Oculus’ demise isn’t news. At least, it isn’t new news. Facebook, as it was known then, has been attempting to rid itself of the Oculus branding since 2020 by attempting to convert customers to Facebook accounts. That changed when the company rebranded to Meta a year later but the gist is still the same: Goodbye Oculus.

Oculus’ final hours

Meta recently reminded Oculus account holders of the deletion through an email sent out at the end of February.

“Hi Trent, on 10/31/22 we emailed you regarding your Oculus account and the need to migrate to a Meta account to continue using Meta VR products. Your Oculus account is now scheduled for deletion on 03/29/24, the email reads. “If your Oculus account is deleted you will no longer be able to use Meta Quest with your Oculus account and you won’t be able to reactivate or retrieve anything from the account, including:

• All of your apps and in-app purchases
• Existing app store credits
• Your achievements
• Your friends list
• Any content you created with your Oculus account.”

Read More: Meta forms a partnership with LG to “expedite its extended reality (XR) ventures”

Fortunately, migration isn’t the schlepp it sounds like. When the company initially dreamed up Meta accounts to take over from Oculus accounts, it made the process simple, allowing customers to sign up without first needing a Facebook account — a point that was a major departure from Facebook’s earlier VR products.

To save your account from deletion, you must head here and sign up for a new Meta account using the same email address linked to your Oculus account. From there, you can access all your games, data, and saved content without issues. Your faithful old Oculus account will still be deleted on 29 March 2024, so say your goodbyes now.

This makes a sort of sense. Since LG left the smartphone game, it’s continued to churn out components that would also suit virtual reality tech. But that doesn’t quite fit the stated aim of the partnership, which is to “…combine the strengths of both companies across products, content, services and platforms to drive innovation in customer experiences within the burgeoning virtual space.”

A new Meta

It doesn’t sound like Mark Zuckerberg, LG CEO William Cho, and LG Home Entertainment president Park Hyoung-sei (pictured above) got together merely to talk about how many OLED screens Meta can buy from the South Korean company’s factories. A possible new extended reality ecosystem is hinted at in LG’s announcement, possibly involving the company’s televisions.

This would include artificial intelligence (AI) built into LG devices based on Meta’s large language model LLaMA (hey, the company has to use it for something). This should result in “…significant synergies in next-gen XR device development”, which sounds to us like an LG-made entertainment device (a headset) that incorporates both LG’s software ecosystem and Meta’s AI and VR tech to compete with the Apple Vision Pro. At a significantly more affordable price point, hopefully.

Of course, that’s not official. The partnership announcement is thin on specifics, leaving us to read between the lines. It would be awfully surprising if we were far from the mark, however. LG, before leaving the smartphone space, was in a very experimental frame of mind and an all-new XR gadget would probably appeal to the company internally. And Zuckerberg is always keen to put his company’s data-suction skills to work in any hardware that’ll have it. We’ll keep our ears open about any more concrete developments in this space.

Well, reporting back… more. The Meta Quest and its successors have always shared some information with Meta but it has been confined to info required to keep your virtual reality hardware ticking over correctly. That’ll ramp up shortly to include “anonymized data” about how you (and everyone else) use the company’s VR hardware.

The new Meta

The data up for collection, according to various privacy policies, includes audio and other voice-related data, hand and tracking data, and health information like calories burned and other movement info. Some details on your surroundings, captured by the headset’s external cameras, will be uploaded to Meta’s servers. Finally, the virtual events you attend and any voice interactions you might have with the Quest and its companions will also be collected.

Don’t expect that your data will be turned to any especially nefarious purposes, unless ‘capitalism’ is high on your list of hatred. It’ll instead “improve the hardware and software that powers your experiences with Meta VR Products.” We suspect some of it will find its way into advertisers’ hands so those faceless corporate entities can better target you with prescient advertising. Meta’s being silent about anything along those lines as usual.

