Author name: Rejus Almole

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The Future Is Now: 2023 Metaverse and XR Predictions Worth Looking Into

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Recent technological advancements have pushed the envelope of what modern technologies are capable of. Furthermore, these innovations have greatly changed the way users interact with such technologies. Given that our technological advancements, consumer behavior, and tech trends continue to evolve at breakneck speed, being aware of metaverse and XR predictions can help you better prepare for the future.

Dispelling Common VR Myths and Misconceptions

Despite the relatively widespread acceptance and use of virtual reality technology, there are still some myths and misconceptions that surround it. Unfortunately, such beliefs stem from a misunderstanding of the technology and how it works. Some of the most common myths and misconceptions surrounding VR include the following: it always causes motion sickness and  virtual reality is solely applicable to games.

We talked with The Park Playground CEO Peter Vindevogel, who shared his thoughts on these myths and misconceptions, shedding light on virtual reality technology.

“Virtual reality is often perceived as being limited to the world of gaming. Although gaming is certainly a great use case and example of what immersive VR experiences can deliver, the possibilities are endless,” said Vindevogel.

He gave examples of some applications of VR that have nothing to do with gaming, such as house tours, and meetings.

“Virtual reality is transforming industries and has so much to offer in terms of exposing people to new experiences they otherwise wouldn’t be able to enjoy. Gaming is just one aspect of VR and tends to be individuals’ first tangible insight into the possibilities of the metaverse,” he adds.

According to Vindevogel, one of the most common misconceptions surrounding VR is that it causes motion sickness, which can prevent people from trying out new experiences. He adds that one of the main causes of motion sickness in VR experiences is poor latency.

“When a delay in latency occurs, your real and virtual movements no longer match, knocking the equilibrium out of balance and causing ‘cybersickness.’ The problem stems from, and is also alleviated by, the equipment being used to deploy the virtual reality experience and how those experiences are designed. It is very easy to induce motion sickness if you are not carefully taking this into consideration,” Vindevogel explained.

The good news is that with the wealth of knowledge and experiences available today, VR experiences are becoming increasingly inclusive. Furthermore, developments in the VR industry are improving existing technology. Thus, in the future, VR users are less likely to encounter such issues.

2023 Metaverse and XR Predictions That Could Shape the Future of Tech

1. More Widespread Use of VR for Location-Based Entertainment

According to Vindevogel, VR technology will continue to evolve and become more widely adopted. Thus, it’s likely that we will increasingly see the technology being used for location-based entertainment (LBE) in the coming years. That’s because VR is capable of creating such immersive, interactive, and social experiences.

“Overall, the future looks bright for VR as a technology that will continue to redefine entertainment and other industries. As VR technology improves and becomes more accessible, more brands and creators will explore and experiment with the potential of VR,” said Vindevogel. He pointed out that the location-based entertainment industry had seen steady and promising growth, and was expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.4% until 2028. 

Vindevogel adds that the growth of VR in the context of LBE is due in part to how VR and AR are capable of providing users with more exciting ways to bring their vision to life, making the technology suitable for visitor attractions. “It provides lifelines for theme parks and museums by reinvigorating the experience and eliminating potentially negative factors such as queues and crowds,” said The Park Playground CEO.

2. The Use of VR in the Field of Education

Vindevogel goes on to say that VR will be a useful tool in the field of education. According to him, the technology can be used for training and delivering first-hand experiences to learners.

“This is the first time in history where we are not only able to build muscle memory for these high-skilled and high-risk situations from anywhere in the world without much-specialized equipment but immersive experiences could offer a better way for students to retain and be excited learning about any subject,” he said.

3. More Accessible Developer Tools

VR solutions are becoming more popular in commercial settings and it’s expected that developing such solutions will become simpler in the coming years.

As pointed out in one of the Unity Developers’ blog posts, aside from the exponential rise of development businesses, we’re also seeing more developer tools, such as the Unity and Unreal engines, becoming more accessible. An iteration of Unreal Engine (Unreal Engine 5) is already being used to develop applications for a range of VR devices.

4. Growing Use of XR Devices in Enterprise Settings

It’s likely that we’ll see more XR devices being used in enterprise settings. This is already one of the metaverse and XR predictions that’s slowly becoming a reality. Thus, it’s probable that in 2023, we’ll be seeing more XR devices being used as workstations in the office.

And while they won’t be seen as replacements for your laptops, PCs, or even smartphones, these XR devices can augment their functionality, particularly for users who regularly engage in XR environments.

5. More XR Consumers and More XR Content

In an interview with Circuit Stream’s Dejan Gajsek, he shared that we’ve seen several major investments in immersive tech, particularly Meta. These investments are seen as foundations for future content and hardware, and with consumers purchasing more immersive tech hardware, it’s likely that we’ll be seeing more VR and AR content.

He goes on to share that the success of the Quest 2 will fuel interest in the new Quest 3, which should will be released in 2023.

According to Gajsek, “Anyone that decided to buy from the Oculus store or use Meta’s products essentially becomes a ’subscriber‘ in Meta’s user base. Once the base becomes big enough, the platform becomes extremely interesting for marketers and advertisers.” He expects Meta to continue pushing the narrative for VR.

Gajsek also believes that the gaming aspect of VR should expand. According to him, the launch of the VR add-on for the PlayStation VR 2 will likely expand the use of the PS5 console in the context of VR games. This, he thinks, will prompt the growth of the number of VR consumers.

