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Good morning!
We're looking forward to hosting the next XR Jobs Office Hours this Thursday (September 24), at 12pm ET - RSVP now to join us for a conversation and Q&A with leaders from Google, HUGE and the WXR Fund.
Thursday is also the first day of the next Virtual Production online intensive, so please register asap if you're hoping to grab one of the last remaining seats for that course. If you're interested in the upcoming Human-Centered Design course in October, sign up this week to take advantage of early bird pricing, which ends next Monday, September 28.
This week's Facebook Connect event gave us a lot to chew on. As we await the launch of Oculus Quest 2 on October 13, we check out the HMD's mighty specs and software suite (impressively, the $299 headset's display per eye resolution beats Valve Index's 1440x1600 LCD). We also got some insight into Facebook's AR trajectory with VP of AR and VR Andrew Bosworth, including how the company is addressing privacy concerns associated with Project Aria, which will send 100 testers out into Seattle and the Bay Area with prototype AR glasses. In other news, ILM is building more virtual production sets around the world, Unity had a big debut on the NYSE, and the iOS 14 public beta includes a surprise for AirPods Pro users - spatial audio that adjusts based on your head movements.
Enjoy the newsletter!
- the RLab team
We're always working to improve this newsletter - let us know how we're doing and send tips, feedback or questions to info@rlab.nyc.
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MUST-READS
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| Oculus Quest 2 delivers standalone VR with sharper 90Hz screens for $299
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It's hard to believe it hasn't been longer, but the original Quest debuted less than a year and a half ago with a starting price of $399. Since then, Quest users have spent over $150M on apps and games, with 35 Quest games raking in over $1M - here's a breakdown captured from the keynote by Facebook Reality Labs' VP of Content Mike Verdu at this week's Facebook Connect.
The Quest 2 will hit stores October 13 for $299 (64 GB), but the reviews are already rolling in. Let's do a quick rundown of the specs.
- All software is backwards compatible, and the headset supports Link mode.
- The Quest 2 is ~70g lighter, and replaces OLED panels with a single 90 Hz LCD (1832×1920 per eye).
- While Quest housed Qualcomm's 2017 flagship chip, Snapdragon 835, Quest 2 sports the company's latest Snapdragon XR2 chip.
- Quest 2's software suite includes Oculus Move, a fitness tracker. We also learned from Facebook Connect that users will have access to Infinite Office, a collection of features focused on creating a personalized virtual office space.
UploadVR has an excellent spec piece that goes further into the strap and IPD adjustment options. They also have some nifty comparison tables.
7 min read
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| Facebook's Project Aria Is Test-Driving Tech for AR Glasses on Real-World People This Year |
Around 100 Facebook employees and contractors in Seattle and the Bay Area will be testing Facebook's Project Aria-based AR glasses. And we say "based" because Project Aria itself is not a pair of AR glasses, but an advanced sensor array for those glasses (Facebook will take incremental steps towards an AR glasses product and release smart glasses next year through a partnership with Ray-Ban). That sensor array is similar to what is used in a VR headset for spatial awareness. Facebook said the array would be able to compute "location from GPS, take high-res pictures, and capture multichannel audio and eye images."
The glasses the testers will be using will capture video, audio, eye movements, and location data, and use the data to refine LiveMaps, "a 3D map array for glasses to navigate through," which Slate describes in further detail here. The glasses will eventually sport an AI assistant as well. Of course, the biggest concerns are around privacy - which Facebook sought to address initially through a set of Principles for Responsible Innovation and open RFPs for research projects on privacy, accessibility, security and ethics.