If we were being super paranoid, using a virtual reality headset (or anything with a camera) in a home would be a neat way of figuring out what brands are already present there. Advertisers would probably be very interested in that data. Whether it’s legal for them to find that data out is another question.

Palliative care staff work hard to help make patients as comfortable as possible and provide strong emotional support. Meaningful activities can help but patients often aren’t well enough to do the things they really love, such as travel. We wondered whether virtual reality (VR) could help.

To find out, we supported 16 palliative care patients in an acute ward to do three 20-minute VR sessions, and asked them how they felt before and after each one.

Our study, published this week in the journal BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care, found more than 50% of patients experienced clinically meaningful reductions in symptoms such as pain and depression immediately after a 20-minute VR session.

Importantly, though, some also told us it didn’t help or that they felt unwell after using it. This shows taking a nuanced approach to using VR in palliative care is crucial.

What we did

VR involves using a headset to create an immersive experience that feels 3D, often accompanied by music or realistic sound effects. This computer-generated environment can feel incredibly close to reality.

Previous research has looked at VR use in palliative care but we were especially interested in finding out if personalised VR sessions were associated with meaningful changes in pain and depression symptoms.

Personalised VR means each person experiences content that is meaningful to that individual. So rather than asking patients to choose, for example, between a rainforest and a beach VR experience, we interviewed the patients before their sessions to gauge their interests and create a VR session tailored to them.

Read More: We’re using VR to help find the next generation of basketball stars

For example, one person said they wanted a VR experience that allowed them to explore Paris again. Others had migrated to Australia from the UK so they asked for VR experiences that brought them back to the country where they were born. One person was a big fan of Star Wars, so we provided a VR Star Wars game.

For our study, we asked 16 palliative care patients from an acute ward in a South Australian hospital to participate in three VR sessions using a headset that is now known as Meta Quest 2. The participants, who ranged in age from 48 to 87 years old, used the headset for around 20 minutes per session. The primary VR applications we used were Wander and YouTube VR.

We asked each participant about their emotional and physical symptoms before and after each session.

What we found

We found just 20 minutes of VR immersion could immediately reduce the participants’ subjective feelings of both physical pain and emotional pain (such as depression). At least half of the participants reported significant relief after a single session. After one session, two out of three participants reported relief.

One person told us:

When the service is finished you feel like you’re floating. [It takes a] weight off your shoulders.

Another said:

Well, I’d rather lie here thinking about a fish swimming [or] a Willy Nelson concert than be dying […] I enjoyed it.

One participant told us:

Oh, it’s just amazing, it was nothing like I expected […] it takes you from this world into another beautiful world.

A different person said:

[…] by the time you get to where I am, there’s things you think of, ‘I wish I’d done this, I wish I’d had the chance to have been able to do that’ and then this offers you that experience to have just about feel like you’ve been there.

While the benefits of VR were profound for some, they were not universal.

Some participants reported feeling worse after the VR sessions.

One person said the headset felt too heavy on their cheekbone, another said they experienced nausea after using the VR.

Where to from here?

We and others have now collected good evidence VR can be a helpful palliative care therapy for some patients – but not all. It is not a universal remedy.

More research is needed to better understand which patients will benefit the most from VR and how we can best use it. It’s also worth remembering skilled staff need to be on hand to support a patient to use VR; it’s no good just buying a VR set and expecting patients to use it on their own.

Our study, while limited, shows VR therapy may in some cases have a role to play to help palliative care patients experience moments of joy and comfort despite the seriousness of their illness.

• Tobias Loetscher is an Associate Professor, University of South Australia
• Gregory Crawford is a Professor in Palliative Medicine, University of Adelaide
• This article first appeared in The Conversation

The PC Master Race is pleased

“We’re pleased to share that we are currently testing the ability for PS VR2 players to access additional games on PC to offer even more game variety in addition to the PS VR2 titles available through PS5. We hope to make this support available in 2024,” Sony said in a blog post detailing the announcement.

