In a hotel opposite Central Park, my 10-year-old son Alex and I are sitting in a room full of cardboard, and the man who dreamed it all up is in the middle of it. Nintendo invited both me and my son to interview Tsubasa Sakaguchi, the Director and Software Lead for Nintendo Labo, including the …
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Nintendo’s late entry to the world of VR is finally here. Yes, it’s made of cardboard. Yes, it’s weird. But the ideas inside are probably unlike anything else you’ve tried before. It’s impossible not to think of Google Cardboard when putting together Nintendo’s Labo VR Kit construction set, which I did over the last week with my 10- and 6-year-old …
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I see a floating walkway through the opened door of my spacecraft. I pause a moment to get my bearings, then — WHOOSH — I’m hit with the bright light and heat of boiling lava a few feet away. Stormtroopers stand to my right, blaster rifles in hand in case things get messy. Three other people and I had been …
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Valve is known for making hit shooting games like Half-Life and Portal, and the battle strategy game Dota 2. It runs the popular Steam online game store. It’s pioneered new virtual reality technology. Now Valve appears to be building a headset too. Enlarge Image Valve quietly announced its new Index headset last Friday. Screenshot by CNET The Bellevue, Washington, game …
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What’s the price of great standalone VR? Facebook says it’s $399. HTC says it’s $799. HTC has revealed the price and release date of its newest self-contained VR headset, the Vive Focus Plus, and it’s considerably more expensive than the also-soon-to-arrive Oculus Quest. The Vive Focus Plus arrives April 15, HTC announced Monday at its Vive Ecosystem Conference in Shenzhen, China. …
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A Microsoft patent application published Thursday (and initially filed in 2017) shows a freaky-looking reinterpretation of a mixed-reality head-mounted display. Rather than using fixed screens in front of your eyes, which can limit the field of view, the screens could rotate, orbit your head or move back and forth to simulate a 360-degree field of view in any direction without …
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Virtual reality headsets are going through a hardware evolution, slowly, with eye tracking, wireless connections, wider fields of view and higher resolutions. Companies are also catering their VR headsets to enterprise over consumer more now than they were a few years ago, when Oculus Rift and Vive were trying to win home crowds. The HP Reverb is a case in …
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There are just too many VR helmets and goggles out there — getting even one on your face is enough of a struggle. But Qualcomm’s new vision for its next generation of standalone VR headsets has a solution to that problem. Qualcomm is developing VR headsets that will work as wireless PC-connected, head-mounted displays. Hardware will start arriving later this …
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HTC’s Viveport Infinity unlimited subscription service could deliver a much-needed boost to the virtual reality scene. Subscriptions cost $13 a month, HTC announced Thursday, or you can prepay an entire year for $99. The service, which was announced at CES 2019 with the upcoming Vive Cosmos headset, allows subscribers to download any of the more than 600 games and apps currently available in the …
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On this podcast, we talk about: Virtual reality as a tool to build robots that stanch radioactivity leaks Samsung’s reported plans for yet more foldable phones First-person impressions of Captain Marvel The 3:59 gives you bite-size news and analysis about the top stories of the day, brought to you by the CNET News team in New York and producer Bryan …
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