CNET recently spoke with Facebook's VP of AR and VR, Andrew Bosworth, who said the testers have a responsibility to "make sure that [the device is] off where it would not be respectful, in prayer rooms, in bathrooms, the obvious places that you'd expect." In addition, all facial and license plate data is blurred before anyone actually sees the data. But Bosworth and his team have years to iron out privacy issues - they're not operating on a tight schedule. Like Zuckerberg (who recently told The Verge that "AR is just going to be a lot harder [than VR]"), he sees the glasses industry maturing in a decade or so, not one or two years:
"It's all a challenge. Let's imagine we could get ahead of all the negative externalities that are possible ... You've still got tremendous technological challenges in terms of the wireless performance into your pocket or into a bag: the thermal dissipation of the computer you have to have either on the headset or uploaded in the headset; the battery life; all fit inside of a thing that's small enough to be lightweight to wear for a long time to be socially acceptable."
8 min read |
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| Industrial Light & Magic Expands Virtual Production Services, Supports 'Thor 4' |
It's no surprise that with the success of ILM's virtual production technique (The Mandalorian was nominated for 15 Emmys, winning five), the VFX studio is expanding its virtual production services - including providing effects for 2022's Thor: Love and Thunder. In addition to the existing StageCraft LED set at Manhattan Beach Studios, ILM will be building a second set at the same location, as well as "volumes" (motion capture and compositing spaces) at Pinewood Studios in London and Fox Studios Australia. "According to the company, the newest stages are larger, use more LED panels than ILM's original stage and offer higher resolution."
VFX artists interested in virtual production can check out ILM's Jedi Academy, a global talent development initiative that's part of the company's larger Diversity & Inclusion efforts. The paid internship offers apprenticeships with ILM mentors: "The program is intended to fill roles across the virtual production and VFX pipeline with those from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds; ILM has posted expressions of interests for jobs across the spectrum, from virtual art department teams and production management to engineering and artist roles." Learn more about the program here.
2 min read |
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| Apple's new spatial audio feature is a headphone game-changer |
Apple quietly rolled out spatial audio in the latest firmware update for the AirPods Pro. According to Engadget, when spatial audio is switched on, the earbuds' accelerometer will track your head movement so the audio stays fixed even when you turn your head. CNET editor David Carnoy writes: "It's hard to describe the sensation but my immediate reaction was to check whether the earbuds were actually on because the audio sounded like it was coming from the phone (not the buds), which was sitting on the table about two feet away from me. It was an out-of-bud experience."
The only way to currently try it is to download the iOS 14 public beta... and you'll need to update the firmware - Tom's Guide describes a little trick you can do to "force" the update.
1 min read |
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| MUST-SEE |
MARS Studio is a new XR art and virtual production studio in London. They've already done work with Ellie Goulding and are working on an upcoming project with Rina Sawayama, but our focus this week is their stunning virtual recreation of 1942 painting Nighthawks, transforming BBC art historian Dr. James Fox's analysis of the piece into an immersive, almost investigative, experience.
"In Masterpiece the 3D representation of Hopper's painting was created as carefully extracted 3D geometry with detailed layers of texturing added; partly handmade, partly AI-generated, that would resemble the brush strokes and fine crafting of Edward Hopper's unique painting style. Finally, the 3D scene was imported into the game engine Unreal Engine and rendered in real-time based on the position of the physical film camera on the MARS stage."
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| COMMUNITY NEWS |
Virti (RLab Accelerator Fall '19) is now being used in schools and universities across Britain and in the US, as featured in the Telegraph. After retraining more than 15,000 NHS nurses, doctors, cleaners and porters to help instruct them on how to deal with coronavirus cases, the startup expanded into education to enable socially distanced learning.
n*gram health (RLab Accelerator Spring '20) CEO and co-founder Maor Cohen wrote about healthcare innovation, COVID-19 and the future of the gig economy for Forbes.
IL3X (RLab Accelerator Spring '20) and their recent AR fashion collaboration with Missoni was featured in an article on digital fashion trends by Italy's Fashion Technology Accelerator.
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| TWEET OF THE WEEK |
Unity went public this Friday, raising $1.3B at $52 per share. The company gathered its 3,379 employees for a virtual 3D bellringing - a first for the NYSE. According to VentureBeat, "John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity, said in a presentation before the IPO that the company referred to the event as a UPO, where Unity's own management team chose who got the initial allotment of the shares, rather than the investment bankers choosing the investors. The departure from the usual practice of an IPO was to be data-driven and select the investors that Unity wanted to partner with and find people who wanted to hold on to the stock for the longer term."
