LAYER Design’s lifestyle-focused Viture One smart glasses have form, function and ergonomic comfort in perfect sync

The Viture One smart glasses carry minimalism at their core, keeping in mind the latest trends and not sacrificing technology inclusion for a great user experience without all the discomfort or bulkiness that’s akin to VR headsets.

As we look forward to roaming in the metaverse (and who knows spending our complete life in VR) in the near future, the tools are going to be as important as the whole experience. Take VR headsets and smart glasses for example. While the former has a big issue with long-term use fatigue and lack of overall practical usage, the latter is the only hope if the masses have to be lured in. Layer Design wants to strike gold with its Viture smart glasses to make you ditch smart TVs, laptops, and even the smartphone for good.

Designer: Layer Design

This fashionable set of sunglasses is as good as any other high-tech pair of shades on the market. The frames by the design house weigh just 78 grams, shedding most of the extra fluff and managing to achieve an ultra-slim form factor. Something that you would want to wear every day, just like your normal glasses. These ones, however, give you the freedom to jump right into your favorite movies, games (even from consoles like PlayStation 5), or action series anywhere, anytime.

The lenses in front of the eyes display a cinematic 120-inch virtual screen (at 60fps and 55 pixels per degree) even on the brightest of days. The virtual screen gets 400 pixels per inch on a retina display which is very impressive considering we are talking about thin glass lenses here. The glasses are paired to a collar-like neckband housing the powerful CPU, GPU, battery pack, and intuitive controls. So, we are talking about fully immersive gaming and media streaming capabilities here. And yes, if you thought, what about the audio experience? Well, the smart glasses have ear-facing speakers located around the temple area.

Keeping ergonomics in mind, the lightweight eyewear comes with an interchangeable nose bridge to fit any facial structure like a charm. Even better, the display can be toggled to adjust the position for people with short-sighted vision. Viture One manages to achieve a very good balance between style and tech which will ultimately translate into an increased userbase. As per Layer Design founder Benjamin Hubert, “In creating Viture One, we wanted to deliver the antithesis of this trend. The result is a product that is more lifestyle led, akin to the traditional eyewear you would wear proudly as part of your fashion expression.”

The post LAYER Design’s lifestyle-focused Viture One smart glasses have form, function and ergonomic comfort in perfect sync first appeared on Yanko Design.

Eleven is a concept sphere that aims to give the full immersive VR experience

A few years ago, when virtual reality and augmented reality started becoming a, well, reality for a lot of gadget users, we thought that the life we saw in sci-fi movies and TV series will finally be upon us. Well years later and while there have been some advances made, it’s still something that’s not as pervasive in our everyday lives. VR devices haven’t caught on like fire as expected and it’s still a luxury for a lot of people. Still, we’re seeing some interesting developments, at least when it comes to product concepts.

Designer: Tai Geng

There’s this interesting concept for a virtual reality sphere that can give users full immersion, something that improves on the usual head-mounted devices. These HMDs are still the most common VR gadgets right now but are considered just a temporary step in the evolution of the technology. The product concept is called Eleven and is a sphere that seems suspended above an electromagnetic base and aims to bring a fully immersive VR experience whether through a movie, a game, or a teaching tool.

Inside the sphere is a seat with smart foam contouring so the person using it will feel comfortable and safe inside. You will not need things like seatbelts or harnesses even though the sphere is able to move in different directions. It is able to simulate the movements that are happening in the media you’re viewing whether it’s side to side, forward and backward or even upward and downward. If the sphere does have zero latency, you will experience instantaneous movements from your game or movie or video.

It seems to be floating above the base as it is designed to have three triangulating electromagnets to orient it when it’s not moving. They covered all these mechanisms with aluminum materials that are fastened into the hollowed base. The sphere rotation depends on the movement that is happening within the video and is translated through the repulsion and attraction from the magnets used in the sphere.

This is by no means a small sphere as with the base it stands at 6 feet. It will be interesting to be inside one and experience the immersive VR experience that it promises. However, if you have motion sickness, this might not be such a good idea of course.

The post Eleven is a concept sphere that aims to give the full immersive VR experience first appeared on Yanko Design.

