Steady expansion in the enterprise and consumer segments for virtual reality will drive a 42% compound annual growth rate in global market revenue, reaching more than $56 billion by 2026, reported ABI Research Thursday. VR has had “many ups and downs” during this pandemic, hampering growth around location-based VR but finding increasing traction in consumer applications, said ABI: “VR gaming is driving the consumer VR market today.”
Generation Z is gradually spending more time and money in virtual shared spaces, Wedbush's Michael Pachter wrote investors Thursday, after its pre-E3 Future of Gaming conference. “Metaverse tools are expected to emerge and democratize the creation process." He noted metaverses are expanding to more areas. AR and VR could augment the immersive nature of metaverses, said the analyst: Cross platforms within gaming metaverses remain “a challenge because of the walled gardens set up by IP owners.” Advertising is expected to become more important to gaming companies, though conference speakers were cautious about the ability of advertising to reach its maximum potential within videogames “given that it could take away from the immersive experience (and break from reality),” he said. New iOS privacy controls likely create opportunity for new winners “that appeal to users by leveraging compelling social elements, with contextualized ads also seen as a key workaround,” said the analyst. Epic Games v. Apple (see 2010090015) “increased the focus on the uphill battle faced by many small developers,” and Apple and Google showed more flexibility on such platform fees, Pachter said: “If the 30% platform fee generally charged by Apple and Google does not change, there could be more scaling up to that figure based upon the size of the underlying developer,” and “more leeway around content curation.”
The virtual-reality eyeglasses that Panasonic introduced at CES 2021 are embedded with Kopin’s 2560 x 2560-resolution OLED displays on chip, said the microdisplay supplier Friday. The glasses are the world’s first HDR-capable Ultra HD VR headwear and have a very small, lightweight form factor due to their 1.3-inch displays and their slim Pancake “optics” sourced from 3M, said Kopin. The glasses are “comfortable to wear for extended periods,” compared with more conventional bulky VR headsets, it said. The glasses incorporate signal processing technologies “cultivated” through the development of Panasonic TVs and Blu-ray players, plus acoustic technologies of Technics audio products and optical technologies used in Lumix digital cameras, said Panasonic.
Revenue from augmented reality software and content for consumers is expected to rise by more than 100% in compound annual growth rate, reaching $20 billion in 2025, projected ABI Research Thursday. But “market elements have not aligned” to enable mainstream virtual reality adoption, it said. “Growth will be strong in 2021, but the user base will not reach levels once thought probable since VR competes for usage time with TVs, smartphones, and traditional displays.” Price and availability of “valuable” VR content remain the “primary barriers” to mainstream adoption, it said. It described the Oculus Quest 2 gaming system as “the best positioned VR device the market has seen so far,” with a $300 starting price and no other hardware required to use it. But $300 “can still be expensive for a limited use item that will be outdated by next year,” it said. “While smartphone-like upgrade cycles are possible and would spur growth overall, the lack of necessity for VR will limit that possibility.”
Virtuix launched a Regulation A funding campaign for a consumer version of its Omni treadmill, which allows users to walk or run through video games and other virtual environments using a supplied virtual reality headset. For $1,000, consumers can sign up to reserve shares in the crowdfunded campaign and get a discount of up to 40%, worth $800, when they buy a unit, said the company Wednesday. The omnidirectional treadmill gives users “unrestricted freedom of movement," including crouching, squatting, backing up and jumping, said CEO Jan Goetgeluk. Omni One can be folded up for storing. At launch, an Omni One game store will have 30 titles developed by Virtuix, plus licensed third-party titles, it said. The company projects availability in the second half of 2021.
Streaming service Tidal bought $7 million in tokens issued by Sensorium that will allow broadcasting of immersive virtual reality content to users worldwide. The relationship with the social VR platform company will allow Tidal to gain exclusive rights for its artist roster to have shows and music broadcast within Sensorium’s virtual entertainment worlds, said Lior Tibon, Tidal chief operating officer. In addition to letting fans access concerts they wouldn’t be able to attend in person, the Sensorium Galaxy alternate universe platform will allow users to interact with other virtual participants and avatars. In addition to VR headsets, Sensorium Galaxy will be available on PC, iOS and Android applications.
Purdue University researchers created an approach for multiple players to interact with the same virtual reality game on smartphones using a Wi-Fi connection. It also provides a “better and more cost-effective option for single-player use,” said professor Charlie Hu, who led the Purdue team. Coterie manages the challenge of rendering high-resolution virtual scenes to meet the stringent quality-of-experience (QoE) of VR. Those include high frame rate and low motion-to-photon latency, the delay between the movement of the user's head or game controller and the change of the VR device's display reflecting the user's movement, they said. The approach enables 4K-resolution VR on commodity mobile devices and allows up to 10 players to interact in the same VR application at a time, they said. VR apps using Coterie divided the heavy rendering task between the smartphone and an edge server over Wi-Fi in a way that reduces the load on the smartphone while allowing sub-frames rendered on both to be merged into the final frame within 16 milliseconds, satisfying the VR QoE, they said. Multiple players can share the same Wi-Fi with Coterie, which reduces the power draw and computation demand on each mobile device and provides a better user experience, researchers said. They also positioned the Coterie system for enterprise, education, health and entertainment applications.
InstaVR, a web-based virtual reality authoring company, is offering academic pricing to universities for a more cost-effective way to use VR in teaching, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. InstaVR is a no-code, drag-and-drop web-based editor that allows faculty and students to create VR apps “in minutes” using a 360-degree camera or 3DCG software; content can be distributed by web, app or head-mounted VR system, said the company. Single-user subscription price is $199 per month for unlimited student and staff access on approved academic email domains, it said.
Tech companies met an aide to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and staff for the Office of Engineering and Technology on power levels required for 6 GHz band augmented and virtual reality body-worn devices. The FCC is considering rules for sharing the band with Wi-Fi and other unlicensed. “Given the significant body loss that affects connectivity between body-worn devices, 14 dBm radiated power is the minimum level of power that will reliably enable AR/VR applications” but the devices don’t have to “typically or constantly transmit at these power levels,” said the filing in docket 17-183. Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, Facebook, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Microsoft, NXP Semiconductors, Qualcomm and Ruckus Networks were represented. Meanwhile, cable Interests are pushing for low-power indoor (LPI) Wi-Fi use in the band. Comcast, Charter Communications and Cable Labs told OET it isn't a threat to fixed service incumbents in the band, and data from 500,000 Wi-Fi access points used in simulations helped prove that, per another posting Monday. Comcast in meetings with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks urged allowing LPI use throughout the band without the need for automated frequency coordination.
BeBop Sensors will announce at CES a haptic glove with fabric sensors for virtual reality applications. The Forte Data Glove, which integrates with a headset, lets users perform actions in the virtual world with natural hand interactions, said the vendor. The glove is said to provide real-time haptic feedback that lets users “feel” textures and surfaces and move digital objects around as they exist in real life. The system works with Oculus, Microsoft Windows Mixed Reality, HTC and Varjo headsets, and hand tracking ties natively into each system’s translation system, it said. The gloves offer haptic feelings for hitting buttons, turning knobs and opening doors for touch sensations in virtual and augmented reality, it said. The glove is targeted to enterprise and location-based gaming markets.