A screenshot from the desktop version of the browser XR game that Blippar made for StarWars Day.
This Week in ARExperience
May 5, 2022 by Jon Jaehnig
- The XR world celebrated “Star Wars Day” on May the 4th.
- Blippar created a WebAR game that lets players shoot down waves of TIE Fighters, on their desktops or in their neighborhoods on mobile devices.
- Enterprise AR headset manufacturer RealWear tweeted that the design for their headsets was inspired by Boba Fett’s targeting system.
- Meta put a sale on Star Wars Quest games like Vader Immortal and Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge.
- Blippar created a WebAR game that lets players shoot down waves of TIE Fighters, on their desktops or in their neighborhoods on mobile devices.
- In other Meta news, Cities VR released on Quest this week. The city simulation game is fully functional, but the Quest page says that more updates will be released for free in the near future.
- Spatial has partnered with Ready Player Me to provide full-body avatars within their immersive platform.
- The real news here is for those familiar with Spatial. The company started out as an enterprise application that prided itself on photo-realistic avatars generated from a photo of the user. The result was the most recognizable avatars anywhere. Even though Spatial has since pivoted to cultural users, allowing other avatars is a big deal.
- That isn’t the only news. The announcement came with a big statistic: Spatial reports that their userbase has grown ten times larger in the last six months. The significance of December 2021? That’s when they officially pivoted from enterprise to art.
- The real news here is for those familiar with Spatial. The company started out as an enterprise application that prided itself on photo-realistic avatars generated from a photo of the user. The result was the most recognizable avatars anywhere. Even though Spatial has since pivoted to cultural users, allowing other avatars is a big deal.
- XR development platform 8th Wall announced in a tweet that users can create a digital twin of themselves using Scaniverse and incorporate it into their 8th Wall projects. Scaniverse is a LiDAR (sorry android users) toolkit for creating, editing, sharing, and viewing 3D models from mobile devices.
- Snap CEO and cofounder Evan Spiegel appeared on CBS Mornings. The session touched on user numbers and some of the other announcements from the Snap Partner Summit last week. Hosts also grilled Spiegel on social media and mental health, as well as government regulation of social media. However, for the most part, the session was a feel-good piece about AR.
- YouTube is now natively supported in BigscreenVR. Through the integration, users of the social VR watch-together app can share their favorite YouTube videos in real-time in a shared virtual movie theater space.
- Pico Interactive Tweeted that Rezzil Player is now available in their app store. The “games” are athletic training programs focusing on improving player cognition. As a training solution, the app is a fit with Pico’s primarily enterprise mission, though the company has been hinting at coming consumer expansion.
This week was largely pretty light — we got to see the fun side of XR. From companies celebrating Star Wars Day, to new games and integrations on social platforms and community-based development and experience platforms.
It’s been particularly interesting watching Spatial go from photo-based avatars for business meetings to working with Ready Player Me to sell and showcase virtual art in new home environments and galleries.
Of course, I am still waiting for Pico to roll out consumer support here in the States. And not just because I have a Neo 3 that I would like to be using a lot more than I am now.
