Recent Editions

Pico's Neo 3 Pro headset, a standalone VR device similar to the Quest 2. Credit: Pico Interactive
Reality Check

ByteDance Eyes a VR Hardware Acquisition

By Mathew Olson · Aug 26, 2021 11:00am PDT
ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, is considering purchasing the VR headset maker Pico Interactive. An acquisition could see Pico push its standalone headsets more aggressively as competition for Facebook’s Oculus Quest 2.Based in Beijing (with U.S. headquarters in San Francisco), Pico is already a leading consumer VR hardware maker in... ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, is considering purchasing the VR headset maker Pico...
Tangle's 2D, AR-tracked avatars shown in a meeting window. Credit: Absurd Joy
Reality Check

Ex-VR Developers Unveil a Slack Competitor With AR Features

By Mathew Olson · Aug 25, 2021 11:00am PDT
Famously, Slack did not start with the intention of creating a ubiquitous workplace communication app. The app instead grew out of the communication tools that the Slack team, then called Tiny Speck, used during game development. It seems like a new company named Absurd Joy (stylized as "absurd:joy") wants to chart a similar path with its... Famously, Slack did not start with the intention of creating a ubiquitous workplace communication...
A scene in "I Expect You to Die 2: The Spy and the Liar." Credit: Schell Games
Reality Check

A Veteran Designer Talks VR’s ‘Commodore 64 Moment’

By Mathew Olson · Aug 24, 2021 11:00am PDT
Game designer Jesse Schell, the CEO and founder of Schell Games, has worked on VR since the early ‘90s, pushing primitive hardware to its limits with teams of Disney Imagineers and student researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. Along the way, Schell also helped create one of VR gaming’s biggest hits: “I Expect You to Die,” a puzzler where... Game designer Jesse Schell, the CEO and founder of Schell Games, has worked on VR since the early...
How Facebook Workrooms Compares to Other VR Work Apps
By Mathew Olson · Aug 23, 2021 11:00am PDT
Reality Check

How Facebook Workrooms Compares to Other VR Work Apps

By Mathew Olson · Aug 23, 2021 11:00am PDT
Facebook’s Workrooms is far from the only VR meeting app around. When comparing it against just a handful of its competitors on a limited set of features, it’s clear that there are many aspects of Workrooms that Facebook can improve. And there are many ways that apps from smaller companies have better features than Workrooms, at least for now.To... Facebook’s Workrooms is far from the only VR meeting app around. When comparing it against just a...
Avatars holding a meeting in Horizon Workrooms. Credit: Facebook
Reality Check

Facebook Remote VR Meetings Are Tip of Iceberg; A Q&A With Rec Room’s CEO

By Mathew Olson · Aug 19, 2021 11:00am PDT · 5 comments
This morning, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched Horizon Workrooms, a way for Oculus users to hold meetings in VR. As the name suggests, it’s a sort of offshoot of Facebook’s Horizon platform, which has been in early development for about two years. Horizon’s goal is to be Facebook’s main social VR product. Think of Horizon as VR’s... This morning, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched Horizon Workrooms, a way for Oculus users to...
A selection of Intel's RealSense devices. Credit: Intel
Reality Check

Intel Abandons Its AR/VR Camera Tech

By Mathew Olson · Aug 18, 2021 11:00am PDT
In 2021, Intel has made a series of big moves to try to reverse the decline that’s seen the company cede ground to Nvidia and AMD on processors, its core business. Here’s the latest: Intel is killing off RealSense, its line of depth-sensing cameras.CRN’s Dylan Martin reported on RealSense’s end on Tuesday. “We are winding down our RealSense... In 2021, Intel has made a series of big moves to try to reverse the decline that’s seen the...
A collection of various Roblox user avatars. Credit: Roblox
Reality Check

What Roblox's Earnings Stumble Says About its Metaverse Aims

By Mathew Olson · Aug 17, 2021 11:02am PDT
Roblox CEO David Baszucki probably deserves as much credit as Mark Zuckerberg (if not more) for making the metaverse a hot button term not just in gaming or AR/VR, but all of tech. So, should Roblox’s underwhelming quarterly earnings and the corresponding dip in stock price come as a sobering wakeup call after a few months of concentrated... Roblox CEO David Baszucki probably deserves as much credit as Mark Zuckerberg (if not more) for...
Photo: Bloomberg
TikTok’s Stealthy New AR Tools; AR Developers Start a Collab House
By Mathew Olson · Aug 16, 2021 11:14am PDT
Photo: Bloomberg
Reality Check