6. Metaverse Tech Will Be Built and Used by a More Diverse Group of People

John Payne, CEO of Croquet, believes that metaverse technologies will be built and utilized by more diverse groups.

“Given the potential reach of metaverse technologies, it’s imperative that these technologies be built for people with a wide range of backgrounds and abilities,” he told us. “As solutions for identity in the metaverse become more varied, people will be able to express themselves safely in the way that feels most comfortable for them. Safety and anti-harassment tools will be built into platforms as they become more decentralized.”

He goes on to say that these metaverse platforms will become open to asynchronous content, as not all users can be found online at the same time. This could indicate that in the future, we will see the evolution of ghost avatars, rich notes, and other time-independent interactive content.

Payne also believes that metaverse will happen much faster than everyone thinks, by gaining traction via 3D worlds in traditional websites. “Millions of virtual 3D spaces and worlds embedded in the web interoperably with existing sites will collectively form a significant portion of the larger interoperable metaverse,” he said. “The metaverse is an evolution… the next generation of the Web… not a revolution.”

7. More Collaborations Among Key Metaverse Players

In the near future, it’s highly likely to see more big names in the tech industry coming together to create new solutions. These collaborations are also a result of the need to create an open and interoperable metaverse.

We’re already seeing key metaverse players coming together in the collaboration between Meta and Microsoft. To continue providing users with seamless software experiences and improved productivity and collaboration capabilities, Microsoft and Meta have teamed up to bring Mesh for Teams to Meta Quest headsets. Moreover, the two companies are looking at ways to incorporate Xbox Cloud Gaming into the Meta Quest Store. This is predicted to change the way gamers stream and interact with games across a variety of devices, including smartphones and the Meta Quest platform.

8. AR Apps to Increasingly Leverage AI Tech

To create more immersive virtual environments, AR applications must be able to collect a wealth of information about the user’s surroundings. Through the use of artificial intelligence, app developers can streamline how their program processes algorithms and data. Moreover, they can leverage AI to come up with more accurate results. Thus, it’s likely that we’ll see more AR apps making use of AI tech in the future.

“I believe the biggest breakthrough will come in e-commerce and merging technology with AI. There are Shopify widgets where you can ‘try’ a new pattern in your living room, or virtually place a piece of furniture,” shares Gajsek. “Consumers only have to click on buy, and the product is going to be delivered to their homes. AR will decrease the amount of friction when it comes to the buyer’s process and drive impulsive buys.”

Furthermore, Croquet’s Payne believes that AI will help speed up content creation. Tools like DALL-E and ChatGPT are becoming more widely available to more people. Furthermore, people are becoming more receptive to their use. Given that creating high-quality content can be a time-consuming endeavor, these AI tools will enable users to access a more cost-effective and faster way to create content.

9. Companies Will Offer More Immersive Experiences for Their Workforce

One of the significant metaverse and XR predictions will most likely impact the workplace. Aside from the increased use of XR devices in enterprise settings, it’s likely that we’ll see more companies offering immersive experiences to their employees.

According to a PwC report, businesses are likely to become “metaverse power users.” This is supported by a 2022 PwC survey, which shows that 42% of business leaders are planning to use the metaverse to provide onboarding and training for their employees. This is followed by 36% who shared that they’re planning to use the metaverse for interactions with colleagues, as well as for creating virtual content for their audience.

We’re already starting to see companies trying to recreate real-world activities in virtual worlds, including shared virtual workspaces and having access to collaboration and productivity tools. It’s also likely that businesses will expand their use of XR tech and the metaverse. For example, we may see more metaverse-specific interactions for customer service or digital recreations of physical establishments.

While nothing is set in stone yet, it’s probable that businesses that are unable to adapt to emerging tech trends may lose not only their competitive edge but also access to growth opportunities.

10. VR Will Become a Larger Part of Our Lives

According to Mesmerise CEO and co-founder Andrew Hawken, VR will play a larger and more sustained role in our lives, as other major tech companies are poised to introduce new wearable tech.

“Now that the rush of VR interest spurred by the pandemic has passed, we’ll enter a new era of sustained development and investment in the space. Just as the invention of the browser played a key role in the development of the internet, we expect a similar outcome as we embrace the metaverse’s role in operating as the interface of Web3,” Hawken told ARPost.“In 2023, we’ll see the fall of walled gardens as other players like Apple, Sony, and Magic Leap bring to market new headset iterations that advance spatial computing as a whole, and as a result, a slow upward trajectory of an optimized virtual reality experience.”

The Park Playground’s Vindevogel adds that virtual reality will increasingly grow to become a part of our daily lives.

“As the line between the digital and real world becomes increasingly blurred, virtual reality won’t just be simply putting on a headset to game with your friends – it will become a part of everyday life,” he said. “However, the level of immersion – whether it’s augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) or completely virtual – will depend on the situation.”

He cites some examples of how VR and AR can be used in our daily lives, such as when someone is trying on makeup to see how it suits them or when a homeowner takes a virtual tour of their future property, instead of just looking at pictures on a website.

“And while the metaverse presents itself as cartoonish and obviously augmented, we’re approaching a reality in which wearable headsets will replace screens, and video conferences will become much closer to  real-life situations,” said Vindevogel. Augmented, virtual, and mixed realities bring extra layers to the reality we’re already familiar with, so as time goes on, the digital world will blend more and more into our everyday lives.”

The Future Is Now: 2023 Metaverse and XR Predictions Worth Looking Into Read More »

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EU’s green tech funding plans divides bloc over global subsidy race

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The EU’s new green tech funding plan has sparked concerns about an escalating global subsidy race.