Surprisingly, the announcement of the PSVR 2’s newfound powers wasn’t headline news for Sony. It was relegated to the small paragraph you see above, hidden among the company’s other announcements, such as game reveals and release dates for upcoming VR titles. Interesting stuff, sure, but we’ve got to say that PSVR 2 PC compatibility takes the cake.

Read More: Sony’s PSVR 2 – Hands-on and first impressions

Unfortunately, that small paragraph is all we’re getting for now. Sony didn’t go into more detail on how this PC compatibility might work, leaving many wondering whether they’ll be able to use Sony’s headset for other games, like Valve’s Half-Life: Alyx, or if it’ll limit titles to games already available on both PC and PlayStation. We’re guessing it’ll be the latter.

But that might not matter. Modders like iVRy have been attempting to bypass the headset’s exclusivity for quite some time now — spending over $15,000 and countless hours in the process. Who knows? They might just beat Sony to the punchline.

Specifically, KFC reckons its first-of-its-kind concept store is a vision of what a futuristic KFC store should look like. “It will pioneer new concepts in real-time and innovate in all areas: food, fashion, customer service, team member experience, tech, operations, development, sustainability and design,” says the company.

Kentucky Fried Chic

That’s a little vague. How exactly does it innovate? Well, aside from throwing some much-needed makeup at the walls, it’s reinvigorating its sit-down strategy by expanding seating and incorporating an open-kitchen layout so that customers can see how the sausage chicken is made. That’s… cool, we guess? We wouldn’t exactly call rearranging a couple of chairs and tables innovative. We’d call it common sense.

But maybe we just don’t get it. After all, we’re in the tech business, not the restaurant business. Fortunately, KFC hasn’t disappointed (yet) on that front. The concept store will be the first KFC to offer VR (you thought we were going to say AI, weren’t you?) to customers while they wait. KFC says customers can “compete in a custom KFC virtual reality (VR) gaming experience on a live leaderboard for KFC vouchers.”

What that looks like exactly, we’re not sure. We know it’ll involve players stepping “into the KFC world” and taking on three levels of varying difficulty where “players need to catch or avoid elements in building our signature bucket, burger and Krusher products.”

Oh, and the store has a merch section born out of a collaboration with local designer Mzukisi Mbane of Imprint ZA. KFC doesn’t want you to think this is some common clothes store, though. It’s brought a “virtual mirror” on board that’ll let customers digitally try on the items before picking them up. Why? Because… it’s the future, silly.

Other technical improvements include free and fast Wi-Fi, “soundproof charge-up areas” and a crowd-sourced Spotify playlist.

“At KFC we are obsessed with providing an unparalleled dining experience and all innovation is in pursuit of that promise to our customers,” says KFC Chief Marketing Officer Grant Macpherson. “Innovation is about being brave enough to push the boundaries, test new concepts and getting real-time feedback. It’s also about having the agility to cater to new ordering behaviours and constantly questioning how and why we do the things we do. It’s not only about meeting our customers where they are, but about bringing them new and exciting experiences, tastes and collaborations, and of course pushing the envelope in terms of our flavours.”

Babe, wake up. KFC Zinger Sauce is back

As invested in KFC’s tech-related improvements as we are, we can’t deny the concept store’s new food items didn’t have us drooling at the thought of them. Head over there, and you’ll find Cola dunked and sticky Asian wings, the Double Mexican Crunch burger, Rainbow Slaw Burger, new dips, Chachos, and a bunch of new Krushers you wouldn’t find elsewhere.

Perhaps the most important of the new additions is the selling of the brand’s Zinger and Colonel sauce — which can only be found in-store and cannot be purchased online. Believe us, we’ve tried. At least now we don’t have to wait for Comic-Con Africa to stock up.

For now, Kentucky Fried Chicken is limiting its concept store operating from Sunday to Thursday from 6 AM to 10 PM, and on Fridays and Saturdays from 6 AM to 11 PM. Tt plans to turn the store into a 24-hour location. Get it while it’s hot.