Holoride-Audi partnership delivers XR to some Audi series vehicles

AUDI Holoride In-car Experience

Holoride aims to add thrill to every ride, but not many people will appreciate the idea of turning a vehicle into a moving theme park. It’s the selling point of Holoride, but we recognize the fact many people won’t like it because they quickly get dizzy.

Holoride offers a fun and connected experience to every ride, at least, to the more adventurous people. If you’ve tried holoride and are contemplating getting a new car, you may consider Audi. The Holoride team just announced its integration with Audi series vehicles starting this June.

Designer: Holoride

AUDI Holoride Experience

Audi is the first car company to bring holoride-ready experiences. Audi will be taking advantage of its MIB 3 infotainment system and making holoride a native feature. In addition, the automotive company has partnered with Holoride to offer consumers a unique travel experience XR content in real-time. The Audi-Holoride experience is possible with a motion-synchronized car and location-aware data. XR content is shown in real-time, delivering information or entertainment that will benefit the passenger.

Sample AUDI Holoride Experience

In-car entertainment inside your Audi is taken to the next level with Holoride. It can be educational for the children and recreational for the adults with the gaming content. There is also well-being-related content so you can be happy, healthy, and comfortable all the time.

Passenger experience is usually forgotten once a vehicle’s design has been finalized, but with holoride integration, it can be enhanced once again. Audi will start introducing this feature to several models like the Audi A4/A5/A6/A7/A8, Q5/Q7/Q8, Audi etron/etron Sportback, and Audi etron GT. In your Audi car starting June, you will find the holoride within the modular infotainment toolkit (MIB 3). Make sure you have a VR headset ready with you. It will connect wirelessly to your vehicle via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) standard. You can look at the HTC VIVE Flow since it’s the first holoride-ready headset.

AUDI Holoride Experiences Game

Audi and the Holoride team also worked with groups like Schell Games, ARVORE Immersive Games, TRIPP, PRELOADED, Magnopus, and MEDIASQUAD to develop more content. Future House Studios, SpiceVR, FreshFX, and VRWERX will also release holoride experiences in the near future. The in-car experience will be available in Europe and the United States in fall 2022.

The UK and Germany will get it first followed by more countries in the region by next year. The same holoride for Audi will be ready in China, South Korea, and Japan. Audi getting the holoride integration isn’t exactly a surprise since the startup’s co-founders were previous employees.

AUDI Holoride Experiences Game

The post Holoride-Audi partnership delivers XR to some Audi series vehicles first appeared on Yanko Design.

This phone case transforms into a lightweight VR headset in the blink of an eye

In a landscape where VR headsets are graduating to be a more practical accessory for end-users, the Porket VR headset phone case is the direction tech companies need to evolve to embark on.

Google had to part ways with its ambitious Cardboard VR project and the evolutionary Daydream VR too due to declining interest among consumers and developers alike. This was partly attributed to the ease of use when adapting virtual reality accessories for content consumption, and most don’t find VR products on the market to be very practical. Take, for example, hardcore VR headsets by Oculus or the recently announced PlayStation VR 2. They are bulky to wear, can cause eye fatigue, and not many are keen on making them a part of their daily routine for the long term.

Designer: Gihawoo Design

The cassette-shaped Porket VR phone case by design house Gihawoo Design wants to break the general notion about virtual reality headsets. Rather than being a separate accessory, the phone case acts as your VR headset for consuming quick videos on the go. The product is designed keeping the future technologies in mind, which will be dominated by the next trending avenue – the Metaverse. The foldable VR headset is an extension of the case, and in the blink of an eye, it transforms into a VR headset to watch quick virtual reality content.

Porket VR is in some ways similar to the Google Cardboard headset but adds the ease-of-use element to the equation, and of course, it is more compact and lightweight. In a way, the accessory becomes a part of the daily smartphone usage scenarios – and when it’s time to immerse yourself into the virtual world, things are as simple as wearing a pair of ski goggles. The gadget makes logical sense for the future when all the phones will become compliant for beaming VR and AR content. In fact, we could be looking at the possibility of the phone’s back panels designed in a way to unfold into a VR goggle.

According to the designers of this cool phone accessory, there are convex lenses placed optimally at a distance of 6 cms from the eyes in the VR headset configuration. No thicker than the Galaxy Fold 3 in the completely folded position, the Porket VR headset case makes complete sense to lure in consumers who like their things to be compact and capable of multi-use scenarios.