The initiative was launched in response to the US’ Inflation Reduction Act. The act provides $369 billion of subsidies for green technologies, largely through tax credits for products “made in America.”

The incentives have triggered fears that EU companies will be enticed to redirect investment and production to the US. Critics claim the measures amount to protectionism that violates existing trade agreements.

In response to the act, the EU this week unveiled the Green Deal Industrial Plan — a roadmap to make the bloc’s clean tech sector competitive.

The proposals are divided into four pillars: efficient regulation, easier access to finance, enhanced skills, and open trade for resilient supply chains. The European Commission said the plan will protect the Single Market from unfair trade in clean tech, while ensuring that subsidies outside the bloc don’t distort competition.

“We have a once in a generation opportunity to show the way with speed, ambition and a sense of purpose to secure the EU’s industrial lead in the fast-growing net-zero technology sector,” said Ursula von der Leyen, President of the Commission. “Europe is determined to lead the clean tech revolution.”

The measures have been largely welcomed by German and French politicians — but not everyone’s a fan.

“European countries are not equal in state aid.

A particularly divisive proposal is the loosening of state aid rules until the end of 2025. Smaller EU member states fear the move will disproportionately benefit states with deeper pockets.

Their claim has compelling evidence. In 2022, Germany and France accounted for almost 80% of the state aid granted by the Commission under emergency subsidy rules.

“European countries are not equal when it comes to state aid,” acknowledged EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager on Wednesday.

Critics are also wary of the EU accelerating a subsidy race with the US. Milan Elkerbout, a research fellow at Brussels-based think-tank CEPS, warned in November that the union should prioritize transatlantic cooperation.

“There is also the risk of throwing subsidies towards sectors that may inevitably shift their production anyway in a low-carbon world,” he said.

Politicians in EU member states have misgivings of their own. The finance ministers of Estonia, Finland, Austria, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and Slovakia have warned against embarking on a subsidy race, Reuters reported this week. The governments of Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Denmark and Sweden, meanwhile, are concerned the state aid will fragment the internal market and weaken regional development.

Another source of contention is that the new subsidies are largely drawn from  repurposing existing funding programs, rather than new investments.

There are also compelling arguments in favour of the EU’s approach. Proponents of the plan say there’s a big enough market on both sides of the Atlantic. Both the US and EU, they note, can benefit from green tech incentives. Nonetheless, the discord appears set to simmer.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned in December that the “super aggressive” American legislation could “divide the west.” The EU’s response, however, threatens to divide the bloc.

EU’s green tech funding plans divides bloc over global subsidy race Read More »

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Blippar Expands Blippbuilder Support to AR Glasses Under New CEO

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AR creation tool Blippar has long offered its creation tool Blippbuilder, which recently implemented a “freemium” pricing model. Naturally, the tool was built around smartphones, which is how most people still experience AR. However, with the increasing prevalence of AR-enabled headsets, the company is expanding the tool’s availability.

To learn more about Blippbuilder on headsets, the company’s long-term strategy, and the effects of other Blippar developments, ARPost met the company’s new CEO, Preet Prasannan.

Meet New CEO Preet Prasannan

Prasannan is Blippar’s new CEO, but he isn’t new to the company. Prasannan discovered Blippar almost ten years ago when he was working at DreamWorks when his manager left DreamWorks to work at Blippar.

“At the time, I got very excited about what Blippar was doing in AR,” said Prasannan. “To be honest, I didn’t even know what AR was.”

Prasannan worked at Blippar for a time before leaving to found his own startup. He was still working on that project when Blippar came into problems and ultimately entered into administration. Prasannan returned to Blippar and was instrumental in its return as “Blippar 2.0” by serving as the Chief Technical Officer.

“Blippar was like family to me, so I reached out, we started speaking,” said Prasannan. “I realized that there was an opportunity to bring Blippar back to life.”

Prasannan was the CTO throughout the tenure of CEO Faisal Galaria, who recently stepped down. This offered another opportunity for Prasannan to step up.

“In December, when Faisal decided to part ways with us, we decided it would be good if I was up for it,” said Prasannan. “This is my family.”

Blippbuilder Comes to Next-Gen Hardware

The first big move under Prasannan’s leadership is bringing Blippbuilder compatibility to AR glasses. While AR on a head-mounted display and AR on a handheld display might sound similar, there were some initial hurdles.

“To be frank, it was a bit of heavy lifting when we started on headsets. The first one,” said Prasannan. “The first headset that we supported took us six months and the next headset that we supported took us 48 hours.”

The first two headsets were Magic Leap and Meta Quest Pro. While some things are being ironed out before the next selection of compatible AR headsets is released, Prasannan says that the company can essentially achieve compatibility with new headsets as fast as they are produced. Which is good, they are being produced a lot more regularly these days.

Blippbuilder for AR glasses - Meta Quest Pro

“For the next generation of AR, we have to have devices that feel natural,” said Prasannan. “It becomes a natural way of seeing and visualizing AR content.”

This isn’t just a way of future-proofing Blippar. It’s also a way to advance AR as a field worth buying into.

“If you have amazing, exciting content and a tool that creates content easily, why would you not want to buy that headset?” asked Prasannan.

A Growing Ecosystem

The announcement is exciting in another way as well: the sort of experiences that are created using Blippbuilder, particularly since it became free to use. The move has also been positive for Blippar, of course.

“We had tens of thousands of users more than usual joining us,” said Prasannan. “It seems like we took the right step when we went in that direction.”

