Steve Koenig, VP CTA Research, gave an overview of CES to conclude the first day of press conferences. There are tens of thousands of reporters and analysts at the show. Koenig identified five main themes of CES this year: (1) Metaverse and Web 3.0 (2) Transportation/mobility, including autonomous vehicles, charging, and in-vehicle experiences (3) Health Tech (4) Sustainability and (5) Gaming and services. Koenig said this year’s show would represent a “Metaverse of things.” XR and gaming hardware seemed to have a much bigger footprint than our last in-person show three years ago, in 2020.
The new HTC Vive XR Elite stand-alone mixed reality headset.
All The XR at CES is our round up of all things XR and Metaverse at CES. XR hardware is alive and well, and compelling new trends in AR and haptics show how the technology has developed in the past three years.
I affectionately call Venture Beat’s head writer, Dean Takahashi, “the dean” of tech writers. No one … [+]
Until I read this I’m not finished with CES. The summary I look forward to most every year (other than my own, nartch) is by veteran tech writer Dean Takahasi, the prolific Dean of tech writers.
Smart contact lens.
The end of Mojo Vision as we know it. The company said in a blog post that it had been unable to raise another round of financing and will shut down its AR contact lens project, which is conducting trials with humans. The company will instead focused on the micro LED technology it had developed. Marketing head Steve Sinclair, formerly with Apple, said he is leaving the company.
Charlie Brown would be Apple pundits, press, and analysts.
Apple’s AR/VR Headset In Blistering Detail A blockbuster leak was published by The Information and then everyone reported on that reporting. The highly anticipated headset is super light, made of glass and carbon fiber, and is powered by a waist mounted battery. Apple’s as-yet unnamed headset uses a hand tracking interface, and has a 120 degree field of view (the Meta Quest Pro is 110). The new HMD will have two LiDAR scanners and more than a dozen inward and outward cameras and other sensors built in. A major focus of the headset is avatar chat with realistic avatars that accurately reflect facial and body movements. VR experiences will be offered via a partnership with Unity. Bloomberg says an announcement is immanent.
Rendever acquires VR Social app Alcove from AARP. At CES this week Rendever, the Boston-based elder-tech company, announced it was buying the social VR platform for the Quest that it developed with AARP in 2019. Terms of the private transaction were not disclosed, but Techcrunch says Rendever is paying cash for Alcove, and AARP is taking equity in Rendever. In other words, it’s unclear any money actually changed hands.
Holoride Launches In-Car VR Device For Any Vehicle. The company creates multiplayer VR experiences for the Vive Flow that sync with the motion of the car. Audi was their first customer but now anyone can clip a bluetooth motion sensor on the dash so passengers can enjoy synchronous sensations of movement in the game.
Ted Schilowitz, Futurist for Paramount Global, bringing the Mojo Vision contact lens to his eye to … [+]
This Week in XR is also a podcast hosted by the author of this column, Ted Schilowitz, and Rony Abovitz, founder of Magic Leap. This week Ted and I recap of the first full-strength CES since 2020, with special attention, of course, to XR and wearables, in 30 minutes. We can be found on Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.
What We’re Reading
It’s Not Too Early To Become Metaverse-Ready (Scott Belsky/Wired)