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TECH TALK
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Last December, Google introduced Depth API for ARCore, which allowed developers to create depth maps with a single camera and add features like occlusion, realistic physics, and particle effects to their apps. To abstract some of the complexity involved in dealing with raw depth data, Google researchers have released Depth Lab (GitHub page), a set of Depth API samples "that provide assets using depth for advanced geometry-aware features in AR interaction and rendering." Google also released a Depth Lab app showcasing samples like snow and rain effects, occlusion, physics, and more.
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| EVENTS & OPPORTUNITIES |
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UPCOMING CLASSES AT RLAB
Online Intensive: Virtual Production
September 24 - October 10
Learn virtual production tools and techniques for remote multi-user collaboration and content creation in the Unreal Engine. This two-week online intensive is designed to help digital filmmakers, directors, producers and other creators address remote production challenges and develop the skills and processes that are most relevant to their projects and pipelines. Register Here.
Online Intensive: Human Centered-Design for AR & VR
October 9-25
Learn a human-centered design approach for creating experiences across the mixed reality spectrum. Create your own WebVR, WebAR, social AR and spatial computing experiences in this flexible, two-week online intensive, which combines learn-at-your-own-pace video lectures, workshops, instructor office hours and group webinars. Register Here. Early bird pricing ends September 28. |
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Course: XR Academy Program
September 21 - November 3
Lehman College's intensive online 6-week program will introduce you to the core fundamentals of Unity that are essential for developing 2D apps, 3D apps or XR apps.
Workshop: Introduction to Unity Platform
September 21 - 24
Lehman College's 12-hour course covering Unity's interface, asset store and customization features, with a focus on VR projects.
Event: AWE Nite NYC
September 22, 7-8PM
Monthly online meetup for AR enthusiasts features talks, demos and networking.
Event: NewImages Festival
September 23-27
Festival dedicated to digital creation and virtual worlds, organized by Forum des images in Paris and online. 30% discount with coupon code NIF2020_rlab-30
Event: XR Jobs Office Hours
September 24, 12-1PM
Monthly office hours hosted by RLab featuring a panel and Q&A on jobs in XR. This month's topic is: Where are the jobs?
Event: NYC Media Lab Summit 2020
October 7-9
1,000+ media and tech executives, university faculty, students, investors, and entrepreneurs come together virtually to explore the future of media and tech in New York City and beyond.
Event: Unity for Humanity Summit
October 21
Free, one-day online event focused on harnessing real-time 3D technology to power social impact and real-world change.
Opportunity: Pioneer Works 2021 Residency
Deadline: September 30
Open call for applications for 3-month Tech Residency program for artists and technologists working in emerging technologies, including mixed reality, robotics, and AI.
Opportunity: The Great AR/VR Challenge
Deadline: October 3
From echoAR (RLab Beta Summer '19) and TOHacks, a virtual 3-week challenge where teams of students and young entrepreneurs will collaborate with industry professionals to develop AR/VR-based solutions.
Opportunity: Techstars Anywhere
Deadline: October 11
While anyone from anywhere building anything can apply to Techstars' remote program, they're specifically looking for founders building products and services catalyzed by a remote-first world.
Opportunity: Kaleidoscope Grants
Deadline: October 30
Grants for projects in development include Activist Lens for documentary projects, Femme Futures for female artists, and more. Note: all grants are now awarded quarterly, except for Black Realities for projects by Black artists, which is awarded monthly.
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| OTHER NEWS |
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The New York Times and Facebook Launch Multi-Year Augmented Reality Reporting Project
We're Closer to Holographic Meetings Than You Think
Would You Spend $10,000 on a Virtual Dress? Gucci Is Betting on It
Zoom Fatigue and the New Ways to Party
Will Facebook Horizon be the first step toward the metaverse? |
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