Mint Virtual Reality

Exclusive coverage of all aspects of the Out-of-Home entertainment landscape, industry specialist Kevin Williams, in his latest Virtual Arena column – reporting from a visit to the launch of a brand new Hyper Reality Adventure in the heart of Birmingham.

There has been a plethora of new free-roaming LB VR proffered onto the market. The separation from the more common virtual reality (VR) deployments, against the unique VR offerings has been defined under the term “Hyper Reality”. These unique systems employing more advance physical and virtual elements that create a more compelling experience. The UK has seen the deployment of the first of these experiences coming from US and Australian developers – but recently we had the chance to try the first Hyper Reality Adventure developed wholly by a new UK studio.

Located in the popular social entertainment hub of Digbeth in the city of Birmingham is a warehouse that has been converted into the latest VR entertainment venue. Employing the latest thinking and technology towards launching a new offering in this sector. We were invited to visit the ‘In A Box’ location, the flagship site for the Hyper Reality Adventure developed and operated by Atmos VR – and in the final stages of soft-opening before its full launch in October.

The ‘In A Box’ location has taken a vacant warehouse and themed it inside to represent a techno-punk apocalyptic setting. Along with this, a great bar atmosphere has been created, with a unique cocktail and beverage offering; supported with a partnership with the popular brand Brewdog.

But the main draw to the facility is their Hyper Reality Adventure Chernobyl: Hidden Depths. The first in a series of adventures planned for the platform, the multi-player game experience has been written by a Hollywood screenwriter, offering a dystopian environment set beneath the doomed nuclear reactor. The players take on the role of special operatives on a clandestine mission to retrieve secrets and discover the cause of the calamity. Clearly inspired by the HBO drama based on the disaster, but also offering a unique “Retro-Soviet” styling laden with spies and secrets.  

Players don the latest HP backpack PCs and heavily customised HP Reverb G2 headsets that also combine accessories of UltraLeap hand tracking, and a special Olfactory platform from OVR Technology. These mounted effects systems are supported by a host of wind, heat and vibration effects littering the adventure arena. This being one of the most advanced free-roaming (Arena Scape) environments. Atmos VR has installed two arenas side-by-side mirroring the operation to allow for expansion and additional adventures.

The operation is in the final stages of completing development on the VR adventure, and we were able to play the current build. The experience combining elements of teamwork, hidden mystery and jump scares. It was impressive to see such attention to detail by the development team – marking the UK’s entry into the Hyper Reality adventure scene. The Digbeth district of Birmingham has become a Mecca for social entertainment with several bowling, mini-golf, and retro amusement bars. ‘In A Box’ is a perfect addition to the mix, and hopes to offer a repeat visitation element, with future iterations of the VR adventure hoping to expand the universe attracting players to upgrade their characters’ skills.

The VR venue will have its official opening on the 6th of October, and attendees will be able to get their chance to virtually survive the hidden depths of Chernobyl for £35-pp with an experience that lasts up to 60-minutes. The developers are looking to develop additional elements to the experience to build a community and drive repeat visitation. The Floodgate location for the facility is next to where Steven Spielberg filmed elements of the Ready Player One movie, and it is hoped that the new Hyper Reality Adventure at ‘In A Box’ will offer an equally compelling entertainment experience.

This is the latest of a number of new Hyper Reality venues scheduled to open or are operational in the UK – as previously covered plans for a new Sandbox VR venue for London have been revealed. Along with news that the original The VOID hyper-reality brand may be returning to the market after its initial collapse. We will be reporting soon on other developments in this growing sector of the LB VR scene.

via Mint VR

Pimax says its Sword Lite VR Controllers entered mass production for release in October.

In its 2017 Kickstarter for the “8K” ultra-wide field of view VR headset, China-based startup Pimax promised rudimentary VR controllers for $200 extra, with buttons, a thumbstick, and trigger. In 2018 the company revealed a radical redesign resembling earlier prototypes of Valve’s Index controllers with the price announced as $300 and the release window slated for late 2019.

Flash forward to late 2021 and Pimax hasn’t yet shipped any controllers – the company has a history of overpromising on release schedules. Instead it offers bundles with Index controllers.

But Pimax now says the refined controllers, which it now calls Sword Lite, have actually entered mass production and are ready to ship at scale soon. Sword Sense, the higher end controllers, are apparently still in development too but it’s unclear how far out they really are.

Like with Pimax headsets, Sword Lite are tracked by two SteamVR Tracking base stations (available from Valve for $149 each). Sword Lite isn’t compatible with other SteamVR headsets though, this is an accessory to Pimax headsets only.

Similar to Index controllers there are capacitive finger detection sensors for all five digits. Sword Lite each use a rechargeable battery which can be hot swapped without losing connection to SteamVR. Pimax claims four hours of battery between charges, significantly lower than Oculus Touch or Valve Index.

