The Immersive Wire - 3 October 2022 (Monday briefing)

3 October 2022 //

by Tom Ffiske

Your weekly briefing on the metaverse

Madrid is a beautiful city, and has no right being so warm and sunny during October. Meanwhile, the UK is starting to grow cold as Fimbulwinter (or at least feels like it after our Mini Budget…)

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TOP ANALYSISLenovo and Magic Leap dive deeper into enterprise work

Lenovo announced a new all-in-one VR headset, the ThinkReality VRX.

• When I spoke to Vishal Shah last week about this, the end-to-end side of the announcement excited him the most. He commented that much of VR news coverage focused on hardware (true), while software is largely left behind. But for businesses, having end-to-end way services – from content creation through to cloud deployment and customer support – is vital for deployment. That is what Lenovo is focusing on. He also commented that the smart collaboration space will likely see a lot of evolution in 2023, as businesses work together remotely – something which Lenovo is keeping an eye on.

• What I also like is that the headset has open source elements with an Android-based architecture, which gives businesses some flexibility in deployment.

• No word yet on costs, as the headset gets ready to ship in early 2023. While the price is not as important here as with consumer headsets, it’s still a factor to consider. I’ve been told it will be ‘competitive’ with other enterprise headsets.

• Disclaimer: I also work for an agency that is employed by Lenovo. This had no bearing on my analysis.

Magic Leap 2 launched in the US, costing $3,299 for the base model.

• Long and short of it is that it is 20% lighter than the previous model, with a higher FOV (among other improvements).

• The headset also comes with an open platform for development – a great benefit.

• It is not surprise that the company is focusing on enterprise use-cases for the newest headset, to focus on revenue growth. Here’s hoping the new focus helps the company charts its next chapter to high waters.

Bruce Willis did NOT sell the rights to his face.

• The story caught like wildfire in the community, but no, the actor will not appear in (Never) Die Hard (or any equivalent).

• The story may have spurred from the Daily Mail, and it spread quickly from there. But honestly, I have no idea.

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I read a fair few newsletters, and on the metaverse, web3 and crypto, I am very careful on the ones I trust. With that said, I fully endorse this one, which I wanted to profile today.

Web3 Daily is a (free) newsletter where you can find the most important and interesting Web3 and crypto news, translated into plain English. I am cautious on the crypto side, but this newsletter gives a great summary. Get it straight to your inbox here.

The other is a brand new one from Mathew Olsen, called Virtual Vector. It covers VR and AR, and comes out once per week. He is an excellent writer, and I highly recommend his work.

OTHER STORIESImportant news from the last week

Got stories? Do let me know at tom (at) immersivewire (dot) com. 

• AmazeVR raised $17m in funding, to grow its concert platform.

• Apple made another comment on the metaverse, again focusing on AR.

  • What is really interesting is that Apple rarely uses the M word in public. The company always pivots back to AR, where he sees that it has a lot of potential – the same happened in an earnings call in January 2022. Compare that to Meta or Microsoft, who outlined their own perspectives on the metaverse.

• Annals of Medicine and Surgery published the results of a trial that tested that were haptics integrated into VR surgical simulations. 

• easics launched nearbA IP cores for XR devices, which helps with edge AI performance and immersive experiences.

• IDTechEx predicts that the XR headset sales will grow to $20bn by 2033.

  • Again, treat analyst predictions with a grain of salt.

• Epic Games and Autodesk announced a strategic partnership.

• Immerse UK Summit will be at at BEYOND 2022 in Cardiff, on 19 October.

• Madalia World created a digital version of Madeira Island, working with the Regional Government of Madeira to issue virtual building permits.

• Nreal has made the Nreal Air available in the USl, for $379.

• STYLY announced an open call for the NEWVIEW Awards.

• Synpulse held its first-ever global leadership townhall. 

  • Curious to see if other companies follow suit.

• UAE is considering ‘Gross Metaverse Product’ as a KPI.

  • Seems like marketing fluff to me, but happy to be proven wrong.

• Zepeto, a popular metaverse in Asian, is expanding internationally.

  • It has 15m to 20m monthly active users, 70% of which are female.

• Vogue launched its own metaverse project, called the Meta-Ocean.

  • It got me thinking about whether it *is* a metaverse experience. It can also be seen as a technically-impressive browser game, but it only lightly touches on the core attributes of a metaverse. I am leaning towards it being an impressive web-based experience over a wider metaverse, for now.

• Vuzix announced the general availability of the Blade 2 smartglasses.

• Walmart launched on Roblox today – while stating that it will not make money.

• CLARIFICATION: Last week, the Immersive Wire reported that ARuVR was the first Crown Commercial Service-approved supplier of XR solutions. This is true, though it implies that they are the first XR-related company to do so. In reality, they are the first to supply both VR and AR services, whereas VR suppliers have been approved in the past.

Photo credit: Madalia World

READERS CORNERLooking for assistance

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• A Gray Space is looking for immersive experts to help shape a creative web-based VR experience focused on the home of Scottish writer Alasdair Gray (Lanark and Poor Things). This is a pro bono project. Visit A Gray Space to find out more and get in touch.

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That's all for this week! Want to have a chat, let me know about a news story, or talk business? Either reply to this email, or contact tom (at) immersivewire (dot) com. Have an excellent day!