Virtual Reality News

Part of the fallout from the canceled Mobile World Congress is that a range of products, ideas, and designs slated for reveal in Barcelona are now being showcased without the framing and context of the massive tech gathering.

HTC is entering the augmented reality market through the back door by giving developers access to the stereo front-facing cameras on the Vive and Vive Pro VR headsets.

Want proof that user experiences matter? Look no further than the HTC Vive and Omnipudding's particle generator, GPU Cubes VR, which lets you interact with thousands of colorful, cubic particles in a black void. If this was a simulator for your computer only, controlled with a mouse or keyboard, you'd be bored in seconds—but it's just simple, instant fun on the Vive.

Most of us work with a single monitor, but even with one or two extras, they still offer a rather confined workspace. Virtual reality, however, doesn't have such boundaries. As a result, VR headsets can work as excellent productivity tools. Windows can't just adapt on its own, however, so Envelop VR stepped in and created a new working environment to allow the desktop to expand beyond its traditional, rectangular bounds.

What happens when a entrepeneur/theme park creator and special effects artist/magician team up? You get a team crazy enough to create the first true virtual reality theme park (sorry, Six Flags). They only have a single experience so far, but it's already taken a giant leap beyond the wonders we've seen in today's consumer virtual reality headsets.

Opioids, or narcotic painkillers, serve as our primary method for alleviating physical distress. They also happen to be a leading cause of death due to their addictive nature. AppliedVR hopes to introduce a safer alternative: virtual reality gaming. They utilize the existing Samsung Gear VR for the hardware, but provides specialized software that offers up a distracting experience that fosters greater pain ignorance.

While you can't turn art into a formula, the film industry has managed to come stupidly close. While many storytelling principles still stand across mediums, successfully crafting a compelling, immersive narrative in virtual reality requires a brand new rulebook. Through trial, error, and success, writer/director/editor Adam Cosco figured out the right rules to follow (and break) in "KNIVES"—his latest 360-degree short film.

We're set to see the actual debut of Google Daydream on October 4, and it'll hopefully serve as a significant step up from Cardboard—their current virtual reality smartphone platform. If you want to get an early taste, you can set up a development kit—you just need two phones to do it.

Most of us don't get the opportunity to see election coverage first hand, but with virtual reality, we're not as restricted. AltspaceVR has teamed up with NBC News to let you log in on your computer or VR headset and actually take part in the action—just not physically.

Cancer is a complicated illness, but the more we understand it, the likelier we are to beat it. The 3D Visualisation Aesthetics Lab at the University of New South Wales took to virtual reality to help improve our odds by allowing scientists to walk through virtual representations of actual cancer cells.

Most virtual and mixed reality headsets offer unnatural controls, making you use awkward movements or physical devices to control the holographic elements in your direct view. This doesn't make a lot of sense because using your hands is more natural, so Manus developed a set of gloves that solves that problem entirely.

People fear virtual reality will isolate us, but the right experience can prove it does the opposite.

One of the major criticisms of virtual reality, and much modern technology in general, is the antisocial nature it creates. But vTime wants to overcome the isolating nature of VR headsets with a virtual hangout space for you and your friends.

Leap Motion created gesture control for all sorts of things, including virtual reality, long ago, but developers must build in support for their tracking peripheral to use its full potential. As a result, they've created an "Interaction Engine" for Unity, the primary platform for developing virtual and mixed reality experiences, to try and take gesture interaction to the next level.

Most popular virtual reality headsets, like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, require a tethered connection to the computer and that imposes some obvious restrictions on how much we can move in our space. We'd all prefer a simpler, untethered option, and Intel wants to provide just that.

The Oculus Rift's virtual experiences become a little less immersive when you're barely moving in a chair with a headset on, playing on a gamepad—but you don't have to accept that reality anymore.

When you think about consumer VR headsets, you either imagine a computer-tethered powerhouse like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, or something portable yet limited that utilizes your smartphone like Google Cardboard. Somehow, we haven't seen much in-between, but the Idealens aims to fill that gap.

If you've ever wanted to be right in the thick of an operating room, you're about to get your chance. On Thursday, April 14th, you'll be able to watch a VR live stream of a tumor removal surgery. With their 360-degree camera, you'll be able to see the entire operating table and its surroundings.

If there is any doubt that nerds deserve to rule the world, please watch this brilliant home brewed invention.

Virtual reality and horror were meant for each other. You'll get all the positive aspects of experiencing a terrifying situation such as excitement and an adrenaline rush, without any of the real-life consequences, like being ripped to shreds by a herd of flesh-eating monsters.

The team behind Minecraft, the popular open-world game beloved for its freedom to create and build, has teamed up with Oculus to release an official edition that takes you even further into the block-based world using a Samsung Gear VR headset. While the Oculus Rift version itself is still forthcoming, Gear VR users can play right now.

Facebook announced at its F8 Developer's Conference on April 12th that, in addition to the VR-ready Oculus Rift we have today, it plans to bring Augmented Reality (AR) into the fold of their social machine.

If you've been debating on whether or not HTC's new virtual reality headset, the Vive, is worth the $800 price tag, then you'll be able to find out for yourself soon enough.

The Oculus Rift is finally shipping to customers in more than 20 countries, and we're getting a good idea of how the device holds up from the initial reviews. You'll see some common threads throughout: along with an impressive virtual reality experience, the device is very comfortable with a solid design.

Six Flags is teaming up with Samsung to make riding a roller coaster a little more thrilling, and quite possibly a little more nauseating as well.

An accelerometer/gyro goes onto an Arduino board and transmits the angular motion of the skateboard via Bluetooth to a virtual reality game I made for Android phones and Google Cardboard.

Virtual reality technology company Oculus VR announced that it will begin accepting preorders for its long-awaited Oculus Rift headset beginning Wednesday, January 6th, at 8 a.m. Pacific time.

There's a reason that YouTube continues to be the most popular video sharing site on the planet—ever since its purchase by Google, they've always made sure to load YouTube up with extra features to keep it ahead of the pack.

Samsung's Gear VR headset is a thing of beauty; unfortunately, it only works with the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. That's where ImmersiON-VRelia's Head-Mounted Displays come in to play. With four different HMD models, we got a hands-on look at "The Go," which is not only affordable (at $125), but also compatible with the majority of Android and iOS devices.

Samsung has shown off its new smartwatch, the Gear S, and its twonew Notes, the Note 4 and the Note Edge at IFA 2014, but it had one more trick up its sleeve.