The full Halo: Combat Evolved campaign is now playable via PC VR. Available to download via GitHub, this Halo: Combat Evolved VR mod lets you experience the entire campaign with full 6DOF motion controls, a two-handed aiming mode for weapons, rebindable controllers, and more.

Today's VR technology primarily engages sight and hearing, with touch incorporated to a lesser degree through haptic controllers or vests. In contrast, the simulation of smell and taste remains largely unexplored and the focus of ongoing research.

A group of researchers has unveiled a device the size and shape of a lollipop that produces nine different flavors: sugar, salt, citric acid, cherry, passion fruit, green tea, milk, durian, and grapefruit. By combining this with a visual illusion in virtual reality, the researchers hope to trick the brain successfully into thinking it is tasting the real thing.

The flavors are produced by chemicals embedded in a pocket of agarose gel, writes IEEE Spectrum. When a voltage is applied to the gel, the chemicals are transported to the surface in a liquid that then mixes with saliva on the tongue, just like a real lollipop. If the voltage is increased, the taste gets stronger.

Vision Pro users know that immersive video is one of the platform’s strengths, but content has been relatively scarce. Apple is reportedly working on a big project to change that: upgrading a popular sports stadium with the tech necessary for live streaming games in immersive video on Vision Pro. Negotiations could enable Apple to live stream sports in immersive video Apple’s Vision Pro provides a variety of unique experiences you can’t get on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. But one of the most impressive is immersive video, and it’s especially eye-opening with sports. The problem, as of now, is that there is very little sports content available in immersive video. And what’s there is never live, only short highlight reels released months after the fact.

Apparently Apple has a solution for that: building advanced tech into a popular stadium’s ongoing upgrades. As reported by Marca, Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez shed light on the ongoing negotiations the club is having with Apple. Real Madrid’s famous Santiago Bernabéu stadium is in the midst of a costly transformation, and Pérez recently addressed the issue of the stadium regularly running out of capacity. The solution: live immersive video streams for Vision Pro. Here’s Pérez’s translated quote: Everyone wants to come to the Santiago Bernabéu, and that’s why we are negotiating with Apple to be able to wear glasses and watch the match as if you were at the stadium. It would be the Infinite Santiago Bernebéu. Understandably, Pérez doesn’t go into detail about the technical specifics of what’s being discussed with Apple. But based on what he does say, it’s clear that live immersive video for Vision Pro users is in mind.

The US Environmental Protection Agency released a big report yesterday, the 50th annual Automotive Trends Report. This report analyzed fuel economy improvements in the US (focusing on 2023 model year vehicles), and it found that, thanks to policies pushing for better and better fuel economy, the country saw its best vehicle fuel economy in history and the lowest greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles in history as well. But, of course, that’s to be expected. Automobiles should be improving, we should be buying more and more full electric and plugin vehicles (which provide much better fuel economy), and the industry should be focused on cutting emissions. It’s good that there’s progress, but we could certainly do more.

The problem is that we’ve had swings back and forth in the level of fuel economy requirements — Democrats get into power and the fuel economy standards go up, Republicans get into power and they go down, Democrats get into power again and the y go up, Republicans get into power again and they go down. (It’s just one reason of many I don’t want to hear “both parties are the same” nonsense ever again.) The fact is that we have relatively weak requirements, much weaker than China or Europe. Even when Democrats are in power, they are heavily lobbied, pressured, and challenged in various ways (including the courts) to not make the fuel economy requirements too hard.

Frankly, the next piece of good news from the EPA on this matter actually tells me that the requirements aren’t strict enough. “The report also shows that all 14 large automotive manufacturers are in compliance with EPA’s light-duty GHG program requirements through the MY 2023 reporting period,” the EPA writes. If all 14 of these auto manufacturers are in compliance, fine, that’s a good thing, but it probably also means the requirements are too easy to hit.

Anyway, the good news is that we are seeing lower greenhouse gas emissions due to the vehicle fleet getting more and more efficient. “Today, the new MY 2023 electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on the road have led to 11% lower CO2 emissions.” However, the EPA itself says this really isn’t enough and we have a long ways to go. “Despite these significant improvements in local air pollution that have benefited Americans, passenger cars and light trucks still accounted for nearly 17% of total US GHG emissions in 2022, indicating the importance of further reductions in GHG emissions and improvements in fuel economy.”

Playstation VR 2 is currently reduced to $350, with or without Sony's big VR exclusive Horizon Call of the Mountain. Previously, the device cost up to $600.

Thanks to this big discount, Sony's VR headset is now priced between Quest 3S ($300) and Quest 3 ($500).

Does this make it a viable alternative to the Quest 3 family of headsets? It depends on what you're looking for in a VR headset.

Buy Playstation VR 2 or Quest 3(S)?