So, who are all of those new users? Naturally, they don’t all fit into one basket, but Prasannan said that there have been a lot of educational experiences created.

“We saw a very interesting solar system being created by one of our users,” said Prasannan. “I was actually showing it to the kids in my family and the feedback was immediate.”

There has been a long-standing chasm in the promising field of educational XR. The sum is that educators don’t typically know how to build experiences and experience builders don’t typically know how to educate. Blippbuilder’s free, no-code, increasingly versatile authoring tool is helping to bridge that gap.

“One of the driving factors of switching to the freemium model was to encourage creativity in all of our users,” said Prasannan. “Right now, Blippbuilder is free so anyone can create an account and publish projects.”

More to Come From Blippar

There are more big things coming from Blippar, as a “new iteration of Blippbuilder” is scheduled to release as a beta toward the end of Q1 of this year. The tool will “make developers and technologists out of anyone who wants to” because “technology should make things more simple, not more complicated.”

Blippar Expands Blippbuilder Support to AR Glasses Under New CEO Read More »

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Former Oculus CTO Has Doubts About PSVR 2’s Chance for Success

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John Carmack, former CTO of Oculus and key player in the VR startup’s genesis story, says Sony’s upcoming PSVR 2 headset may be see a bumpy road to adoption based on its high price and potential for scattershot geographic distribution.

Carmack seems to really like PSVR 2’s hardware from a technical standpoint, saying that the unique combination of a tethered OLED display and PS5’s ray-tracing performance could hypothetically allow for a novel VR rendering approach with extremely low latency. As a legendary programmer and the former CTO of Oculus, it’s just the sort of thing Carmack thinks about when it comes to virtual reality headsets.

And though he he lauded that unique technical potential, Carmack says he actually doesn’t expect PSVR 2 to be “very successful at $600”:

I don’t expect PSVR2 to be very successful at $600, but technically, with a directly connected OLED display and decent ray tracing performance, it is an opportunity to implement just-in-time ray tracing for couple-millisecond 6DOF motion-to-photons latency, which I would really

— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) January 26, 2023

Releasing on February 22nd, PSVR 2 carries a price tag of $550, which after sales tax puts it somewhere close to $600 out-the-door in most states. That’s a fair jump past Quest 2’s $400/$500 price tag, depending on whether you buy the 128GB or 256GB version.

Former Oculus CTO John Carmack | Photo courtesy Meta

Still, this doesn’t take into account the all-in price to actually play PSVR 2, which at $400 for the PS5 Digital Edition and $500 for Console with disc drive, puts it somewhere north of $1,000 for everything required. But what about Sony’s impressive global reach with PS5?

In a follow-up tweet, Carmack mentions that PS5’s admittedly large global footprint, now tallying 30 million consoles worldwide, isn’t nearly as important as having a higher concentration of devices spanning a smaller geographic area.

“Addressable market size matters much more to developers than global coverage. A 5M market size distributed across every country is much less attractive than a 10M market in a smaller set of countries. In fact, equal sized markets would favor fewer countries — less work.”

Carmack doesn’t appear to be playing favorites either; he similarly critiqued Meta Quest Pro recently for its “dubious price point,” something which has skewed Meta’s latest and greatest away from consumers and positioning the mixed reality headset more as a work productivity device.

Doubts about PSVR 2 seem to be mounting the in few weeks preceding its February launch. Public perception was recently injected with a heavy measure of uncertainty about its pre-order performance. A Bloomberg report earlier this week claimed Sony had slashed production forecasts of PSVR 2 by half to just one million units expected in the first quarter, something Sony has now refuted.

Looking to learn all about PSVR 2 before it launches this month? Check out our top articles covering games, hardware previews and more:

Former Oculus CTO Has Doubts About PSVR 2’s Chance for Success Read More »

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Report: Meta Wins Bid to Acquire VR Fitness Studio Behind ‘Supernatural’, Awaiting FTC Appeal

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In 2021 Meta announced it was set to acquire Within, the studio behind popular VR fitness app Supernatural, however the reportedly $400 million deal became subject to investigations by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in respect to Meta’s supposed monopolization of the VR fitness space. Now, according to a Bloomberg report, it appears the FTC has lost an important suit to block Meta’s acquisition of Within.

Unreleased documents from the closed court proceedings appear to vindicate Meta’s acquisition of Within, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the ruling. The sealed decision was made Wednesday morning by US District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California, which effectively denies the FTC’s request for a preliminary injunction to block the acquisition.

The final outcome of the trial isn’t entirely official just yet though. It’s said Judge Davila also issued a temporary restraining order with the aim of pausing Meta from closing the transaction for a further week, allowing time for the FTC to make an appeal. Provided the reports are accurate, the chances of the FTC potentially clawing back from the loss seem fairly slim at this point.

Last July, the FTC under sitting Chair Lina Khan revealed it had filed a motion aimed at blocking the deal with a federal court in a 3–2 decision, which aimed at reigning in Meta’s ability to “buy market position instead of earning it on the merits,” FTC Bureau of Competition Deputy Director John Newman said at the time.

Neither Meta nor the FTC has commented on the report regarding Meta’s win. In a statement to the New York Times about the matter in July, Meta called the FTC’s position “based on ideology and speculation, not evidence. The idea that this acquisition would lead to anticompetitive outcomes in a dynamic space with as much entry and growth as online and connected fitness is simply not credible.” Adding that the lawsuit would send “a chilling message to anyone who wishes to innovate in VR.”

