Google will teach you about famous paintings and culture using eerie AR filters

Posted on by Nadeem Sarwar

The Google Arts & Culture app is all about educating users about well… arts and culture, offering everything from short history lessons and super-detailed look at famous paintings to 360-degree virtual tours of monuments and museums. Now, the company is jumping on the AR bandwagon to teach you a bit about some of the most notable paintings in the world as well as historical artifacts of great cultural importance. The Google Arts & Culture app has introduced AR filters that let you turn you yourself into a weird version of Vincent van Gogh’s self-portrait or don a samurai helmet like the world’s biggest misfit. 

Actually, the number of ‘historically and artistically important’ AR filters in the Google Arts & Culture app is rather limited at the moment at just five. You can play with superimposing van Gogh and Frida Kahlo’s renowned self-portraits, “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Johannes Vermeer or play with historical artifacts such as a Japenese helmet or an Egyptian necklace that is said to be a few thousand years old. 

The AR filters can be found under the new Art Filter category on the Google Arts & Culture app’s homepage. To play with them, just tap on any of the five cards and you’re good to go. Alternatively, you can tap on the colorful camera icon at the bottom and select the Art Filter option at the top. Once you’re done gazing at your magnificent artistic portrait or done playing with a centuries-old war helmet on top of your head, you can snap a picture or even take a video of yourself immersed in an AR avatar of arts and history. 

When you tap on an AR filter, a small window will pop-up that will let you check out the real painting or artifact via high-resolution imagery and also find more details about it if you’re interested. I tried the new AR filters in the Google Arts & Culture app, and let’s just say that my face was not sculpted to appear in a self-portrait like Vincent van Gogh or the one depicting Frida Kahlo, and the article’s title image makes it abundantly clear.

Source: Google Blog

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Facebook’s new Oculus Quest 2 VR headset is sharper, faster and also cheaper at $299

Posted on by Nadeem Sarwar

At its Facebook Connect event today, the social media giant launched its latest standalone VR headset – the Oculus Quest 2. The new VR headset is smaller and 10% lighter than its predecessor, and offers what the company calls IPD (interpupillary distance) adjustment mechanism for providing more comfort to users. The Quest 2 is also sharper, offering a resolution of 1832 x 1920 pixels per eye, which is 50% more than its predecessor. It is based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Platform paired with 6 gigs of RAM. Plus, the company has also given the Oculus Quest a major boost in the graphics department by offering support for 90Hz content across the Home Environment, Explore and Oculus TV sections.

Facebook ships its new standalone VR headset with new Touch controllers that claim to offer improved ergonomics and more efficient controller tracking to bring down battery consumption. Notably, the new controllers are said to last up to 4 times longer than the Touch controllers which shipped with the first-gen Oculus Quest headset. Plus, the Oculus Quest 2 is also compatible with Oculus Link, the company’s own toolkit that allows users to connect it with a computer via a USB cable and use it as a PC-based VR system. What this means is you can enjoy the entire Quest library on the new standalone headset as well as Rift games made for the PC VR platform. 

Oculus Link is coming out of beta in the fall season and support for 90Hz experience is coming soon as well. Plus, a unified dashboard is also rolling out next year that will put all your compatible PC VR games and Quest titles in a single place. The Oculus Quest is priced at $299 – a good $100 cheaper than its predecessor – and is now up for pre-orders, while shipments are set to begin on October 13. It will be available from the official Oculus website, Best Buy, GameStop, Target, and Walmart in the US; Currys PC World and FNAC Darty in the UK and EU; while Amazon will handle worldwide shipment duties.

Alongside the Oculus Quest 2 headset, Facebook has also launched a new line of accessories that include a carrying case, a new USB Type-C cable for connecting it with a PC, an Elite Strap priced at $49 to offer more comfort while using it, and another strap that comes with its own battery case as well for more playtime. 

Source: Oculus

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Love dinosaurs? Google Search puts them in your living room with AR view

Posted on by Nadeem Sarwar

Google Search lets you see a wide variety of 3D animals with the magic of augmented reality (AR). The search giant has now announced that it is adding 10 species of dinosaurs to the list, ranging from the terrifying T-Rex to the magnificent Brachiosaurus in your living room (if it fits) or neighborhood, complete with sounds of its roaring and footsteps.

All you have to do is search the name of a dinosaur species on your smartphone, scroll down, and tap on the ‘View in 3D‘ button in the knowledge card of Google Search. You will have the option of seeing the dinosaur fitted across your phone’s screen or gaze upon it in all its glorious size, provided it fits in the space you are currently in.

The 10 dinosaurs added to Google Search have been borrowed from the Jurassic World franchise and include Tyrannosaurus Rex, Velociraptor, Triceratops, Spinosaurus, and Stegosaurus among others. Users can also record AR videos and recreate scenes from the Jurassic World movies. But do keep in mind that this feature is only available on ARCore-enabled devices.

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VIVE Sync update allows participants without VR headset to attend virtual meetings

Posted on by Nadeem Sarwar

HTC’s VIVE division has announced a major update for its VR-based VIVE Sync meeting and collaboration solution that brings a host of new features and improvements. The biggest change, however, is that it finally allows non-VR participation in a virtual meeting. But what does it actually mean?

Image: VIVE

Well, even if you don’t have a VR headset, you can participate in a virtual meeting where your avatar will be substituted by a display board so that other participants know you’re here. Non-VR participants will be able to use voice chat for communication, record the meeting, and take screenshots too. However, they must have a VR-ready PC at their disposal.

Image: VIVE

The VIVE Sync update also adds new casual outfits for users’ virtual avatars, introduces a network speed check tool, reduces loading time, and also brings desktop login support. The company says voice-to-text performance and avatar rotation have also been improved with the update.

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Smartphone virtual reality coming soon through prototype headset?

Posted on by Jaime Rivera

Virtual reality gadgets have become quite the thing lately, with products like the Oculus Rift VR making some headlines last year. Obviously at this point it’s hard to tell just how well these products will sell, as most of them have barely reached retail, and others still haven’t left the concept window. Now the biggest question is: Would you want to use a heads-up display for your smartphone? We’ve come across the Seebright’s AR/VR head-mounted display prototype, which has a peculiar feature. ...

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