EMERGING-TECH NEWS
LUCKEY BACKS CROWDFUND FOR OCULUS EXCLUSIVE HACK www.patreon.com/crossvr
Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey doesn’t seem to be taking the high road after his ousting from Facebook’s VR wing, backing a Kickstarter project that’s sole purpose is to bring Oculus’ proprietary games to its closest competitor. There is no ambiguity to Revive’s intent, with the campaign stating it will bring “Oculus-exclusive VR games to the HTC Vive”. With contributions totalling $2,018 at the time of writing, Luckey is almost the sole investor in a software that is sure to pique the interest of Facebook’s lawyers.
IKEA VR tinyurl.com/TLA67-IKEAVR
In a bid to accommodate the overwhelming number of customers who would like to stroll the aisles of Ikea in the dead of night, the Swedish furniture company has built a fully explorable 3D storefront, that you can amble through at your convenience. This VR-ready shopping experience presents a typical Ikea store layout and highlights products with appropriate web links so you can add items to your cart as you virtually traipse the online store.
STEAMVR HOME COLLECTABLES steamcommunity.com/steamvr
We chatted about how cool the Home update to Steam’s VR boot interface was last month, but the software company has taken it to another level by creating collectable trophies that you can add to your virtual mantlepiece. Some of the more notorious VR figurines come from hitting playing targets on Job Simulator, Arizona
Sunshine and Serious Sam: The Last Hope, but the company is open to suggestions on the types of trophies the community would like to see.
MIXED REALITY COMES TO OCULUS developer.oculus.com
One of the most enjoyable aspects of VR is sharing the novel experience with others, but watching someone jump around with a high tech blindfold will unavoidably seem a little silly to onlookers. Fortunately, the 1.15 update to Oculus adds support for capturing mixed reality footage that’ll allow you to blend real-world footage of your friends into the game’s environment. A subsequent update at the end of June also added specific mixed reality object tracking.