Over the past four years, Meta has gone unchallenged in several VR studio acquisitions, including Beat Games (Beat Saber), Sanzaru Games (Asgard’s Wrath), Ready at Dawn (Lone Echo & Echo Arena), Downpour Interactive (Onward), BigBox VR (Population: One), Camouflaj (Marvel’s Iron Man VR), Twisted Pixel (Wilson’s Heart, Path of the Warrior), and Armature Studio (Resident Evil 4 VR port for Quest 2).

In particular, the FTC used Meta’s acquisition of Beat Saber as evidence that the company already had engineers with the skill set to both expand Beat Saber into fitness and to build a VR dedicated fitness app from scratch, an FTC court filing stated, maintaining that buying Within “was not the only way Meta could have developed the production capabilities and expertise needed to create a premium VR fitness experience.”

Report: Meta Wins Bid to Acquire VR Fitness Studio Behind ‘Supernatural’, Awaiting FTC Appeal Read More »

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Portugal is set to house Europe’s biggest solar farm

Next Featured, Tech / /
Portugal is set to house Europe’s biggest solar farm

Ioanna Lykiardopoulou

Story by

Ioanna Lykiardopoulou

Ioanna is a writer at SHIFT. She likes the transition from old to modern, and she’s all about shifting perspectives. Ioanna is a writer at SHIFT. She likes the transition from old to modern, and she’s all about shifting perspectives.

Spain-based Iberdola has secured an environmental license from the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) to build a photovoltaic plant in Santiago do Cacém in Portugal. The company claims that it’s set to be Europe’s biggest solar farm and the fifth largest in the world.

The solar farm, named after the poet Fernando Pessoa, will start operation in 2025 and will have an installed capacity of 1,200MW. According to Iberdola, it’ll be able to generate enough green energy to cover the needs of around 430,000 homes — equivalent to a population twice the size of the city of Porto. The facility is also estimated to save 370 million cubic metres of gas consumption each year.

To realise this ambitious project, Iberdola is working together with Prosolia Energy, while Portuguese operator REN will be responsible for grid connection.

Notably, the solar plant aims to boost the sustainability of the local ecosystem as well. Apart from the creation of approximately 2,500 jobs, it seeks to provide occupational skills training, improve tourism in the area, and supply solar energy to nearby communities.

The land where the facility will be built will also work as a space for sheep grazing and beehive introduction, while indigenous tree species will be planted in the surrounding area.

solar farm Portugal
Image of Iberdola’s Núñez de Balboa solar plant in Portugal. Credit: Iberdola

“This solar farm sets a new benchmark in combining Europe’s clean energy ambitions with the delivery of tangible environmental and social benefits. We need to reduce our exposure to fossil fuels,” Iberdrola’s Executive Chairman, Ignacio Galán, said in a statement. “We are proud to continue and strengthen our commitment to Portugal with new clean infrastructure across the country […]. The collaboration of the Portuguese authorities has also been essential in getting this project to this stage in record time.”

Iberdola plans to invest an additional €3 billion in wind and solar power in Portugal over the coming years, facilitated by the country’s favorable regulations on the deployment of green energy.

The company has already completed three solar farms in Portugal and will start construction of three more in 2023, while an additional one will come on stream in 2024.

If initiatives like these continue across Europe, the EU may just get closer to its aim of producing 320GW of solar power by 2025 and almost 600GW by 2030.

Portugal is set to house Europe’s biggest solar farm Read More »

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Meta Optimizes Quest Developer Tool for Apple’s Mac M-series Chips

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Last week Meta released the latest version of the Meta Quest Developer Hub tool which has been optimized to work natively on Apple’s M-series chips for better performance.

The Meta Quest Developer Hub (MQDH) is a collection of tools to make VR development easier for Quest developers. In addition to giving devs an easy way to manage their headset and the files on it, it also provides access to Meta’s various VR SDKs, and includes tools to profiling and optimizing VR applications.

While MQDH has supported MacOS since it launched back in late 2020, the latest version v3.2, is just now getting around to supporting Apple’s modern M-series chips which the company uses in all of its most recent computers. The tool now has native support for the ARM64 architecture of the M-series chips, improving booting time and performance.

It’s a somewhat curious update considering this is the only major change in MQDH v3.2, and considering that VR developers working on MacOS seem to be a tiny minority compared to those on Windows.

There’s no telling exactly why Meta chose to do this now—rather than say, months if not years ago. Possibilities range from the insignificant (perhaps a handful of Meta’s internal VR devs work on Mac and wanted the extra performance) to the strategic (maybe Meta wants to improve the experience of Mac VR developers in an attempt to sway them away from Apple’s long-rumored headset.

Meta Optimizes Quest Developer Tool for Apple’s Mac M-series Chips Read More »

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Meta Plans to Shut Down One of Its Most Popular and Long-standing Multiplayer VR Games

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Meta and its child-studio Ready at Dawn today announced plans to shut down the popular free-to-play multiplayer game Echo VR, with plans to turn off severs come August 1st.

Echo VR has had a storied journey, having originally launched as an Oculus Rift exclusive title all the way back in 2017. In 2020 the game made the leap to Quest, allowing cross-play multiplayer between Rift and Quest players. Shortly thereafter, Meta announced that it had acquired the game’s developer, Ready at Dawn.

And though it stands as one of the best-rated and most popular free titles on the Quest store, Meta has announced it plans to shut the game down for good on August 1st. According to the announcement from Ready at Dawn, the main reason behind the planned shuttering is because the studio is “coming together to focus on our next project.”