First things first: Playstation VR 2 requires a PS 5 (Pro) or gaming PC if you want to access VR games on Steam. Quest 3(S), on the other hand, is a standalone device with all the technology built in. If you want to use PSVR 2 on your PC, you will also need to purchase Sony's PC adapter for $50 and, and in many cases, a Bluetooth adapter to connect the PSVR 2 controllers to your PC.

Another important point that will probably play a role for you: The Playstation VR 2 is tethered to the PS5 or PC, which limits your freedom of movement while playing. This means that the headset cannot easily be used in another room or taken to a friend's house. Meta Quest, on the other hand, has no cables, and you can even play wirelessly on a PC.

Another selling point for Quest 3(S) is its support for mixed reality and hand tracking, two technologies that are changing the way headsets are used, and immersive gaming is experienced. The Playstation VR 2 offers nothing comparable. Another important point that will probably play a role for you: The Playstation VR 2 is tethered to the PS5 or PC, which limits your freedom of movement while playing. This means that the headset cannot easily be used in another room or taken to a friend's house. Meta Quest, on the other hand, has no cables, and you can even play wirelessly on a PC.

Another selling point for Quest 3(S) is its support for mixed reality and hand tracking, two technologies that are changing the way headsets are used, and immersive gaming is experienced. The Playstation VR 2 offers nothing comparable.

Models of Valve Deckard's 'Roy' controllers have been discovered in SteamVR driver files, revealing their design and inputs. Code references to Valve 'Roy' controllers were first discovered earlier this month by XR enthusiast Brad Lynch's Discord group of SteamVR dataminers. This code revealed that the controllers would include bumpers and a D-pad to be able to act as a gamepad for flatscreen gaming.

Now, the same group have discovered 3D models of Roy, revealing its design and confirming the inclusion of bumpers and a D-pad, as well as thumbsticks, buttons, index triggers, grip triggers, and system buttons.

Roy is almost certainly a reference to the antagonist of the movie Blade Runner, matching the apparent codename of the headset, Deckard, the protagonist.

The latest version of the Roy controller models show a ringless design, but the dataminers also discovered earlier versions with rings that resemble the original Oculus Quest controllers. These earlier designs seemingly first appeared in a 2022 Valve patent.

The findings suggest Valve is finally getting close to launching its next headset, almost six years after the release of Index. But what kind of headset will Deckard be?

Five years after its initial launch, Real VR Fishing is heading to Steam next month.

Developed by Devs United Games, Real VR Fishing is bringing the arcade fishing game to Valve's storefront on December 6 with "the same pricing policy and gameplay" as on Quest. The studio states it's supporting multiple VR headsets on Steam, including Quest 2 and the Quest 3 family, Rift, HTC Vive, and Valve Index.

Varjo Teleport launches today. The service costs $30 per month and is available for both professional and individual users.

Teleport digitizes rooms or outdoor locations so that they can be explored with a PC VR headset. The locations are first scanned with a smartphone. Teleport then reconstructs the scene with accurate lighting, shading, textures, and reflections using Gaussian Splatting.

Varjo headsets and other OpenXR-based PC VR devices are supported. Alternatively, the digital duplicates can be viewed on a smartphone or PC monitor.

You can sign up for the service on the official website.

Bigscreen Beyond, the slim and light PC VR headset released late last year, is getting its first ever Black Friday deal. Starting this week, you can nab a free Audio Strap with purchase.

Bigscreen Beyond is small, partly because it relies on the SteamVR tracking ecosystem and doesn’t need inside-out tracking sensors, and partly because it includes dual 2,560 × 2,560 micro-OLED displays, which are paired with space (and weight) saving pancake lenses.

In fact, it’s so light, it weighs in at just a few grams less than the optional Audio Strap itself: 127g Beyond, 160g Audio Strap.

I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Shocked to learn that dealers are ignoring Volkswagen's now-former CEO's strongly-worded caution for dealerships not to add additional dealer markup the already expensive ID Buzz.

Okay, well, maybe not that shocked. But it's happening—dealerships are doubling down on Volkswagen's egregiously-priced electric people hauler by adding markups as high as $15,000, effectively locking out consumers who were already stretched thin on their budget following the German automaker's surprisingly high price announcement earlier this year.

As Soundscape recently announced, the immersive VR concert experience featuring deadmau5 is now available for free on YouTube. The one-hour concert film features the complete audiovisual performance that originally premiered exclusively on Soundscape's VR and PC platform in May 2024.

According to Eric Alexander, creator of Soundscape, the release on YouTube is intended to bring the concert experience to a wider audience. "This release allows anyone with an internet connection to enjoy the groundbreaking combination of music and technology," says Alexander.