UPDATE 1 Feb: Updated opening times added.

Critics have doubted the appeal of the face-worn computer, which “seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world”, but Apple has pre-sold as many as 180,000 of the US$3,500 gizmos.

What does Apple think people will do with these pricey peripherals? While uses will evolve, Apple is focusing attention on watching TV and movies, editing and reliving “memories”, and – perhaps most importantly for the product’s success – having its customers not look like total weirdos.

Apple hopes the new device will redefine personal computing, like the iPhone did 16 years ago, and Macintosh did 40 years ago. But if it succeeds, it will also redefine concerns about privacy, as it captures enormous amounts of data about users and their environments, creating an unprecedented kind of “biospatial surveillance”.

Spatial computing

Apple is careful about its brand and how it packages and describes its products. In an extensive set of rules for developers, the company insists the new headset is not to be referred to as a “headset”. What’s more, the Apple Vision Pro does not do “augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), extended reality (XR), or mixed reality (MR)” – it is a gateway to “spatial computing”.

Spatial computing, as sketched out in the 2003 PhD thesis of US software engineer Simon Greenwold, is: “human interaction with a machine in which the machine retains and manipulates referents to real objects and spaces”. In other words, the computer can interact with things in the user’s physical surroundings in real time to provide new types of experiences.

The Vision Pro has big shoes to fill for new user experiences. The iPhone’s initial “killer apps” were clear: the internet in your pocket (including portable access to Google Maps), all your music on a touch screen, and “visual voicemail”.

Sixteen years later, all three of these seem unremarkable. Apple has sold billions of iPhones, and some 80% of humans now use a smartphone. Their success has all but killed off earlier tools like paper maps and music CDs (and the ubiquity of text, image and video messaging has largely done away with voicemail itself).

Killer apps

We don’t yet know what the killer apps of spatial computing might be – if any – but here is where Apple is pointing our attention.

The first is entertainment: the Vision Pro promises “the ultimate personal theatre”.

The second is an attempt to solve the social problem of walking around with a weird headset covering half your face. An external screen on the goggles shows a constantly updated representation of your eyes to offer important social cues about your gaze to those around you. Admittedly, this looks weird. But Apple hopes it is less weird and more useful than trying to interact with humans wearing blank aluminium ski goggles.

The third is the ability to capture and and relive “memories”: recording and playback of 3D visual and audio from real events. Reviewers have found it striking:

this was stuff from my own life, my own memories. I was playing back experiences I had already lived.

Apple has patented tools to select, store, and annotate digital “memories”. These memories are files, and potentially products, to be shared in “spatial videos” recorded on the latest iPhones.

Biospatial surveillance

There is already a large infrastructure devoted to helping tech companies track our behaviour in order to sell us things. Recent research found Facebook, for example, receives data from an average of around 2,300 companies on each individual user.

Read More: Apple’s R65,000 Vision Pro makes its grand entrance on 2 February

Spatial computing offers a step change to this tracking. In order to function, spatial computing records and uses vast amounts of intimate data about our bodies and surroundings.

One study on headset design noted no fewer than 64 different streams of biometric and physiological data, from eye tracking and pupil response to subtle changes in the body’s electromagnetic field.

Your face tomorrow

This is not “consumer” data like the brand of toothpaste you buy. It is more akin to medical data.

For instance, analysing a person’s unconscious movements can reveal their emotional state or even predict neurodegenerative disease. This is called “biometrically inferred data” as users are unaware their bodies are giving it up.

Apple suggests it won’t share this type of data with anyone, and Apple has proven better than most companies on privacy. But biospatial surveillance puts more of ourselves in use for spatial computing, in ways that are expanding.

It starts simply enough in the pre-order process, where you need to scan your facial features with your iPhone (to ensure a snug fit). But that’s not the end of it.

