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Week that was

Week That Was: 29th September

Week That Was: 29th September

Welcome to the Week That Was on TheVirtualReport.biz, where we bring you the highlights, biggest news and hottest topics from the world of VR, AR and MR business in the last seven days.

 

Top Stories

VR Indie Pitch Helsinki Winners And Runners 

Who won the final VRIP of the year? What kind of games did the 10 teams enter? What did our judges make of them? Here, you’ll find all the answers to these questions and more...

HTC To Sell Pixel Division To Google For $1.1 Billion 

Taiwan co retains Vive and smartphone divisions as Google picks up R&D and manufacturing on its Pixel handsets.

Enterprise First For Mixed Reality At Microsoft Ignite 

Microsoft CEO states the case for WMR and Hololens to ‘change the frontier of collaboration’ for businesses everywhere.

Enterprise First For Mixed Reality At Microsoft Ignite
 

News 

Connecticut XR Arcade Opens 

Stamford’s Holodeck supports developers, offering bespoke facilities for hire.

Oculus Launches New Refund Policy 

Users can now ask for their money back on both Rift and Gear VR content.

Intel Abandons All-In-One Project Alloy VR 

Standalone headset on the scrapheap, company focuses on developing ‘other enabling technologies’ for AR/VR.

VRDC: Survios Shares The Real Data Driving VR Hit, Raw Data 

LA studio reveals the numbers behind its million dollar game.

New $3m XR Investment Fund Launches 

Shasta Ventures seeks up to 30 VR, AR and MR companies in need of funding.

Palmer Luckey Joins Nordic VR Startups As A Mentor 

Oculus co-founder joins VR accelerator programme to support teams in incubation.

Viveport Gets VR Demos 

New Viveport Scene SDK toolset enables developers to create previews of VR content.

Viveport To Give Developers 100% Revenue This Holiday 

HTC marks the one-year anniversary of the Viveport service by foregoing its platform fee in Q4.

HTC Trials Vive Cloud Service 

Chinese pilot scheme eliminates the user’s need for a PC to enjoy high-end VR.

HTC Trials Vive Cloud Service
 

Interviews And Opinion 

Why The Future Of Business Lies In AR, Not VR 

Mitchell Duncan, Technical Analyst at Jumpstart, explores the differences between AR and VR and why augmented is THE reality for enterprise applications.

VR Indie Pitch: A Judge’s View 

Robert W. Heubel, explains how the judges approach the competition, how important it is and what every contestant gains from the experience.

VRDC: The Rise Of Augmented Reality In Construction 

Scott Montgomerie, CEO and founder of Scope AR on AR’s growing popularity for building projects.

VRDC: Communities Driving VR Development 

Harvey Ball on VRTK, the open source VR toolkit he started and how it’s helped sell 170,000 games and generate $2 million revenue.

Why The Future Of Business Lies In AR, Not VR
 

Regulars

XR Web Roundup: 26th September 

XR stories on the web that caught our eyes: MR’s future; Mobile AR; VR Esports; Upload’s lawsuit; Empathy; Museums; Laurie Anderson; Medical applications.

Six Of The Best: 25th September 

Your Monday morning briefing of the six most read stories in the last week: Killer apps; Robot arms; Evocat’s new game; XR Connects Helsinki highlights; XR web roundup.

XR Web Roundup: 26th September
 

Deals 

AR Game Raises $3.5m Through Initial Coin Offering 

Multiplayer combat game, Reality Clash, more than doubles its crowdfunding target in one month.

Portico Studios Raises $600,000 For VR Staff Training Solution 

VR, voice recognition and AI combine to create an employee development tool.

VRChat Gets $4m Investment Led By HTC 

Leading social VR service plans to use funding to power the future of the metaverse.

VRChat Gets 4m USD Investment Led By HTC
 

Events News 

XR Connects Helsinki: Day One Highlights 

It’s been a great first day at XR Connects Helsinki, with some fascinating talks on VR, AR and MR. Here are a dozen of our highlights from the conference.

XR Connects Helsinki: Day Two Highlights 

From the latest VR Indie Pitch to the business of XR, here are our 12 highlights of the final day of the show.

 

See you in seven days...

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Managing Editor

Steve is an award-winning editor and copywriter with nearly 25 years’ experience specialising in consumer technology and video games. He was part of a BAFTA nominated developer studio. In addition to editing TheVirtualReport.biz, Steve contributes to BeyondGames.biz, PocketGamer.biz, PCGamesInsider.biz and BlockchainGamer.biz, as well as creating marketing content for a range of SMEs and agencies.