Virtual & Augmented Reality news

As the fervor around generative AI grows, critics have called on the creators of the tech to take steps to mitigate its potentially harmful effects. In particular, text-generating AI has gotten a lot of attention — and with good reason. Students could use it to plagiarize, content farms could use it to spam and bad actors could use it to spread misinformation.
OpenAI bowed to pressure several weeks ago, releasing a classifier tool that attempts to distinguish between human-written and synt

“Jidoka” is a new one to me. TRI (Toyota Research Institute) CEO Gill Pratt described the concept as “Automation with a Human Touch.” The anglicized version of the notion is “Autonomation” — both are modified forms of “ automation,” in their respective languages. The word was originally applied to Toyota’s Production System, highlighting the need for human participation in the process.
Quoting from Toyota here:
Employing Jidoka principl

It’s getting even harder to distinguish AR from reality.
This week Snap Inc. introduced Ray Tracing support for its Lens Studio app, allowing developers to craft more realistic augmented reality (AR) Lenses. Ray Tracing is a rendering technique used to reflect light on digital objects. The result is more immersive AR experiences powered by the Snapchat app.The first brand to make use of the new technology is Tiffany & Co., a luxury design house based out of Manhattan, New York. The new

Microsoft has acknowledged reports of Bing’s strange responses to some queries over the past week since the launch of the updated search engine. Some users have reported receiving rude, manipulative and unnerving responses from the AI-boosted Bing. In a new blog post, Microsoft said it’s listening to feedback from users about their concerns about the tone of Bing’s responses.
The company says it didn’t envision Bing being used for “general discovery of the world&rdq

A lot’s changed since Tay. The advent of AI tech like ChatGPT dramatically improved the chatbot experience, showing that chatbots aren’t necessarily destined to deliver underwhelming back-and-forth conversations. But a new survey shows that, at least when it comes to customer service, chatbots still have a long way to go before they meet most people’s expectations.
Customer engagement platform Cyara commissioned Forrester to poll over 1,500 consumers who’ve used sales or

More than six years after its VR debut, Sony is ready to bring next-gen VR to PS5 with PSVR 2. Does PlayStation VR 2 make a substantial improvement over its predecessor? And how does it stack up to other VR headsets on the market? Read on to find out.With PSVR 2, Sony is not just improving on the prior headset, it’s also raising some bars for consumer headsets overall as the first device in its class to bring eye-tracking, HDR, and new haptic capabilities to the market. Let’s start o

With Horizon Call of the Mountain, Sony is hoping to have an exclusive big-budget VR game to entice players to the new PSVR 2. Does the title succeed? Read on to find out.
Horizon Call of the Mountain Details:
Available On: PSVR 2Release Date: February 22nd, 2023Price: $60Developer: Geurilla Games & FirespritePublisher: Sony Interactive EntertainmentEditor’s Note: The clips in this review that were captured from PSVR 2 do not look correctly saturated due to inc

Indie VR studio REZZIL today announced it’s bringing REZZIL PLAYER, the VR sports training game, to PSVR 2 soon.Initially launched on Quest in 2021 and later brought to SteamVR headsets in 2022, Rezzil Player offers up a growing collection of sports training games that aim to improve performance and reaction times across sports like football, soccer, and basketball. The immersive training game now boasts over 160 levels and 40 items of sports kit for avatars.
The studio anno

Firewall Ultra, the team shooter exclusive to PSVR 2, doesn’t have a release date yet, however developers First Contact Entertainment confirmed with Road to VR it’s indeed releasing sometime this year. In the meantime, the studio has revealed a new character to its lineup of Contractors.Firewall Ultra is the upcoming sequel to the well-recieved squad-based shooter Firewall Zero Hour, which launched on the original PSVR in 2018. While we were hoping to hear news of the sequel&rsq

Firewall Ultra, the team shooter exclusive to PSVR 2, doesn’t have a release date yet, however developers First Contact Entertainment confirmed with Road to VR it’s indeed releasing sometime this year. In the meantime, the studio has revealed a new character to its lineup of Contractors.Firewall Ultra is the upcoming sequel to the well-recieved squad-based shooter Firewall Zero Hour, which launched on the original PSVR in 2018. While we were hoping to hear news of the sequel&rsq