Apple’s patent about memories is also about how to “guide and direct a user with attention, memory, and cognition” through feedback loops that monitor “facial recognition, eye tracking, user mood detection, user emotion detection, voice detection, etc. [from a] bio-sensor for tracking biometric characteristics, such as health and activity metrics […] and other health-related information”.

Social questions

Biospatial surveillance is also the key to Apple’s attempt to solve the social problems created by wearing a headset in public. The external screen showing a simulated approximation of the user’s gaze relies on constant measurement of the user’s expression and eye movement with multiple sensors.

Your face is constantly mapped so others can see it – or rather see Apple’s vision of it. Likewise, as passersby come into range of the Apple Vision Pro’s sensors, Apple’s vision of them is automagically rendered into your experience, whether they like it or not.

Apple’s new vision of us – and those that surround us – shows how the requirements and benefits of spatial computing will pose new privacy concerns and social questions. The extensive biospatial surveillance that captures intimate biometric and environmental data redefines what personal data and social interactions are possible for exploitation.

• Luke Heemsbergen is a Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University
• This article first appeared in The Conversation

Anybody even vaguely interested in audio has heard of Dolby Atmos before. Or, at the very least, you’ve seen the Atmos tag pop up before hitting play on Netflix. More specifically, Atmos is Dolby’s proprietary surround sound tech that’s been left unfettered to become the undisputed champ of the scene. Back in November, however, Samsung, in partnership with Google, announced its intent to dethrone Atmos with something it calls Immersive Audio Model and Formats (IAMF).

Details surrounding the Atmos competitor were scarce until recently when Samsung spoke up about its plans for IAMF at CES with Insight Media — confirming that it would be ready to roll out before the year was over. It also noted that it’d be using Google’s powers to get IAMF enrolled into YouTube’s content that will support the tech before crossing over into 2025.

The real question is whether Samsung and Google can stand up to an industry veteran like Dolby when it comes to audio. We reckon it can. The biggest factor that IAMF has going for it is that it doesn’t require any new hardware to reap the benefits. Instead, all it’ll need is a simple software update on a TV or surround system to get it going, though Samsung hasn’t yet mentioned which of its older TVs will get the update.

It helps that IAMF is open-source and royalty-free, which Samsung believes is the only way forward if it wants to overthrow Atmos’ stranglehold and become the new standard across the industry. It… has a point. Listen up, Dolby.

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VR treadmills just got a whole lot more interesting, thanks Disney

There’s a whole lot of sitting on the couch where VR is concerned for technology that’s meant to convince the user they’re somewhere else. That’s fine by us — we don’t all have the tethered treadmills or massive rooms necessary to take advantage of virtual reality properly. It’s a major issue that needs fixing before VR can really spread its wings and enter the mainstream. And… Disney might have just done exactly that. Enter the HoloTile Floor — crafted by Lanny Smoot, one of Disney’s ‘Imagineers’.

Almost out of the blue, Disney dropped a demo of one of the most advanced omnidirectional treadmills ever built. That’s the HoloTile, which appears to make use of minute rolling balls underneath the flooring that can detect and match your feet’s movements and adjust accordingly — all without the need for a tether. That’s inventive enough on its own, but the fact the HoloTile can support multiple people at once, all moving independently, makes it that much cooler.

As for where Disney sees this tech heading, VR is at the forefront of their minds, and rightfully so. But it’s got visions of HoloTile Floors being adopted into the theatrical world of stage plays to help dancers pull off new moves without much effort. Unfortunately, it’ll be a while before any of that becomes a reality. Disney only mentions that the tech is a work-in-progress for the time being, meaning it won’t be turning up on any shelves (or floors) soon.

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MrBeast on YouTube Prime Video

MrBeast — the YouTuber who pulled off a real-life Squid Games competition better than Netflix and arguably one of the most famous faces on planet Earth — is reportedly looking to step out of the YouTube bubble to pursue a deal that would see him enter the realm of streaming with Amazon’s Prime Video, according to Puck News, with Variety later confirming the story.