TikTok’s Stealthy New AR Tools; AR Developers Start a Collab House

By Mathew Olson · Aug 16, 2021 11:14am PDT
You’ve heard of creator collab houses, where creators live together, post together and aspire to become famous. Enter AR House, a project that seeks to put six AR developers under one Los Angeles roof to “build a vertical slice of the future.”The two men behind the house, Lucas Rizzotto and Aidan Wolf, are both AR developers who gravitate toward... You’ve heard of creator collab houses, where creators live together, post together and aspire to...
An image from Warplanes: WW1 Fighters, the first App Lab game to later be released on the official Quest store. Credit: Home Net Games
Reality Check

Oculus’s App Lab Overload

By Mathew Olson · Aug 12, 2021 11:00am PDT
Facebook’s approach to the Quest’s VR app store is intended to make sure that users see a wide variety of vetted, quality VR releases. For many VR developers, though, the bottleneck between them and the store seems impassable. One result is that the App Lab, a sort of shadow app store Facebook launched in February, is piling up with games and... Facebook’s approach to the Quest’s VR app store is intended to make sure that users see a wide...
Unity CEO John Riccitiello. Photo by Bloomberg
Reality Check

Unity’s Parsec Purchase; John Hanke’s Metaverse Alternative

By Mathew Olson · Aug 11, 2021 11:00am PDT
Unity Technologies’s $320 million purchase of desktop streaming company Parsec, unveiled yesterday, may one day shape videogames or AR/VR apps built with Unity. But in the near term, the deal gives Unity more of an opportunity to capitalize on a shift to remote work.Amongst the many streaming products that let users access and control a PC... Unity Technologies’s $320 million purchase of desktop streaming company Parsec, unveiled...
Kat Harris, a developer, wearing Snap's AR Spectacles. Photo by Snap
Reality Check

Snap Hires AR Leader From Facebook; Niantic’s Scanning Acquisition

By Mathew Olson · Aug 10, 2021 11:00am PDT
Snap’s hiring on Monday of Facebook AR executive Joe Darko to oversee AR Developer Relations demonstrates just how much Snap and Facebook are vying for not only the same consumers but even the same pool of AR developers and creators.Darko helped launch the Spark AR Partner Network in his time as the global lead for Facebook’s AR ecosystem. His... Snap’s hiring on Monday of Facebook AR executive Joe Darko to oversee AR Developer Relations...
Niantic CEO John Hanke. Photo by Bloomberg
Niantic to Frustrated Pokemon AR Gamers—“We Hear You”
By Mathew Olson · Aug 9, 2021 11:00am PDT
Niantic CEO John Hanke. Photo by Bloomberg
Reality Check

Niantic to Frustrated Pokemon AR Gamers—“We Hear You”

By Mathew Olson · Aug 9, 2021 11:00am PDT
After an outpouring of criticism from players, Pokemon Go makers Niantic is forming an internal team aimed at finding a middle ground between the AR gaming experience fans came to love during the pandemic and the vision Niantic has for the game.To recap, a week ago, Niantic in the U.S. and New Zealand rolled back temporary pandemic safety... After an outpouring of criticism from players, Pokemon Go makers Niantic is forming an internal...
Sony's first VR headset. Photo by Sony
Reality Check

Epic to Take Another Crack at Defining the Metaverse; Sony's VR Ambitions

By Mathew Olson · Aug 5, 2021 11:00am PDT
Next Tuesday, Marc Petit of Epic Games plans to talk on the metaverse at the annual SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference. It’ll be a chance for someone other than CEO Tim Sweeney to explain Epic’s vision for this next stage of computing. Hopefully, given the venue, it’ll be more substantive than Sweeney’s tweets and testimony in the Epic v.... Next Tuesday, Marc Petit of Epic Games plans to talk on the metaverse at the annual SIGGRAPH...
A HTC Vive headset, an example of a PC VR headset. Photo by Bloomberg.
Reality Check

Debunking the Theory of PC VR’s Premature Death

By Mathew Olson · Aug 4, 2021 11:02am PDT
Today’s installment of Reality Check is all about death—but it doesn’t involve anyone or anything actually dying.Over the weekend, VR developer Cix Liv declared that PC VR was “dead,” reigniting an ongoing debate amongst designers and enthusiasts that itself refuses to die. As far as I can tell, the most common argument in favor of this take is... Today’s installment of Reality Check is all about death—but it doesn’t involve anyone or anything...
Google's hardware chief Rick Osterloh. Photo by Bloomberg.
Reality Check

