have a look at my wonderful previous post about it or you can go on to refresh your memory.

Basically Vive got lot of hype announcing the Vive Tracker, that is a single sensor that is tracked thanks to SteamVR Lighthouse system and through which you can obtain the position of a single point inside your VR environment with great precision. Tracker is wireless and works thanks to a battery. It streams data via USB (there is a USB dongle you have to put inside your PC ports). Thanks to Vive tracker you can track multiple objects inside your room (you just put a tracker attached to each object) or even the human body (you put trackers on the main joints of your body and obtain all the rest through inverse kinematics).

Monzo VR review: assembling model kits in VR is cool!

Some weeks ago I received an email from Madfinger Games that asked me to try their product MonzoVR. In the mail they defined their product in this way:

It’s called Monzo VR and it is something different than you might be used to.

It allows you to assemble and decorate a wide variety of models like animals, trucks, planes or even Da Vinci inventions.

It’s crazy, I know, but It’s also so cool to make all those things in ambient ZEN environments we prepared with LOVE.

I was perplexed… assemble models in VR? ZEN environments? LOVE?? What the hell are we talking about? A romantic adventure in ZEN environments when you assemble models with a girl you love?

As I always say, try something before judging it. So I downloaded the game and gave it a try on my Oculus Rift + Touch system (there’s also Gear VR version, if you’re interested).

When you launch MonzoVR, you find yourself inside a Japanese house (a Zen environment, as creators love to define it) and in front of you there is a table, with a model car box on it. A writing tells you to select the box to open it. This immediately got my curiosity… a box about a car model on a table… what are we going to do?

A talk about virtual reality adult entertainment with PornFoxVR founder

Some days ago I was contacted by Jeff Artik, that wanted to talk me about his VR porn website (NSFW link, of course), PornFoxVR.

I was a bit “scared” at first to check his website, not because porn scares me (at most has made me blind :D), but because usually porn websites come with all kind of malwares, pop-up windows coming from everywhere, fancy banners with girls that are at 3km from me that are super-interested in loving me and so on.

Xkcd on typical banners on adult websites…

He assured me that his website is clean, so I gave it a try and I sincerely liked its elegant and sleek design. Furthermore there were no pop-ups and no banners! (so, no more girls within 3km that are fallen in love with me? I feel so lonely now…). He got my interest, so I exchanged some e-mails with him. The following are some questions I’ve made him, with his answers… and my commentary.

Google creates an amazing technology to see the face in mixed reality

If you’re a VR enthusiast like me, surely in these two days your Twitter feed has been flooded by GIFs like this one:

Ok, you got my attention (Image by Google)

If your question has been “what the heck is happening?”… well, I’m here to help you a bit.

It all started with Google sharing this article on its blog, followed by this super-interesting research paper (I suggest you to give it a read!) and some youtube videos like this one.

When reading all those articles, the first thing we did was looking at the calendar… and no, it was not April the 1st, so this news had to be real. So that faces behind the headset were real!

Microsoft HoloLens plans make me think about AR/VR product cycles

Yesterday there haven’t been many interesting news about the VR world, but my startup buddy Gianni sent me a super-interesting link that made me think a lot.

The article I’m talking about is this one: it talks about Microsoft skipping HoloLens v2 developments to concentrate directly on version v3. The news is far from being official, but the author talks about some unspecified “sources” confirming this.

So, HoloLens v1 is two years old, but we won’t see a restyling soon: we’ll have to wait for 2019 to have a super-incredible HoloLens v3. Why Microsoft is doing this? According to what the article says and mixing it with what I think, the reasons are:

Can Standing in a Dark Room With VR Goggles on Your Face Really be Called Social?

Today I’ll have a great post here in my blog. Sasha Le Baron, who is a VR passionate that knows virtual worlds much more than me (he’s a Second Life user since long time!) has accepted to write an article about social VR for me. You should know him, since he’s the one that introduced me to BigScreen VR and VRChat. I’m very happy about this, because of his experience in this field. So… this time I won’t say any more words and I will leave all glory to him… so, here you are his article (after a funny video)…

First let me say I’ve partaken in the VR the Cool Aid, I have been waiting for VR to drop since @GreatDismal first described it back in the day. So, my opinions are, shall we say, biased. That being said, there is a lot of pushback from the uninitiated suggesting that VR is anti-social. Let’s unpack that in the context of the current state of Social VR.

Concentrate on solutions, not on problems

Sometimes I like blogging about productivity stuff and the right mindset to have when you’ve a startup. Today is one of those days.

In your startup journey you will be overwhelmed by problems. Really. If you want to run a company and you think that everything will run smoothly… well, I’m sorry to say that this won’t ever happen. Even if you’re in the miracle conditions that you have not problems (what business are you running? Seriously, I’ve to consider changing my job…), surely you will be overwhelmed by too many things to do: meetings to attend, events, development of the product, answering emails, writing a business plans, etc etc…

Keeping a healthy mental attitude in your startup journey is really fundamental or you risk to become completely mad. Sincerely speaking there is no secret and I’ve still not found this right attitude. But day after day I discover little tricks on how to get less mad, so I’m mad but still not completely insane :). The funny part of this tricks is that they seem to be pronounced by Captain Obvious, but in the end, when you finally start applying them, you understand that Captain Obvious was right.

The Ghost Howls celebrates 6 months and 100 articles!

This is the 100th post of this crazy virtual reality blog and it comes when my blog is exactly 6 months old (it has happened by chance… and it’s so cool!).

In this post I just want to say thank you to everyone that has come to my little place… maybe because was already a friend of mine, maybe because was looking for some VR info, maybe because Google drove him here, maybe because was looking for VR adult stuff and finished here by chance.

And a special thank you to people that didn’t only lurk, but that commented the posts or that contacted me on social media or via email. Talking with other VR passionates is the best part of being a blogger. If you haven’t ever contact me yet… come on, it’s the right moment now!

I’ve written a cool post on Medium about what I’ve learned in these six months… if you’re interested (of course you are!), this is the link.

I hope that you liked at least something of what I’ve written and that you will help me in continuing this adventure at least for other 6 months… I want to celebrate the first blog birthday in August!

I love you all… sincerely! 🙂