The deal hasn’t yet been inked and sits at around the $100-million mark according to Puck’s Matthew Belloni. It would reportedly see MrBeast’s team make use of Prime Video’s expansive budgets to concoct a higher-budget reality competition show of some form, though exact details of what that premise will be are still being kept in the dark.

Belloni also mentions that the deal might see the first episode premiere on YouTube in a bid to convince MrBeast’s 233-million subscribers to sign up for Prime Video to continue watching the series. At the time of writing, neither Prime Video nor MrBeats have commented on the situation, so it’s all worth taking with a grain of salt.

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Nvidia wants to give your old games a makeover with, surprise surprise, AI

Still trying to get over the fact that your favourite childhood games don’t have ray-tracing? You can stop now. Nvidia’s gone and released a beta for Nvidia RTX Remix — a tool designed specifically for modders that’ll help give older games a makeover by adding ray-tracing and newer textures to the mix. And because it’s 2024, you’ve probably already got an idea of how it’ll manage to do it.

Despite this being in beta form, Nivida reckons it’s quite capable of remastering a game from start to finish. It’ll only work on DirectX 8 or 9 games, however, and is made up of two key ingredients. On one end, you’ve got the application handling the creation of new lighting scenarios for the game being ‘remastered’, while the other specialises in adding upscaled textures and assets into the mix.

The tool, surprisingly, is free. As in, you can go and download it right now and get to remastering those classics sitting in your Steam library. If you can’t be bothered to see which games can be run through RTX Remix, Nvidia’s done the dirty work for you.

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Just about everybody is getting in on mobile games. Most are happy to let Google and Apple run the show, happy to be part of the fun and raking in a sizeable fee. Just yesterday, Netflix announced that it was bolstering its library of mobile games with three GTA games. Not Microsoft, though. The Xbox owner is reportedly discussing the idea of its own mobile gaming store — separate from the App or Play Store — according to Phil Spencer, head of video games at Xbox.

“It’s an important part of our strategy and something we are actively working on today not only alone but talking to other partners who’d also like to see more choice for how they can monetise on the phone,’’ Spencer said in an interview in Sao Paulo during the CCXP comics and entertainment convention, via a report from Bloomberg.

Spencer didn’t delve too deeply into what that store could and would look like, and spurned any advances from those asking for a solid release date. He did dabble with the vague, however, mentioning that he didn’t think the service was “multiple years” away from bearing fruit. “I think this is sooner than that,” he concluded.

Part of the company’s desire to go it alone has to do with the company’s massive $70 billion or so buyout of Activision Blizzard — which houses big-name brands like King (the people who make Candy Crush) and Call of Duty Mobile. Had the deal closed sooner rather than later, Microsoft would likely have its mobile store’s metaphysical doors open for business by now.

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rAge is stepping up its VR game this year

This is it. We’re officially in December, and that means a couple of things. A) Tears of the Kingdom will be picking up its Game of the Year award very soon, and B) South Africa’s rAge Expo opens its doors on the same day; Friday, 8 December. That’s big news – especially after rAge’s latest release landed on our desk (we got an email), announcing the RGB Gaming virtual reality (VR) Arena.

Yup, it’s about as cool as it sounds. It’s described as a 100-square-metre VR arena that “introduces a free-roaming VR combat arena accommodating up to four players and two referees simultaneously.” RGB Gaming acting as the arena’s sponsor, meaning there’ll be tons of pretty lights to gawk at and a level of quality control that’s almost essential to pull something like this off. If it’s anything like this, we’ll be happy.

“Ditching traditional fixed layouts, the arena transforms into an expansive, dynamic laser tag battleground,” rAge said. “Utilising the most advanced virtual reality system available, players will find themselves seamlessly merging with the game environment—a dream come true for gaming enthusiasts.”

