NordicTrack's VR virtual reality fitness bike wore me out at CES

I'll never forget riding a flying horse in VR while pedaling a bicycle and nearly wanting to throw up. That happened years ago when I tried VirZoom, a low-cost stationary bike that worked with fitness games and both mobile and console VR headsets.VR and fitness biking can be a rough mix. NordicTrack aims to do Virzoom one better with a far fancier machine, the NordicTrack VR Bike, coming this summer. I got to play with it in Las Vegas during CES 2019.The bike works with HTC's Vive Focus mobile VR headset, playing several VR development software programs games that will sync with the bike's various motion-control features. The VR bike bundle will cost $1,999, which is a lot more expensive than VirZoom. But the NordicTrack VR Bike also has a lot more features than the pretty basic VirZoom ever had. It also comes with a Vive Focus headset (around $599) and a one-year iFit Personal Trainer subscription with workout programs ($396), so the bike only technically costs about $1,000. 

Foldaway Haptics is Making a Thumbstick for VR virtual reality That Pushes Back

Switzerland-based Foldaway Haptics is building a haptic joystick with force feedback. The impressive device, which can push back against your finger in any direction, could bring rich feedback to VR virtual reality controllers at reasonable costs.Over the years we’ve seen some really awesome haptic tech, like the HaptX glove that offers compelling tactile sensations and force-feedback on all five fingers. But it’ll take something simple and low cost to have any chance of finding its way into the consumer VR space which is currently dominated by controllers—which are rapidly converging on thumbsticks as the primary input mechanism (aside from motion).

Hands-on: VR Motion Controller ‘Atraxa’ Offers Promising 6DOF Without Occlusion Issues

Northern Digital is a Waterloo, Canada-based manufacturer of 3D measurement devices, and while the company has mainly focused on creating for various industries such as medicine and aeronautics throughout their 35 years of existence, they’ve recently unveiled a reference design for a magnetic tracking system for VR virtual reality headsets and controllers.The reference design, dubbed Atraxa, is available either as an enclosed controller, or as three bare PCB components: two trackers, and a single receiver. Since the reference design is intended for OEMs, you won’t be able to buy this as a consumer, at least not until a third-party company integrates and sells it.As an enclosed unit, NDI’s prototype housing isn’t anything to write home about in terms of ergonomics, as they look more than a bit like Wiimotes. For the sake of a demo of the company’s underlying tech though, it was more than enough to show what the system was capable of. And unlike Wiimotes, Atraxa tracks the user’s hand movements in 6DOF, and to surprisingly good effect.

The Teslasuit could turn Black Mirror’s terrifying ‘Playtest’ into a reality

Black Mirror is a show that takes hypothetical looks into the future of modern tech. Usually with a dark twist, the scenarios you’ll find in it are typically pretty outlandish. Playtest is one of those episodes that seems like pure science fiction. Or, well, it used to.Playtest follows a young fellow named Cooper, who lands a job as a tester for a game company that specializes in survival horror games. At his new gig, he tries out some new VR virtual reality technology that warps his reality into the most terrifying experience possible, based on the responses from its user. What follows is a series of seemingly real and horrifying events that, unknown to Cooper, are an illusion created by the new AR technology.

Oculus’ Quest is the headset that will make me (and you) a VR believer

When I think of VR virtual reality, the word ‘gimmick’ hovers in my mind. Yes, I’m aware of all the wonderful things it can do, and is aiming to do. Yet VR remains — especially in gaming — a big investment. And no one wants to invest in tech that feels half-baked.I’d love to experience stunning open world role-playing games and adrenaline-fueled action games in a way that makes me feel I’m really there. That’s the romanticized version of VR development software gaming that many headsets are trying to sell. In truth, the technology isn’t quite there, and most of the experiences I’ve tried so far have a shelf life of 30 minutes. They’re fun at first, but become annoying (or even nauseating) after an hour in the headset.

New York Times App Lets You See a Higgs Particle Reaction from the Large Hadron Collider in Augmented Reality

Although it's impossible (at least for now) to travel back in time to see the Big Bang, The New York Times has provided its readers the closest simulation of the experience via its latest augmented reality feature.On Friday, the Times published "It's Intermission for the Large Hadron Collider," an interactive story that gives readers a virtual tour of the Large Hadron Collider at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland and explores its most famous discovery, the Higgs boson.A series of 360-degree photos and an accompanying VR video make up the virtual tour of the massive and costly Large Hadron Collider, which enables physicists to smash subatomic particles together to simulate the conditions of the Big Bang and reveal the hidden secrets of the universe.

HTC Unveils PC VR Headset Vive Cosmos, Dev Kits Coming Early 2019

At a special CES event today, HTC unveiled their latest PC VR headset, Vive Cosmos.Unlike Vive Focus, the company’s 6DOF standalone headset that launched first in China with a single 3DOF controller, Vive Cosmos is being advertised as a 6DOF PC VR headset, replete with all the room-tracking & controller-tracking tech packed onto the headset itself. vr software companies Vive Comos is said to launch sometime in 2019, although HTC isn’t talking about a more exact launch window just yet. HTC will first offer developer kits of Vive Cosmos in early 2019, with more details on availability and price will be announced later in the year.Cosmos is said to have the capability to be powered by “more than a traditional gaming PC,” with the possibility teased in the trailer (linked below) that it might also be driven by a smartphone in the future. It’s uncertain what wireless capability it has. The headset on display didn’t feature any wires, although HTC hasn’t announced either at the press event or in press literature that the headset is wireless.3d virtual reality.

Marc Andreessen: audio will be ‘titanically important’ and VR will be ‘1,000’ times bigger than AR

In a new a16z podcast with the venture firm’s founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, there’s a lot to enjoy, from Andreessen’s TV show recommendations to Horowitz’s secret to excellent barbecue. (It’s pretty much just “time,” as you might imagine.)More useful for our founder readers may be Andreessen’s predictions around tech and, because he’s asked about them specifically, his predictions when it comes to wearables, including that virtual reality will be “one thousand” times bigger than augmented reality. It’s an interesting statement given the firm’s beton Magic Leap and its AR goggles.

'David Bowie Is' App Delivers a Mesmerizing AR Tour of the Artist's Career with Gary Oldman as Guide

Although next week will mark the late David Bowie's 72nd birthday, his fans and admirers are the ones receiving a gift in the form of an augmented reality app that explores the artist's careerAvailable for $7.99 on the App Store and Google Play on January 8, "David Bowie Is" packs a virtual recreation of the eponymous touring exhibit, which has drawn two million visitors in 12 cities to date.The app is collaboration between the David Bowie Archive and Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc., and consists of more than 20 virtual galleries exploring the various eras and aspects of Bowie's career, spanning from his childhood influences to his final album, Blackstar, with stops at milestones such as his hit song "Space Oddity" and the "Ziggy Stardust" tour along the way.

University of Washington Researchers Demo Ability to Generate 3D Augmented Reality Content from 2D Images

After joining Google and Huawei in underwriting the UW Reality Lab at the University of Washington in January, it appears Facebook is already seeing a return on its donation.According to results published earlier this month through Cornell University's arXiv service in a paper titled, "Photo Wake-Up: 3D Character Animation from a Single Photo," a team of Facebook and University of Washington researchers have developed a method of generating animated 3D models in augmented reality using only a photograph.