Virtual reality’s best experiences and biggest (teleportation) steps in 2017

Enlarge / The three big home-VR dogs face off for another great year of software. (credit: Ars Technica) If 2016 was the year that true home-VR systems arrived, 2017 may be best described as the year that they didn’t die. Backhanded as that may sound, this compliment is indeed sincere. In spite of a lack […]

Augmented reality’s future isn’t glasses. It’s the car

GUEST: In the next seven years, true augmented reality will likely not become mainstream anywhere, except the automotive industry — and here are the reasons why. By “true” augmented reality” we mean AR that shows virtual objects to be actually integrated with the real environment and visible on various depths, not only on a screen’s […]

How SLAM technology is redrawing augmented reality’s battle lines

GUEST: In early June, Apple introduced its first attempt to enter AR/VR space with ARKit. What makes ARKit stand out for Apple is a technology called SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping). Every tech giant — especially Apple, Google, and Facebook — is investing heavily in SLAM technology and whichever takes best advantage of SLAM tech […]

What Altspace VR’s shutdown says about virtual reality’s prospects

Fans of virtual reality felt a punch to the gut this week as Altspace VR announced it would hold its last social VR gathering on August 3 and then shut down. AltspaceVR was a social space in VR where people could gather in environments that resembled virtual worlds. They could create their own avatars and […]