Monday’s announcement arrives on the heels of Meta prompting Quest users to confirm their age so it can provide teens and preteens with appropriate experiences.
Meta said it will launch it first in the 20 markets where it already supports Quest for Business, Meta’s workplace-focused $14.99/month subscription.
It’s not clear how ubiquitous VR use is in schools: one provider, ClassVR, claims that 40,000 classrooms worldwide are using its products.
And another big question mark will relate to the cost of buying headsets — Quest 3’s, the latest headsets, start at around $500 apiece for basic models — buying apps and then subsequently supporting all of that infrastructure.
Meta said that it has already donated Quest headsets to 15 universities in the U.S., but it’s not clear how far it will go to subsidise growth longer-term.
A few months after its launch, how is Apple’s Vision Pro faring?
I am a long-term bull on augmented reality, virtual reality, and face-computers in general.
So it is to my partial chagrin that the hype around the Apple Vision Pro has faded more rapidly than I anticipated.
But I anticipated the Apple brand to keep the hardware in the news — and atop our collective minds — longer than it managed after its launch.
I find it archaic that my monitors are akin to digital chalkboards when they should be built into my glasses.
Now, it appears Meta is using its Quest VR store to demonstrate how it thinks devices with app stores should approach online age verification.
Since it’s easy to lie about someone’s age when entering only a birthdate, Meta says it’ll require people who accidentally enter a wrong birthdate to verify with an ID or credit card.
Meta has previously told developers that, starting in March 2024, it will require them to identify their app’s intended age group (preteens, teens or adults).
It also announced the launch of its user age group APIs, which officially launched last month.
Meta first added parental supervision tools to its VR headset in 2022.
In May 2019, Ultrahaptics and Leap Motion became Ultraleap (not to be confused with Magic Leap, which operates in the same space).
“I think it’s a long-term vision for XR,” Carter said of the deal.
Founded by a pair of University of Bristol students three years after Leap Motion, Ultrahaptics harnesses ultrasound waves to create tactile feedback.
Much like the earlier Leap Motion product, it would be possible to mount a device to the front of the visor, but directionality is important.
The Leap Motion tech determines your hands’ orientation in space, while haptics provide tactile feedback when you come into contact with the virtual object.
PlayStation VR often gets overlooked in conversations about mixed reality.
The Japanese electronics giant this week confirmed plans to give the PS VR2 a new lease on life, as it has begun testing PC compatibility.
Content has always been an issue for mixed reality, but opening up the headset to Windows titles would suddenly bring in a flood of new experiences overnight.
PlayStation exclusivity is likely a big part of the reason PS VR often doesn’t feel like a part of the broader mixed reality conversation.
Opening up to PC titles will certainly help PS VR on both of those fronts.
On the agenda for this edition is Disney’s innovative VR treadmill, OpenAI fixing its “lazy” AI and MIT’s high-capacity, fast-charging organic battery tech.
We also cover Apple’s new stolen device protection feature, AI startup Rabbit’s nifty hardware and app makers debating launching apps tailor-made for Apple’s Vision Pro headset.
Apple’s new device protection: Romain writes about Apple’s new stolen device protection feature, which, when turned on, requires Face ID or Touch ID biometric authentication for some actions, like accessing stored passwords and credit cards.
Vision Pro apps a maybe: After Netflix said it wouldn’t release a dedicated app for the Apple Vision Pro, other app makers, including YouTube, are following in its footsteps.
Bonus roundLamborghini licenses MIT battery tech: Writing for TechCrunch+, Tim reports that Lamborghini has licensed new battery tech from MIT that could overcome the limitations of the lithium-ion batteries in wide use today.
Wizards of the Coast and Resolution Games have announced their collaboration to bring Dungeons & Dragons to virtual reality.
The franchise also made a splash this year with a Hollywood film and the hugely successful Baldur’s Gate III, a video game that licenses Dungeons & Dragons IP.
— but it continues Wizards’ trend of bringing Dungeons & Dragons away from the table and into digital media.
It’s also not clear whether this is a platform for players to connect with their friends to play D&D through VR, or if they’re telling a whole new story, like the “Honor Among Thieves” film.
It’s common for people to use platforms like Foundry and Roll20 to play D&D with non-local friends, and Baldur’s Gate was a hit, but… are we really trying to eldritch blast our enemies in VR?
Apple’s Vision Pro launch resembles its Apple Watch debut in more ways than one, but to me the most telling similarity is in the marketing approach.
The company took the same approach with the Apple Watch, which like its face computer cousin, was more or less a solution in search of a problem when it originally debuted.
But the iPhone debuted with a much more focused, and much more accurate idea of what it would become for users than the Apple Watch did.
The Vision Pro, I’d argue, is even more adrift from how and why people will come to appreciate it.
It’s terrible at a lot of other things – chief among them being the next big thing in the vein of personal computing or mobile.
I’ll never forget trying out an early version of the virtual reality treadmill in a hotel suite many E3s ago.
The system, which features a concave platform and slippery shoes, was clever enough to influence Ready Player One’s take on the space.
HoloTile — which recently made its YouTube debut at the end of a video honoring Disney Research fellow, Larry Smoot – is an extremely clever and honestly quite elegant solution to some of these issues.
“I can walk on this omni directional floor in any direction I want,” Smoot says in the video.
If it’s going to see the light of day, it seems likely that it will be as part of a Disney Parks VR experience.
Welcome to the TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter.
I would be lying if I said that mixed reality and generative AI were two of my favorite things.
And yet, a Christmas Day TV special made me unexpectedly bullish about them.
— AnnaVersailles 400I am not an early adopter of the metaverse.
But I am ready for things to change in 2024, with new mixed-reality experiences that cater to people like me.