Pimax says preorder customers will start getting Sword Lite in October and it will be available for general purchase soon after. The price hasn’t yet been revealed and Pimax wouldn’t provide the price when questioned.

via Mint VR

After so many delays it might be one of those launch date announcements you take with hesitation but Ready At Dawn has now come back with a date for Lone Echo II. The sci-fi adventure built for Oculus Rift is slated to release in exactly two weeks.

In a statement today, Ready At Dawn said: “Over the last couple months now, our team has been hard at work polishing the game to meet our desired quality level. As always, our goal has been to bring you an entertaining and immersive experience when adventuring with Liv and Jack. Today, we’re excited to announce Lone Echo II will be released on October 12, 2021.”

There’s quite a bit of anticipation for the videogame – well there is at VRFocus anyway – so it’s understandable when the team adds: “We love the Lone Echo universe and felt we needed a little more time to give the game the polish and love it deserved. So, thank you all for your patience and understanding throughout development.”

And it has been a long old road. The original Lone Echo arrived in 2017 with this sequel confirmed during the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2019. Initially expected in 2020, like many studios Ready At Dawn had to readjust to working remotely, impacting development and pushing the release further back. It was back in July when excitement was built with an August launch date followed by a reversal only three weeks later.

Hopefully, that date is now set in stone and fans can see what happens next to Captain Olivia Rhodes and her trusty sidekick Jack. Lone Echo’s story takes place on an advanced mining facility within the rings of Saturn when things begin to go wry due to an anomaly. As Jack, an AI housed within a synthetic body, you have to ensure Rhodes’ survival in this zero-g environment by solving puzzles and both inside and outside the facility. Those weightless mechanics will return in the sequel alongside a new threat.

For continued updates from Ready At Dawn, keep reading VRFocus.

via Mint VR

A fast, powerful, dependable gaming laptop with a top-notch screen, the Dell G15 Gaming Laptop will have you dominating the competition in no time.

via Mint VR

With Project Monarch and 5G networks, thousands of people could end up playing games powered by billboard advertising.

via Mint VR

Facebook plans to make available an operating system build for Oculus Go with full root access, according to John Carmack.

Go launched in May 2018 as Facebook’s first standalone headset, marketed mostly for passive media consumption and basic social VR. The 32GB base model was priced at $199. Unlike all VR headsets on the consumer market today it could only track the rotation of your head, not the position. Its single controller also had the same limitation, acting as more of a laser pointer than actually having your hands in VR.

Go was retired from Facebook’s enterprise VR offering in January 2020 and for consumers in mid 2020, with no new OS feature updates since. Apps on the Go store can no longer issue updates since December, and no new apps are accepted.

This opens up the ability to repurpose the hardware for more things today, and means that a randomly discovered shrink wrapped headset twenty years from now will be able to update to the final software version, long after over-the-air update servers have been shut down.

— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) September 24, 2021

As the Consulting Oculus CTO announced on Twitter, the “unlocked” OS build will give users full root access – Go runs a modified version of Android. That will allow system apps to be removed, the launcher (home interface) to be replaced, and developers will be able build apps with advanced functionality not permitted by the consumer OS.

If this OS is packaged in a way that allows new drivers to be added, could Go could even be modified with extra or different hardware components and become a do-it-yourself standalone (DIY) standalone VR kit?

Making this OS available also means the final Go software version will be available long after Facebook’s update servers are shut down.

So will an unlocked OS build some day arrive for the positionally tracked Oculus Quest? Carmack says this move is specific to Go, but hopes “it sets a precedent”.

via Mint VR

In a recent interview with YouTuber iJustine, Tim Cook called himself “AR fan #1” and said he thinks it’s one of “very few profound technologies” that have the potential to permanently embed themselves in day-to-day life.

The comments on AR, prompted by a question from Justine, start around the 9:15 mark. Here’s a transcription of what he had to say (emphasis is our own):

You know, I am so excited about AR. I think AR is one of these very few profound technologies that we will look back on one day and, ‘How did we lives out without it?’ And so right now you can experience it in thousands of ways, using your iPad or your iPhone, but of course those will get better and better over time. Already, it’s a great way to shop, it’s a great way to learn, it enhances the learning process. I can’t wait for it to be even more important in collaboration and so forth. So I’m AR fan #1. I think it’s that big.

Simple things today that you can use it for, like if you’re shopping for a sofa or a chair or a lamp, in terms of experiencing it in your place… We’ve never been able to do that before until the last couple of years or so. And that’s at the early innings of AR, it will only get better

This is far from the first time Cook has been publicly bullish about AR. In April, he said it was “critically important” to Apple’s future, following on from comments two months earlier about how he thinks AR could one day attract as big of an audience as the iPhone. As far back as 2016, Tim Cook was telling Apple investors that AR will be huge but also take some time to get right.

Five years on, AR has come a long way but still has a ways to go. Facebook’s recent Ray-Ban smart glasses pave the way for that company’s public AR efforts, but Apple has yet to dip its toes into AR hardware beyond iPhone and iOS integration. It’s reported that this could change next year, with Apple rumored to launch an AR-VR headset in the second half of 2022 for anywhere between $1000-$2000 or more.

via Mint VR