Although not mentioned specifically, it’s hard to imagine that the broader layoffs at Meta (and other major tech companies) has nothing to do with the announcement. Especially considering that Ready at Dawn released its last game, Lone Echo II, more than a year ago; ostensibly the studio has been well at work on its “next project” for quite some time now.

In addition to being one of the platform’s most popular free multiplayer games, Echo VR also had one of the most robust in-app purchase offerings of any VR title so far, with a battlepass-style system that allowed players to pay for the chance to unlock cosmetic rewards over the course of seven seasons. Unfortunately the studio has confirmed that refunds for in-game content will not be offered.

Image courtesy Ready at Dawn, Oculus

As a parting gift, at least, the studio says players who play the game between now and when it shuts down will receive a heap of premium cosmetic items for free:

From now until August 1, 2023, play just one match of either Echo Combat or Arena to unlock:

  • All Epic + Superb rarity chassis/booster/bracer sets from Echo Pass seasons 1–6

    Season 7 rewards to be released at a later date
  • All Chassis Variants
  • All non-3D rewards from Echo Pass seasons 1–6

    Season 7 rewards to be released at a later date
  • All Echo Shop items

    Including Starter Bundle
  • All previous event rewards
  • Some previously unreleased rewards

The following rewards will NOT be included in the event

  • VRML rewards
  • LE2 Chassis
  • Legendary rarity chassis/booster/bracer sets from the previous 7 seasons
  • Leveling Track Rewards

Leveling Track

  • We will now be granting all leveling track items at lvl 1 so everyone gains access to these rewards without impacting matchmaking quality.

Echo Shop

  • We will place all legendary chassis/booster/bracer sets for sale on the Echo Shop at reduced prices until the game shuts down.

And last but not least, Ready at Dawn confirmed that Echo Combat, the lesser-played FPS variant of the game (which never made the leap to Quest) will also be shutting down as of August 1st, and is already no longer available for purchase.

Meta Plans to Shut Down One of Its Most Popular and Long-standing Multiplayer VR Games Read More »

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Update: Sony Refutes Report That It Cut PSVR 2 Production Forecast

News, PlayStation 5, PlayStation VR, PlayStation VR 2, playstationvr 2, ps vr 2, ps vr2, psvr, psvr 2, psvr2 / /

Following a Bloomberg report which claimed Sony had cut its production forecast for PSVR 2, the company flatly refuted the claim.

Update (January 31st, 2023 – 12: 51PM PT): Sony refuted a Bloomberg report earlier today that claimed the company had cut its production forecast for PSVR 2 in lieu of lower than expected pre-orders. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, the company said it has “not cut PlayStation VR2 production numbers,” and further claimed it is “seeing enthusiasm from PlayStation fans for the upcoming launch, which includes more than 30 titles such as Gran Turismo 7, Horizon Call of the Mountain, and Resident Evil Village.”

The original article, detailing the Bloomberg report, continues below.

Original Article (January 31st, 2023 – 5: 31AM PT): Slated to launch on February 22nd, Sony was expected to produce an initial run of two million PSVR 2 headsets, however a recent Bloomberg report maintains the company has reduced those forecasts to just one million in the first quarter.

Citing people familiar with deliberations, Sony reportedly told a supply partner to expect reduced display panel orders, allegedly stating that it only expects to sell 1.5 million units between April 2023 and March 2024.

Only Aiming to Meet PSVR (2016) Unit Sales?

To put it into perspective, the original PSVR for PS4 sold two million units after about 14 months on store shelves. At the time of PSVR’s launch in October 2016, over 70 million PS4s were in the wild, making for a pretty large potential install base.

Out of the gate, PS5 unit sales were largely held back by the global manufacturing cooldown starting in 2020, so many of those console sales are probably fairly recent. At CES 2023 earlier this month, Sony said it has sold 30 million PS5 consoles to date, noting at the time that December 2022 was the biggest month ever for PS5 console sales.

Here’s a chart of PSVR unit sales spanning launch up to 2020, showing an early bump to one million sales, and a slower protracted growth period to five million units over the course of three years.

Data courtesy Sony

Although less than half as many PS5 consoles are in the wild in comparison to PS4, the VR landscape has changed a great deal over the years. Market leader Meta hasn’t released Quest 2 sales figures, however analysts suggest Meta has shipped somewhere between 10 and 15 million Quest 2 units since launch in late 2020, meaning potential interest in VR is at an all-time high.

Provided the reports are true, Sony is only hoping to essentially match its original sales figures of PSVR over the next 14 months, which may signal it has markedly lower expectations for its next-gen VR headset overall. But why? In the end, it probably comes down to the all-in price of PSVR 2 and the lack of strong anchor titles to convert PS5 owners.

Photo by Road to VR

At its cheapest, PS5 costs $500, while PSVR 2 (and included controllers) costs $550, putting the all-in price of just the hardware at $1,050. This is undoubtedly a barrier to entry for newcomers, especially since the company’s best PS5 sales period was just a month ago. Brand new PS5 owners may not be able to rationalize another large gaming expense, especially in face of a worsening economic recession.

Then there are launch titles, many of which are remastered versions of extant Quest and PC VR games. Of the 30+ PSVR 2 launch day games announced by Sony, there are really only a handful of standout anchor titles: Horizon Call of the Mountain, Gran Turismo 7, and Resident Evil Village—the last two are flatscreen games getting VR compatibly support at PSVR 2’s February 22nd launch.