The post This phone case transforms into a lightweight VR headset in the blink of an eye first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Metaverse is inevitable, and it’s already changing product design as we know it

As virtual and physical worlds collide, the way we design and appreciate products will change forever.

It’s easy enough to downplay the metaverse as an overly hyped buzzword that won’t last a few years. There’s also plenty of reason to be worried when a company like Facebook formally adopts it as its new prime directive. The metaverse, however, will eventually be our future, or at least the technologies that power the metaverse will be. But more than just something that geeks will enjoy, this new version of our reality will also affect everyday life, and it’s already causing a shift in the design world even as we speak.

Designer: Keiichi Matsuda

The Metaverse of Madness

What is this “metaverse” thing in the first place? Just like “the cloud,” the word existed long before it came to the attention of mainstream media and big tech giants, so its meaning might have become a bit muddled by now. It’s also impossible to talk about the metaverse without talking about the different “extended realities” (XR) that preceded it and enables it.

People will probably be most familiar with VR or virtual reality since it has so far been the most accessible to even the common folk. It immerses people in a completely digital world, with almost no connection to reality except as images and videos overlaid in the VR world. In contrast, augmented reality or AR puts digital objects in the real world, mostly to give additional information or put stickers in a mostly passive way. Then there’s the newly-minted “mixed reality” or MR that truly blends the physical and the digital, allowing objects in one world to manipulate the other.

Designer: Microsoft

The metaverse is an application of all these technologies, particularly VR and MR, with the added element of social interaction. Whether that interaction is happening in a completely virtual world or against the backdrop of real-world locations, the metaverse creates a social space where people can experience the same things as others in that same virtual space. It’s this blurring of the boundaries between the real and the digital that is going to inform the field of design in the years to come.

Product Design in a Mixed World

Product design has always been a discipline that aims to create things that give value to people, not just things that are pretty but solve the wrong problems. The metaverse, however, changes the rules on what will be valuable to people, and that will turn the field of product design on its head. In some ways, it improves on age-old processes and makes iterations faster and more efficient, but it also creates dangers that could impact people’s lives in less direct ways.

Products in the metaverse will no longer be limited to the constraints of physical materials and production pipelines. Changing designs on a shoe or even a car can be as simple as changing what people see through their AR headsets or glasses. We already see a shift in that kind of customizable experiences with BMW’s latest concept car, and many companies are already laying the foundations for their metaverse products. Nike, for example, recently acquired a startup that specializes in designing virtual sneakers for the future metaverse. The metaverse could also help make products more sustainable since changing designs or creating new variants will no longer require additional production processes or new materials that would eventually create more waste.

Designer: BMW

At the same time, metaverse-centric products can also reduce their inherent value, or at least the value we place on actual physical objects that actually do something in the real world. Taking the shoe example again, you can have a metaverse shoe that can look outlandish or out of this world in mixed reality, but they might not perform as well as specially-made running or basketball shoes. As human beings with physical bodies, we still put value in things that we can touch and feel, things that tickle the senses beyond sight and sound, things that these digital realities can’t fully replicate yet.

Designer: RTFKT

User Experience by Proxy

The metaverse can also change the way we will experience the world around us, which, in turn, will also change the way designers create products or user experiences. Hyundai, for example, presented the idea of “metamobility,” where Boston Dynamics’ Spot dog can be your physical representative on Mars. That, however, also requires designing new products that will let you physically experience those same sensations as if you were there.

Designer: Hyundai

A lot of these new concepts seem to revolve around cars, particularly the ones that can drive themselves so that humans can enjoy the metaverse in peace. LG’s concept unsurprisingly puts displays around the car’s interior, creating a virtual window into a digital world. Outside of vehicles, we will also need apparel and accessories that will not only reproduce sensations that should be felt in the physical world but also let us control the virtual world as naturally as possible.

Designer: LG

Even everyday products at home will be drastically changed, more in function than in form this time. In the metaverse, reality can be made to look different in a snap, but the underlying physical object still needs to be able to support its intended functions. A couch still needs to be a couch that you can sit on comfortably, no matter the reality. Designers, however, might be less interested in spending time on the finer details if they will be overlaid with a different design anyway.

