Virtual reality

When in a few years Facebook releases a new pair of glasses with cameras, microphones, and proximity sensors aboard, remember this article. Today we're taking a peek at some research posted by Facebook AI called "Ego4D". This research worked with "a consortium of 13 universities and labs across nine countries" that together collected "2,200 hours of first person video in the wild, featuring over 700 participants going about their daily lives."

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Researchers at the University of Michigan have combined the ancient tradition of meditative breathing with modern technology, namely a virtual reality headset. The result, according to a new study from the team, is a reduction in pain perception, offering patients a way to reduce their use of painkillers. In contrast to meditative breathing on its own, however, the VR-based breathing method triggered pain relief in an entirely different way.

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A lot of researchers and manufacturers are working on innovations for virtual reality. Virtual reality has been around for a long time but so far has seen limited adoption. A new device has turned up that will be shown off at the UIST 2021 ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. The device is called X-Rings.

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Canon is one of the biggest names in photography and video equipment. The company has announced the launch of a new EOS VR System, a virtual reality video production system. The camera includes a dedicated lens and a pair of computer software applications to enable direct capture and creation of virtual reality videos.

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It's been a while since we last received an update on Resident Evil 4 VR, but today we got a big one. Not only did we get a new trailer for the game, but we also got a release date. As it turns out, release day is coming up pretty fast, so those who own an Oculus Quest 2 don't have much longer to get their hands on it.

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Netflix released their first video game today, a VR title by the name of Eden Unearthed. This game is an "experience" that's not quite entirely through the full Oculus review process yet, so it's out with the group's "App Lab." There may still be "unknown issues relating to comfort, performance, or other factors," in play. The game is based on the TV series (also released by Netflix) by the name of Eden (2021).

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It's been months since we first got details on the HTC Vive Pro 2 VR headset back in May. VR fans waiting in anticipation for the Vive Pro 2 kit to be available can now preorder the entire kit in North America. While the headset launched earlier this year, the full kit includes the headset, two base stations, and two VIVE controllers.

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This week the folks announced they'd acquired a very interesting game developer studio. They are Firesprite, the creators of a few games that've been key to the introduction of PlayStation 4 and virtual reality elements in PlayStation's newest consoles. This is the sort of studio you might've expected to have been part of Sony in the first place, if it hadn't been for the little logo on the side of the package.

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Roblox Spatial Voice is ready to roll in Beta mode, bringing the Roblox Metaverse one step closer to reality. I mean, technically Roblox already IS a Metaverse of sorts, but with Spatial Voice, the entire experience will become a whole lot more like Ready Player One than it is today. Spatial Voice will be available to test first in the Roblox Community Space for developers.

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Have you ever played a VR game for so long that you lost awareness of the fact you were playing a game at all? Perhaps you went to sit in a virtual chair, only to thump into the ground and remember, in one embarrassing moment, that the reality you perceived wasn't real. This same effect, it seems, can effectively distract from the pain of medical procedures.

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This week Facebook and Oculus released the Oculus Quest 2 with 128GB internal storage. This device is essentially the same as the version released at the tail end of 2020, save the storage it has for data AND the included up-to-date face pad. This latest version of the Oculus Quest 2 has the same starting price as the original, with the same controllers and hardware setup as the version released before.

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It's arguable that Facebook's Oculus now takes up the majority of the attention in the virtual reality market, but it is hardly the only major player. HTC is still actively working on Vive, and Microsoft's Windows Mixed Reality also dips into that field. And then there's PlayStation VR, the only console-based system among the VR giants. With the new PlayStation 5 console, however, the interest in a VR system to match has also grown. Fortunately, Sony does seem to have big plans for what the PS5 VR will offer, both in hardware and content.

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