Notably missing is the slew of innovative first-party, ground-up VR games like Astro Bot Rescue Mission and Blood & Truth, as well as taster packs like PSVR Worlds. The lack of heavy investment in exclusive content out of the gate may signal Sony is again forecasting long term growth similar to the original PSVR, casting it more as an optional accessory than a must-have expansion of its console gaming experience.

Granted, Sony has to think more in the long-term for its VR headsets than, say, standalone manufacturers like Meta, HTC, and Pico Interactive. Sony likely doesn’t expect to ship a prospective PlayStation 6 until 2028, recent reports contend, which means this is possibly the only PlayStation-compatible VR headset we’ll see for quite some time.

For now, at least, PSVR 2 represents class-leading hardware, but it will only be able to attract and retain users in the long-term with an increased focus on exclusive content, better bundling strategies, and a PS5 install base that will hopefully continue its path towards strong growth like we’ve seen in the recent months.

Update: Sony Refutes Report That It Cut PSVR 2 Production Forecast Read More »

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This Dutch startup wants to electrify industrial-scale machines

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Ioanna Lykiardopoulou

Story by

Ioanna Lykiardopoulou

Ioanna is a writer at SHIFT. She likes the transition from old to modern, and she’s all about shifting perspectives. Ioanna is a writer at SHIFT. She likes the transition from old to modern, and she’s all about shifting perspectives.

The Netherlands-based Eleo is on a mission to accelerate the transition to a fossil-free future. How? Well, by providing high-tech batteries to the machines and vehicles most difficult to electrify.

These mainly include industrial, off-highway machines in the construction, agricultural, and forestry sectors — but also cover electric mobility, ranging from cargo and last-mile delivery vehicles to vessels.

Eleo started out as a student team at the Eindhoven University of Technology, and was founded in 2017. Since then it’s been designing and manufacturing in-house battery systems that boost a high level of performance and flexibility.

Specifically, the startup offers modular batteries that are scalable in size, voltage, and capacity, in order to meet custom-specific requirements. Users can also ensure that the battery packs are achieving optimal performance through Eleo’s proprietary battery management system (BMS), which provides estimations on the state-of-charge (SOC), state-of-health (SOH), and state-of-power (SOP).

battery pack electrify industrial machines
Eleo’s battery pack. Credit: Eleo

Another product advantage the company offers is its “plug & play” nature, meaning that the batteries are delivered fully certified, tested, and ready for direct installation.

Now the startup is planning to increase its production capacity tenfold with its new plant on the Automotive Campus in Helmond — which was inaugurated last Thursday by King Willem-Alexander.

The new 3,000m² building will be responsible for the fully-automated assembly of battery modules. It’ll also incorporate a research center and development labs to advance current battery technology.

Overall, the plant will increase annual production capacity tenfold, reaching approximately 10,000 battery packs — which can collectively store around 500MWh of power. Eleo also expects to grow its personnel from 60 to 200 employees over the course of two years.

“The trend toward zero-emission is already in full swing in the automotive industry,” Bas Verkaik, co-founder of Eleo said in a statement. “Electric cars are already quite well-known, but that’s not yet the case for construction machinery running on electricity. In construction, electrification is not too far along yet. With our batteries, we want to initiate and facilitate this development.”

This Dutch startup wants to electrify industrial-scale machines Read More »

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Inside Europe’s high-tech scramble for better energy storage

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A “metal sock” in the ground stuffed full of hydrogen. Vats of scorching sand. Huge weights moving very, very slowly up and down old mineshafts. Is this the future of energy?

This menagerie of strange machines and heat-retaining vessels is poised to emerge across Europe as the continent seeks ways of storing the surplus energy produced by renewables. The UK, for example, wasted half a billion pounds’ worth of wind energy in 2021 because it had nowhere to store it. Without such storage, electricity must be used at the very moment it is generated.

As wind energy continues to go to waste across Europe, the EU is spending record sums – billions of euros – on gas imports as it slashes its reliance on fossil fuels from Russia.

“We’re at an inflexion point,” says Dominic Walters, chief corporate affairs officer at Highview Power, a UK-based firm that is working on a means of storing energy as liquid air. “There is a need to accelerate everything everywhere,” he adds, referring to the colourful array of energy storage projects currently at early stages of development in Europe.

Proponents of alternative energy storage technologies argue that lithium-ion batteries will only get us so far. Their production relies on mining, they don’t have very long lifespans, and are arguably not ideal for storing energy longer than several hours.

“If we don’t work out how to stabilise Europe’s electricity grids soon, we’ll come to regret it,” says Jacopo Tosoni, head of policy at the European Association for Storage and Energy (EASE): “You generally have a risk of blackouts in 2030.”

A scramble is now on to put the necessary storage media in place so that energy can be kept ready and waiting until those moments when it is required.

The heat is on

In an industrial corner of Kankaanpää, Finland, a town home to around 12,000 people, there is a seven metre-tall, dark grey silo full of sand. Sand that can store energy in the form of heat.

“Our year-round efficiency is about 90% for the system, so 10% losses, which is obviously quite good,” says Tommi Eronen, chief executive and co-founder of Polar Night Energy, an eight-people-strong startup that’s raised €1.25 million to date. Eronen described how the sand, heated to 600˚C using surplus electricity, will stay hot for months on end thanks to insulation lining the walls of the steel container. Pipes filled with hot air run through the sand in order to transfer heat in or out.

This sand battery is connected to a heat exchanger, says Eronen, so that operators can transfer thermal energy to district heating systems or, in possible future versions of the technology, turbines for electricity generation.