Google’s New Mobile Chip Is For AI First, AR Second

By Mathew Olson · Aug 3, 2021 11:00am PDT
With its upcoming line of Pixel 6 phones, teased on Monday months before the fall release, Google demonstrated just how much it is prioritizing artificial intelligence-powered improvements over AR-focused enhancements. It’s one way Google is differentiating the phones from Apple, which has gone all-in on new AR capabilities on the iPhone thanks... With its upcoming line of Pixel 6 phones, teased on Monday months before the fall release, Google...
A Japanese politician at the opening ceremony for a three-day Pokemon Go event in Japan in 2017. Photo by AP
What Pokemon Go’s Pandemic Decisions Might Mean for AR’s Future
By Mathew Olson · Aug 2, 2021 11:00am PDT
A Japanese politician at the opening ceremony for a three-day Pokemon Go event in Japan in 2017. Photo by AP
Reality Check

What Pokemon Go’s Pandemic Decisions Might Mean for AR’s Future

By Mathew Olson · Aug 2, 2021 11:00am PDT
Pokemon Go’s sustained success will surely influence the design of AR games for the foreseeable future. It’s worth paying attention, then, to what Pokemon fans have to say—and how the Go developer, Niantic, reacts to fan fury triggered by the company’s weekend decision to roll back some key pandemic-related changes to the game.Niantic designed... Pokemon Go’s sustained success will surely influence the design of AR games for the foreseeable...
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo by Bloomberg.
Reality Check

Wall Street’s Question for Facebook: How Much Is the Metaverse Worth?

By Mathew Olson · Jul 29, 2021 11:00am PDT
Earlier this week, I gave Mark Zuckerberg some credit for talking about the metaverse without relying on speculative, buzzword-y language. In fact, compared to some of Facebook’s vague talk around its AR/VR hardware, Zuckerberg’s thoughts on what the metaverse is and what people will use it for have been clear, even if it’s a bit basic.Even so,... Earlier this week, I gave Mark Zuckerberg some credit for talking about the metaverse without...
People using VR to see scenes of Syrian cities being shelled. Photo by AP
Reality Check

New Study Casts Doubt on VR’s Value as Empathy Machine

By Mathew Olson · Jul 28, 2021 11:00am PDT
The conventional wisdom in tech is that virtual reality helps people empathize more easily. Like so many popular ideas in tech, this belief caught on thanks in large part to a TED Talk. In 2015, VR designer Chris Milk gave a presentation in which he said VR is “a machine, but through this machine we become more compassionate, we become more... The conventional wisdom in tech is that virtual reality helps people empathize more easily. Like...
Facebook's Oculus Quest 2. Facebook on Tuesday suspended sales of the headset temporarily. Image courtesy Facebook/Oculus
Reality Check

Facebook Kicks Off a Metaverse Reorganization

By Mathew Olson · Jul 27, 2021 11:00am PDT · 2 comments
Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t kidding when he said last week he hopes Facebook will morph from a social media giant into a metaverse company. As the company revealed Monday, his ambition is beginning to have real effects on Facebook’s org chart.As reported, Facebook is creating a new Metaverse product group under Facebook Reality Labs. Andrew Bosworth’... Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t kidding when he said last week he hopes Facebook will morph from a social...
People wearing Oculus Go headsets in 2018. These devices have already been discontinued. Photo by Bloomberg.
How Facebook’s Open Standards Shift Will Cost AR/VR Developers
By Mathew Olson · Jul 26, 2021 11:00am PDT
People wearing Oculus Go headsets in 2018. These devices have already been discontinued. Photo by Bloomberg.
Reality Check

How Facebook’s Open Standards Shift Will Cost AR/VR Developers

By Mathew Olson · Jul 26, 2021 11:00am PDT
Facebook’s Oculus is going “all in” on support for OpenXR, a royalty-free open standard for AR and VR hardware, the company said Friday. You might think developers would welcome that move with open arms. Valve, Google, Microsoft, Unity, Epic Games have taken similar steps, so there’s clearly a broader move towards an open standard. Facebook... Facebook’s Oculus is going “all in” on support for OpenXR, a royalty-free open standard for AR...