I am back baby! (copy 18)

Virtual Perceptions Newsletter

Hello everyone! A few things have been happening the last month, so here's what I have been working on. VRFocusSometimes, poor practices seep into the immersive industry. As an exclusive story, I cover how VRFocus, before its acquisition in November 2018, had poor working conditions and work/life balance that was pushed by inept management, as reported by previous staff. This is a balanced story on all sides, though its good to bring to light the kind of workloads people endure for the community we work in. Read more here, and let me know what you think.AR glasses through the 2020sAR glasses will only grow in popularity, usability, and dominance through the 2020s - but how do we know, and what can we expect? At the moment, we have Oculus, HTC, Microsoft, and many other headset developers vying for control of the market. Oculus is making great headway with their Oculus Quest, while HTC is doubling down on the enterprise level with the HTC VIVE Pro. In short, VR in 2019 will be fascinating to follow. Yet in the background, AR glasses are steadily improving their capabilities, quietly and surely. Read more here.Virtual reality courses - learning new skills for a new industryThere are numerous different ways of learning virtual reality. Some learn Unity or Unreal at home, while others take development courses after work. Many transfer their skills towards VR from another industry. Virtual reality courses at university are one of the most direct ways of learning the new technology, which this article will cover. This article provides a comprehensive guide on one example course, from the London College of Communications. In this case, the article will dissect one course to help expand on what studying VR would be like. Ana-Despina Tudor, Course Leader for MA Virtual Reality at London College of Communication, provides her insights.

Apart from the above, MWC has been another measuring contest among companies - this time about how foldable phones can be. The more like Pac-man, the better.The key takeaways so far seem to be Qualcomm's movements to have 5G-enabled phones using VR, and Microsoft Hololens 2. It's interesting to see the capabilities of the Hololens 2 outstrip the Magic Leap One. The older brother needs to budge from its mountain of money and show more signs of its next headset, or risk being left behind by its peppy younger brother.As always I am open for a chat, so feel free to fling me an email!See ya,Tom Ffiske

Editor, Virtual Perceptions