Eronen explains that early versions of the firm’s sand battery are relatively small in scale. The Kankaanpää unit offers 100kW of heating power, or a capacity of 8MWh, but Polar Night Energy is planning 100MW units and above, which could one day yield several GWh of juice. Such units would be around eight metres tall and 44 metres in diameter, a spokesman for Polar Night Energy says. 

Expect news regarding the delivery of a 2MW version as early as this spring, adds Eronen.

Polar Night Energy heat storage unit
Polar Night Energy heat storage unit. Image: Polar Night Energy

In the Netherlands, GroeneWarmte is working on a different kind of thermal energy store called Ecovat, which uses water heated to temperatures up to 95˚C instead of the much hotter sand chosen by Polar Night Energy. “It basically just stores water in a big underground tank,” says project engineer Marijn van den Heuvel. “It’s a very large thermos.”

There’s a bit more construction required in setting this system up, though. The concrete “thermos” must be carefully installed in a huge, cylindrical hole in the ground. But after that, it can be covered over and the storage works in a similar way to Polar Night Energy’s design. The warmth the vessel cradles, for several months if necessary, would be transferred via heat exchangers to district heating systems. Van den Heuvel says GroeneWarmte with its team of eight people is engaging with a Danish company on a possible first deployment of this technology.

These approaches are fairly new, but Highview Power is already building a 50MW facility in Carrington, England, where energy is to be stored in the form of liquid air. The site will form a mind-boggling array of silos, pipework and platforms bunched together. It will comprise thermal and cold storage units and containers for the liquid air itself.

“We filter it so effectively it is clean air, that air is liquefied, and then we cryogenically freeze it,” explains Walters, referring to the process in which air is chilled to nearly -200˚C. By heating this very cold, liquid air later, it turns back into a gas and expands, and can be used to power a turbine, throwing electricity back to the grid. The system achieves an efficiency of 55-65%, which Highview says is comparable to other storage technologies. One of the benefits of this approach is that the technology should have a multi-decadal lifespan, much longer than lithium ion batteries, so governments might be able to plan around such infrastructure more easily.

Walters says the Carrington site should go live by the end of 2024. At the moment, the 55-people company is raising a £400-million funding round, and is planning a further 19 installations around the UK. It ultimately aims to supply 4GW, or 20%, of the UK’s expected energy storage needs by 2035.

Ecovat energy storage system
This is the Ecovat. Image: GroeneWarmte

Another storage method drops

Perhaps the simplest concept of all currently vying for its place in the energy storage landscape of the future is the gravity battery. Most of us learned about “potential energy” at school. Arguably, there is no better illustration of that than a big weight, held aloft, just itching to give in to gravity and fall to the floor. By attaching cables to such a weight – literally harnessing it – it is possible to slow its descent right down to about one metre per second and use the pulling force it exerts to generate electricity via a turbine.

Gravitricity’s approach in this vein, to begin with at least, is to lower its weights hundreds of metres down disused mine shafts with the help of a guiding mechanism. The company, which employs 17 people, has so far raised £7.5 million to make its vision a reality.

“If it were swinging around the place, very soon you’d get the shaft caving in on itself, which is obviously not what we’d want,” explains commercial director Robin Lane. A single weight might provide 4-8MW of power, he estimates, and could be calibrated to provide energy for a particular time period, say 15 minutes or an hour. Imagine a system where multiple weights are ready to descend, one after the other, in a carefully synchronised sequence so that electricity can be generated at a steady rate. Early commercial systems will use a combination of large weights totalling 1,000 tonnes.

Lane admits that this approach can’t yet compete with lithium ion batteries on a cost per MW basis but he argues gravity batteries will be commercially competitive eventually. Plus, it ought to be possible to hoist and lower weights again and again for many years with little impact on the integrity of the system. Lithium ion batteries, on the other hand, have stricter limitations in terms of cycling.

Another firm, Energy Vault, which employs 150 people, is also pursuing gravity battery technology. It has raised approximately $410m in funding to date.

Gravitricity Multi Weight energy storage system
This is an image of Gravitricity’s “multi-weight” gravity based energy storage system. Image: Gravitricity

Gravitricity is also exploring completely different ways of secreting energy in old mine shafts, such as lining them with metal and turning them into hydrogen storage units.

“It’s a metal sock, which you would lower into the shaft, and then you would entomb that metal sock with a mixture of ballast, concrete and steel,” says Lane. It potentially makes it easier and cheaper to store hydrogen at high pressures than above ground, since the container can rely on the existing geology of the shaft for structural support. The hydrogen could come from electrolysers linked to wind farms and use surplus energy to produce the gas from water.

For Tosoni, the diversity of the storage projects emerging in Europe is heartening, given the expected energy requirements that countries will face in the coming years. But less important than choosing one technology over another is the financing and political strategies needed to scale any of them up.

“The big issue is funding,” he says, noting the wariness of some investors. Governments could help, he suggests, by setting more ambitious targets for the establishment of energy storage facilities.

Eronen, in general, is optimistic about the future and notes that Polar Night Energy is embarking on a new 5-10m euro funding round. But it remains frustrating to witness the present energy crisis in Europe today, knowing that, even with the best will in the world, these systems aren’t quite ready for primetime just yet.

“It feels so bad,” he says. “We see the crisis now and there’s like no way that we can help.”

According to EASE, the current rate of storage added every year in Europe, 1GW, must boom to 14GW per year if the continent is to reach the 200GW total grid-scale storage capacity it’s expected to require by 2030. So the push is certainly on. 

Inside Europe’s high-tech scramble for better energy storage Read More »