Unfortunately, rAge doesn’t mention any specifics about the tech powering this thing. We’re still in the dark about the sort of headsets that’ll be used, nor the price an attendee should expect to pay. We doubt it’ll be cheap but if it’s as high-end as the Expo makes it sound, it’ll be worth the price of admission. If we had to guess the most likely headset culprit is something from the Oculus department.

The rAge Expo opens its doors on Friday, 8 December before closing on Sunday, 10 December.

Memes finally get a corner of the internet all to themselves

Memes have long since been a staple of the internet as we know it. They’ve integrated themselves into just about every aspect of social media — and are about the only way Gen Z can communicate anymore (source). It’s about time they’re shown the respect they deserve, which is why Google Registry just launched an entirely new domain that’ll let you stick a fancy .meme at the end of it. You know, to prove that your meme website is serious.

.meme domains can be coined right now as part of the new domain’s pre-registration period, though they’ll require an “additional one-time fee” to get them off the ground before they go public. If spending a buttload of dough on what’ll be considered a big joke doesn’t seem like the smartest money move (it can’t be worse than buying NFTs) then waiting until the 5 December public launch date might be a better idea.

It isn’t difficult to find those websites already embracing their namesake. The famous KnowYourMeme has already adopted the new standard – now going by knowyour.meme – while other sites have been created in honour of those memes of yore. grumpycat.meme, keyboardcat.meme and nyancat.meme are just a few that Google Registry is showing off.

Xbox wants Game Pass on every screen possible. That includes PlayStation

Xbox, in an unusually busy morning for the PlayStation rival, is in the headlines again. Microsoft wants Game Pass, its subscription-based service that puts games on your PC or Xbox — on PlayStation and Nintendo‘s platforms. Earlier this week, Tim Stuart (Xbox’s CFO) spoke at the Wells Fargo TMT Summit, pointing out the company’s plans to make Game Pass available on “every screen that can play games.” That means its biggest rivals, too.

“It’s a bit of a change of strategy. Not announcing anything broadly here, but our mission is to bring our first-party experiences [and] our subscription services to every screen that can play games,” Stuart said. “That means smart TVs, that means mobile devices, that means what we would have thought of as competitors in the past like PlayStation and Nintendo.”

That’s Xbox’s thoughts on the matter, at least. Whether Nintendo or PlayStation will go for it is another question entirely. Being the most value-centric subscription of the three, it would almost certainly demean the two Japanese company’s offerings from the word go. But who knows? Were the idea a complete write-off, Xbox would likely keep its mouth tight shut. The fact we’re hearing about it at all means… there’s a chance.

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XRHealth, here on terra firma, specialises in mental health (and even physical therapy) applications that are assisted by the judicious usage of virtual reality experiences. And it’s time for those experiences to be experienced off-planet. Well, in orbit, which is close enough.

Enough space for HTC?

There is a third partner in the mix along with HTC and XRHealth called NordSpace ApS, a Danish engineering firm. Together they’ve converted HTC’s Vive Focus 3 headset to work in microgravity. You know, the same stuff astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) deal with daily? The inclusion of the Danish company is fitting because the astronaut tasked with using the virtually-delivered therapy program, Andreas Mogensen, is from that country.

Mogensen travelled to the ISS in August this year as part of NASA’s Crew-7 mission which concludes in 2024. He’ll test “…a virtual assistance mental balance initiative aimed to address astronauts’ specific needs to maintain mental health while in orbit.”

But that’s not the really cool bit. Virtual reality systems only really work when the headset knows where you are. That’s why most at-home VR kits have a ‘safe’ area where it’ll work. Step outside of that and tracking ends. The problem is that in space, nobody can stay still for very long. Previous attempts at using VR on the ISS have resulted in inaccurate tracking, an unusual amount of nausea, and a generally unpleasant experience.

HTC and friends have come up with a new way for VR to function, which they call “simulator mode”. There’s not much detail on how it works but it appears to spatially locate the headset using the controller position. Since those are assumed to be in your hands, it should create a more stable experience than trying to map the environment.