The performance uses Unreal Engine 5 and proprietary technologies such as Soundscape's "Sonic AI" transformation system. The concert has already been nominated for five international XR Awards for its technical innovations.

Soundscape has already announced its next major collaboration for 2025: A collaborative project with DJs Chris Lake and Fisher is in the works.

By Grit Alone is simultaneously one of the best experiences I've had in a VR horror game, and one of the most in dire need of a final polish pass. The earnest creativity on display is so endearing that I can't help but fall in love, but I also recognize that some will be frustrated. By Grit Alone lives up to its name, feeling like a Herculean effort by a small team trying their utmost to deliver on a unique sci-fi horror that might one day stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of iconic classics like its primary inspiration, Dead Space. That is, if they ever get the balancing right.

By Grit Alone puts you in the shoes of a nameless passenger aboard a cryo transport. Waking up early due to a hazardous crash in an anomalous region of space that defies logical explanation, you're thrust into danger from the get-go. You're essentially trapped in a space-equivalent Bermuda Triangle, and you're here with some really twisted neighbors. Before you get a chance to meet them, you're dodging malfunctioning equipment and blowing up debris, only to suddenly be attacked by insectoid aliens deeply keen on removing your brain from your body. It's quite a wake-up call, and that's before we get to the gothic cathedral ship straight out of Warhammer 40k, an alien infested day spa, and a mad AI that may or may not be working in your best interest.

I don't make the positive Dead Space comparison lightly. Besides the obvious bona fides, like Dead Space (2008) scribe Antony Johnston himself co-writing alongside Emma Beeby, there's so much evident inspiration. Every weapon has dual-purposes, whether it's your ammo doubling as grenades, or your blaster serving as a modular shotgun/marksman rifle that changes firing mode based on if it's held in two hands or one. There are sections where you have to think like an engineer, manipulating ship subsystems to survive while hordes of enemies and other hazards encroach around you. Developer Crooks Peaks even translated the stomp attack over, and yes, it works on more than just the enemy.

Despite several new EV models facing delays, Volkswagen’s cheapest model yet, the ID.2, is still on track to launch. The company confirmed the entry-level EV will launch as early as late 2025, marking a new “starting point” for the German auto giant. Volkswagen unveiled the ID.2all concept last March, a new entry-level EV that will start under $27,000 (€25,000).

Volkswagen’s ID.2 will be the first EV based on its new MEB Entry Platform, while the SUV will follow. The ID.2all concept features up to 279 miles range (450 km).

The company describes the entry-level EV as “as spacious as a Golf” yet “as inexpensive as a Polo.” Although smaller than the Polo, it includes more interior space thanks to an extended wheelbase.

Augmented World Expo (AWE) isn’t just one of the longest-running conferences focused on immersive tech, it’s also become the most important annual XR conference on our calendar.

In the early days there were many industry conferences that had a significant draw for the pioneers of XR’s modern epoch. There were XR pockets within big tech conferences like CES, GDC, and E3. There were company-specific events like Oculus Connect and Unity’s Vision Summit. And there were early grass-roots events like SVVR, VRLA, and a host of local meetups across the globe that built lasting networks of XR believers.

While many of these events have since faded, the connections they fostered have not. More than any other XR conference that I’ve attended, AWE USA feels like the event that has absorbed the spirit of those early conferences.

Since I started attending AWE USA in 2018, the conference has only grown and offered increasingly more interesting and valuable sessions, exhibitors, and networking. It has steadily evolved into what I consider the must-go event for the XR industry. Despite its scale, it carries the torch of passion that ignited the XR space back when it was little more than kickstarters, meetups, and those crazy enough to believe that immersive tech was not only possible to build, but worth building.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 provides players with a virtual reality recreation of Earth that offers a sense of unmatched realism. Despite initial launch setbacks, the game promises thrilling aviation adventures and limitless exploration.

Beyond the game's familiar focus on aerial navigation, the 2024 release of Flight Simulator allows players to land and explore on foot, enhancing the game's depth. There are still severe mapping imperfections at street level, but the ongoing improvements to this 3D mapping tech conjure up dreams of a future iteration of Flight Simulator where one day we hopefully get to exit our aircraft and walk among much higher detailed streets in any city across the globe. It's going to be a while before we see that level of realism, though, so don’t hold your breath on this type of detail appearing any time soon in games like this one.

With DLSS aiding performance for those players equipped with an RTX series NVIDIA GPU, maintaining the game's level of detail still requires significant computing power. The heft of this game sometimes stresses even high-end systems when flying in densely populated areas, so to experience the game at the highest visual fidelity and frame rates, a powerful PC is essential.

