Today we're getting up close and personal with the HTC Vive Cosmos, a VR headset made for the masses. The device itself doesn't power on - not for the press at the moment, anyway. Instead we're forced to only look at the most basic elements at play - the industrial design, and the details we've been given by HTC on its near future.
This week we got the opportunity to try out the newest in innovative VR tech from HTC, the HTC VIVE Pro Eye. This device looks a whole lot like the standard Vive Pro on the outside. In fact you might mistake one for the other, except for the bright blue outline around one element at the front of the headset. From the inside, it's a whole new world.
Consumer electronics encompasses a wide variety of products, from smartphones to appliances to, of course, computers. One new face in recent years has been virtual reality and while the hype around what was believed to be the next wave of computing, its biggest proponents haven’t given up hope. In fact, HTC VIVE just made a couple of new announcements, including two new headsets. And it is so confident in its VR ecosystem that it’s opening up an unlimited subscription tier for all the VR experiences you can get.
HTC has announced the HTC Vive Pro Eye, a new virtual reality headset that includes built-in eye tracking. The new hardware enables experiences that aren't possible without tracking the user's eyes, including gaze-oriented menu navigation and the ability to control the VR experience without using controllers. As well, eye-tracking provides developers and corporations with data for optimizing their products.
If at first you don’t succeed, try and try until you go bankrupt. That might be the adaptation of the age-old aphorism that HTC is trying to adopt as the Taiwanese company struggles to leave a mark in the smartphone market. HTC Taiwan’s president Darren Chen has been quoted saying that the company plans to reboot its smartphones for the first half of 2019. Ironically, that apparently means stretching its HTC U12+ flagship as far as it can go.
There's a new smartphone on the market from HTC, and it has a back-facing camera setup that's a little off-center. Instead of planting the entire camera array in the middle of the phone, they've decided to place the one lens in the center, making the whole backside rather uncommon. We've certainly seen our fair share of off-center camera setups before, but never one quite like this.
Sprint and HTC have teamed up to launch a 5G mobile smart hub, the companies have announced. The device won't be available until next year, but the companies have already teased some details, explaining that the device will be available to customers in the United States. The smart hub will be portable and will work with Sprint's upcoming 5G network.
Like the stereotypical hero, HTC refuses to admit defeat despite the almost insurmountable hurdles it faces. Few smartphone makers are perhaps as embattled as the Taiwanese company, both economically and even politically. But despite continuing losses in the smartphone market, despite scandals that rocked its hierarchy, and despite whispers that say otherwise, HTC says it still believes in smartphones and will continue making and launching such products. At least as far as 2018 and 2019 are concerned.
With all that’s happening in the smartphone market these days, it’s almost too easy to forget that HTC still makes smartphones. Even Sony hits headlines more than the Taiwanese company, at least in mobile news (HTC’s name always comes up in VR, though). Aside from the very niche HTC Exodus blockchain phone, the last notable smartphone the company put out was the HTC U12+ back in May. And if rumors are true, that might actually be the last premium HTC U phone we’ll see.
The HTC VIVE Wireless Adapter is a bit of technology that changes the overall feeling of reality in a room-scale VR experience. This is an add-on to the original HTC VIVE and the HTC VIVE Pro. This adapter isn't required to enter virtual reality, but it'll make the process a lot less painful if you're not particularly sure-footed. Less painful, that is, if you didn't have a rough time setting up the VIVE in the first place.
HTC VIVE has announced a new platform for enterprise customers that includes the Vive Focus, a standalone virtual reality headset targeted at businesses. The hardware is part of a platform and software launching for enterprises in North America and Europe that want to create VR experiences for customers and employees. This marks its expansion outside of Asia.
The HTC Exodus 1 is a smartphone with dapps, apps that require blockchain technology to function. This phone also functions as a hardware wallet for cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. The phone was put on sale today on pre-order, and users can ONLY pay in either Bitcoin or Ethereum (BTC or ETH).