Designer: Jeongin Lee

The Metaverse will change the Rules, but not yet

From product design to money, the metaverse both promises and threatens to change the world as we know it. It is equally exciting and frightening for everyone, from consumers to creators. The winds of change seem to have started blowing, but the good news is that the big changes aren’t going to happen just yet.

Beyond the hype being pushed by large companies (except Apple, it seems), the metaverse isn’t something that’s going to happen in just a few years, like 5G or a new smartphone. There are too many pieces still missing, starting with the devices that we’ll need to experience this metaverse, like ergonomic mixed reality eyewear. That’s not to say it won’t happen eventually, but the change won’t be as revolutionary as some companies like Meta would have people believe. And that is just fine because it will allow us to better prepare for when it does happen and not have our real reality come crashing down like a web server.

Designer: Panasonic

Designer: Beijing EM3 Technology Co. Ltd.

The post The Metaverse is inevitable, and it’s already changing product design as we know it first appeared on Yanko Design.

Virtual Reality Boots Promise an Even More Immersive Experience

What good is virtual reality if it can still be distinguished from actual reality? So companies are hard at work trying to make the VR experience as immersive as possible. And one of those companies is Ekto One, which is developing a pair of VR boots that allow a user to actually walk without moving forward. Soon we won’t even have to go outside to experience life!

The boots work via a motion tracking system that keeps tabs on the boots’ movement and location and wheels that return the user to their starting position after each step. The Ekto Ones allow a user the sensation of walking in virtual reality without the need of a bulky and difficult-to-move omnidirectional treadmill so that you could bring virtual reality with you virtually anywhere.

Of course, the boots come with their own drawbacks, including taking five minutes to put on and being awkward and weighty enough that early testers have described 20 minutes of use as a workout itself. Granted, I already consider twenty minutes of regular walking a workout, so I’m really not sure what their point is there.

[via dornob]

These cyberpunk boots will let you walk inside the metaverse without moving from the spot

We might soon be virtually walking on the moon without leaving our homes, thanks to the Metaverse push. With boots that give off a Pacific Rim vibe, you won’t even have to leave the spot you’re standing on and just moonwalk your way to distant worlds.

Virtual reality has been around for decades, but it was only recently that it had made giant strides in making what was once science fiction a reality. While visuals have significantly improved, the illusion of VR is immediately broken when it comes time to interact with the world. A lot of R&D has been poured into making touch input more believable, but that still leaves the problem of moving around the virtual world unresolved. These funky-looking books straight out of a cyberpunk prop set might offer one solution, and you might not look too ridiculous while using them.

Designer: Ekto VR

We almost have the visuals of VR down to a “T,” but there are still a lot of missing elements to make these digital realities almost feel like the real thing. The metaverse is promising to bring us to new worlds, both real and virtual, but our eyes won’t be the only ones that will be making the journey. Hyundai, for example, is envisioning a way to help humans feel a snowstorm on Mars without actually being there, but that still involves people sitting in place, whether in a room or in a moving car.

Moving around virtual worlds feels very artificial when all that we move are our hands or even just our fingers. In some cases, that might be OK since you probably don’t want to walk miles inside a virtual shopping mall or on a tour of the world’s famous landmarks. When exploring unfamiliar places or inspecting industrial sites, however, you might want to actually get a feel for the environment, including the act of walking.

Ekto VR is one of the latest attempts at solving this problem of Location Interface or LI. Some VR systems try to use treadmills to emulate the action of walking, but that feels just as artificial and as awkward as not walking at all. In contrast, the Ekto VR boots ingeniously use motorized wheels to go in the opposite direction and speed as your feet. The effect is that you feel like you’re walking, and your brain feels like you’re walking, but to the people outside, you look like you’re dancing the moonwalk instead.




The boots won’t be winning any awards for design, at least not yet. This hefty and bulky footwear looks more like prototypes than a finished product, and rightly so. They’re still in the early stages of development, so looking nice isn’t really as a priority yet. Then again, you can always mask your apparel in the metaverse, so it might not matter much what things really look like in the real world.

The post These cyberpunk boots will let you walk inside the metaverse without moving from the spot first appeared on Yanko Design.

Get Metaverse ready with this set of modular gaming controllers designed for the future of Generation Alpha!




 

Vers is a set of controllers designed for Generation Alpha to traverse the transformed incoming video game landscape, where VR and AI are in and AR is out.

