Reality Recap is a video news series where I run through some of the top stories in immersive technology, augmented reality, and virtual reality. Below you'll find our previous episodes along with our show notes. Watch the episode, or use the show notes for a quick snapshot.
AR & VR News: Reality Recap July 2022
Reality Recap: July 6, 2022
Show Notes
Major players launch Metaverse Standards Forum (:38-1:51)
Major players like Microsoft, Meta, Epic Games, and dozens of others joined together to launch the Metaverse Standards Forum. The group says it aims to foster open, interoperable standards for AR, VR, Geospatial, and 3D technology. According to the forum's news release, it "will focus on pragmatic, action-based projects such as implementation prototyping, hackathons, plugfests, and open-source tooling to accelerate the testing and adoption of metaverse standards, while also developing consistent terminology and deployment guidelines.” Hopefully there's some actual action to this and it's not just posturing, especially since the group is missing some key players like Apple, Roblox, and others. Read the original here.
Hospital rolls out VR training (1:52-3:01)
Tucson Medical Center in Arizona partnered with 3lbXR to roll out VR training for nursing and environmental services staff. The training covers sanitation, room cleaning, fall prevention, and suicide prevention. As we've said, training is the perfect application for virtual reality, especially for expensive or hard to replicate procedures. Read the original here.
Niantic announces NBA AR game (3:02-4:23)
Global AR gaming firm, Niantic, is teaming up with the NBA to roll out a new world-scale game. It's expected to be similar to Pokemon Go for basketball. While it's not a revolutionary new style of gameplay or usage of geospatial AR, it's still good to see an avenue to bring sports fans into the AR world. Read the original here.
Apple headset updates (4:24-5:41)
Between rumors and an interview with CEO Tim Cook, we got a few new notes on Apple in July. When asked about Apple’s AR ventures by China Daily USA, Cook listed their current work then said, “But I think we’re still in the very early innings of how this technology will evolve. I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities we’ve seen in this space, and sort of stay tuned and you’ll see what we have to offer.” Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that that headset will likely run the newest Apple M2 chip. Read the original Tim Cook article here and chip article here.
Reality Recap: July 22, 2022
Show Notes
Meta rolls out accounts separate from Facebook accounts (:38-2:25)
Meta announced that users can now create Meta Accounts, separate from a personal Facebook account. This would free the Quest headsets and future hardware from a direct link to Facebook. The moves allows for more privacy for gaming and also paves the way for enterprise use by allowing for business or commercial accounts. That makes the relatively cheap Quest 2 headsets and much easier sell for business adoption. Read the original article here.
AR contact lenses get in-eye test (2:26-4:43)
In a follow-up from a Reality Recap in March, Mojo Vision moved from an out of eye prototype to in-eye AR contact lenses. Their CEO recently tested the lens at a trade show and the firm is now working through further tests. This offers a really cool proof of concept, though without a camera it really kind of limits the AR to a heads-up display. That's still useful, but doesn't unlock the potential of AR glasses with better senses. However, it does pave the way for smaller technology that could make AR glasses an easier sell. Read the original here.
New free VR framework (3:55-5:42)
Spanish software company, VRMADA, is now offering a free open-source framework for building immersive training apps. It's designed to work across a broad range of headsets and hardware to allow smaller firms or indy developers to create new tools. CrossComm hasn't yet tested it so it's hard to give any real feedback on the framework, but it's good to have more options for free, open-source kits. Read the original here.
Previous Episodes
You can watch all of our previous episodes, plus bonus episodes on our Reality Recap playlist on YouTube.