Running the game on a rig with the specs listed above, I still faced performance challenges in busy airspace when the game's VR graphics settings were dialed up to ultra. The sheer complexity and demands of this simulation reveal the need for some serious hardware, so if you don’t have a powerful PC, I wouldn’t recommend going above the low setting. Even though it might make the image quality suffer further, you might want to consider turning off any antialiasing options in the game. Performance will likely improve with updates, as it did with the 2020 version of the game, but until then, those without a top-end gaming rig will need to dial things back a bit.

Ultimately, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is more than just a game, it's an invitation for new generations of virtual pilots to chase their childhood dreams across an ever-expanding virtual world.

Pico 4 Ultra comes with Pico Motion Trackers, three games, and one month of VRChat Plus in ByteDance's Black Friday deal. Those three games are Blade & Sorcery: Nomad, Pistol Whip, and Synth Riders, and the deal ends after December 2. Pico Motion Trackers, normally €90/£80, strap to your ankles to add leg tracking in supported titles, which includes Blade & Sorcery: Nomad and VRChat. They're an accessory Meta says it won't follow unless they turn out to be a massive success. The deal is available everywhere Pico 4 Ultra is sold, which still doesn't include North America.

For those in regions it is sold, ByteDance pitches Pico 4 Ultra as a higher-end alternative to Meta Quest 3, with 4GB more RAM and higher resolution passthrough, as well as faster charging and longer battery life. In our hands-on impressions we found it to be a comfortable headset with passthrough that is better in some ways than Quest 3, but worse in others, that's held back by lenses that are better than Quest 3S but worse than Quest 3. On the content side though, ByteDance is focusing far less on VR gaming now than it did with Pico 4, having canceled a Beat Saber competitor, handed off its would-be exclusive Just Dance VR to Meta, and not announcing any major exclusive titles. You'll find a decent percentage of Quest games on the Pico Store, sure, but what you won't find is just as notable. ByteDance's new focus appears to be making Pico OS a competitive spatial computing platform, and it's reportedly working on an Apple Vision Pro competitor. Still, this Black Friday deal offers great value for those already considering Pico 4 Ultra, and the leg tracking provided by Pico Motion Trackers is something you simply won't find on Meta's standalone platform.

VR manufacturer Pimax unveiled a number of updates and product announcements at its latest keynote. These included the final specifications and design of the new Crystal Super VR headset. According to Pimax, the Crystal Super achieves a retina-level resolution of 57 pixels per degree (PPD) and should therefore offer unsurpassed clarity.

Specs of the Pimax Crystal Super

The key data of the Pimax Crystal Super at a glance:

3840 × 3840 pixels per eye in the QLED version 120° horizontal field of view Aspherical glass lenses with 99% light transmission and 280 nits brightness Local Dimming 2.0 with 1000 zones per eye for high contrasts Integrated eye tracking and inside-out tracking Controllers are included in the scope of delivery Pimax Play offers features such as dynamic foveated rendering and upscaling Interchangeable optical engines, either Micro-OLED or 50 PPD QLED

The Crystal Super has been optimized in size and weight compared to its predecessors, the Crystal, and Crystal Light. The housing volume has been reduced by almost 30% and the ergonomics have been improved for greater comfort.

Thanks to Dynamic Foveated Rendering and upscaling, the VR headset should also run smoothly on mid-range PCs. According to Pimax, the high pixel density makes it possible to reduce anti-aliasing and thus save system resources.

Pimax is also lowering the entry price of the Crystal Super to $1,695. When the Crystal Super was announced in April, the VR manufacturer set the price at $1,799.

A new financing model is designed to make the purchase decision easier: You pay $999 upfront and then either $696 as a one-time payment or 24 monthly instalments of $32.99 each as part of the new Pimax Prime membership.

Almost four years after the original PS5 was released, the higher-end PlayStation 5 Pro is here with a mid-generation upgrade. Available now from $700, the PS5 Pro features a 2TB SSD, a 45% more powerful GPU with 2-3x faster ray tracing and PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) - which doesn't support PS VR2 at launch but will in a future update - which is a neural upscaling technology similar to NVIDIA's DLSS.

This should allow developers to run PS VR2 games at a higher framerate or refresh rate. Sony only confirmed two PS VR2 games would have a PS5 Pro patch at launch, and more are continuing to emerge. We've also highlighted any upcoming games with confirmed PS5 Pro support. However, we've excluded games without dedicated enhancements that still have minor performance improvements.

Two additional games with PS VR2 support - Resident Evil 4 Remake and Resident Evil Village - have PS5 Pro patches, though it's currently unclear if these performance benefits are only for the flatscreen editions or if they extend to PlayStation VR2 as well. We've contacted Capcom for clarification but until we know more, we've left them off the list. For now, here's a list of PlayStation VR2 games with PS5 Pro enhancements that we're currently aware of.

Now that we have combined the EV groups. It would be nice if we could update the graphics for this community. It is a bit plain right now. Not sure if we have any artist that would like to help out.