With the arrival of each new generation, our world becomes more immersed in technology. Succeeding Gen Z, Generation Alpha will be the first generation to be entirely born and shaped in the 21st century. As such, their lives have been defined by smart technology, Artificial Intelligence, and virtual reality.

In response, designers have been busy conceptualizing tech accessories to bridge reality with its virtual iterations. Vers, a set of controllers designed to traverse digital metaverses, was developed by Ye Jin Kim and Hayeon Yoo for Generation Alpha.

Nicknamed the Glass Generation, those who belong to Gen Alpha primarily experience the digital reality encased beneath their glass smartphone screens. The arrival of the Glass Generation means that our digital mediums are evolving.

Of course, that means the ways we interact with digital interfaces must evolve too. With VR and metaverses becoming the norm within the realm of video games, Kim and Yoo designed Vers because “controllers are no longer restricted to stationary, passive interactions.”

Vers is comprised of five components, all of which are contained within a cushioned, minimalist controller box. In order to appeal to Gen Alpha’s millennial parents, the controller box maintains an inconspicuous, yet modern look. Inside the hexagonal controller box, users will find a set of two pads that can be used for jumping and running, a pair of ergonomic nunchuck controllers, and a camera console.

The pair of ergonomic controllers also keep a modular design that allows for versatile gaming experiences. Transforming the controller from its original remote form to an upright position, the controller mirrors each user’s moves à la VR remotes. Then, the couple of magnetic mesh cushioned pads have a silicone underside so that kids can jump and stomp freely without slipping.

Designers: Ye Jin Kim and Hayeon Yoo







The post Get Metaverse ready with this set of modular gaming controllers designed for the future of Generation Alpha! first appeared on Yanko Design.

Metaverse keyboard transforms boring computer workspace into a cool 3D space for freedom of productivity!

The Metaverse Keyboard traverses our plain old workspace into a mixed reality workspace – perfectly in cohesion with the core idea of the metaverse and its applications!

Author Nel Stephenson came up with the term “metaverse” in his science fiction novel “Snow Crash” and fast-forward to the present day, it looks more likely we’ll be living in a hyper-realistic world within a digital universe in the near future. Reminds me of the movie Ready Player One, and the rendered 3D virtual worlds will one day be our life. Sounds exciting as well as scary, don’t you think so?

Visionaries are eying the metaverse-dominated future, take for example Mark Zuckerberg with his Meta (formerly Facebook) or Bill Gates with the mixed reality and augmented reality projects such as Hololens 2 headset. Of course, NFTs are slowly becoming popular with the masses, and having a unified ecosystem of the metaverse for applications input methods is most important. So why shouldn’t we go beyond the 2D space for our screen real estate and dive into the 3D realms actuated by a Metaverse keyboard? Something beyond the game and experience themes for daily tasks such as working on the PC?

Product designer Heewon Jung and Designer Dot feed the metaverse dream with the right kind of fuel with their cool Metaverse Keyboard that syncs with the virtual reality and augmented reality technology to go beyond the plane of information for the future work environment. It’s like a 3D world right in front of your eyes while working – with the 3D space actuated joysticks that accompany the keyboard. Yes, the logical progression to your PC mouse which operates in a 2D space. So the idea is simple – when you want to experience the 3D world for better understanding, just take out the cool trackpad dubbed Wormhole on one side of the keyboard, and you jump straight into a mixed reality workspace which is more engaging. The uni-directional touchpad lets you navigate in the 3D workspace, something we never saw in the last couple of decades, ever since we all started exploring our computers.

The peripheral works just like any other keyboard when you’re not delving deep into the metaverse productivity workspace with the Wormhole. This is a concept design of the cool and weird world we are looking upon in the near future for sure!

Designer: Heewon Jung and Designer Dot

 

The post Metaverse keyboard transforms boring computer workspace into a cool 3D space for freedom of productivity! first appeared on Yanko Design.

Unique VR Headsets designed to break tech barriers + prove this innovative trend is here to stay!

Immersing ourselves in a simulated world, far away from reality is always fun. And hence, Virtual Reality has been gaining a lot of momentum these days! Its applications and possibilities are endless. VR is extending its scope beyond gaming and providing functionality in a variety of fields. From business, education, entertainment to even fitness, VR is being utilized in almost all industries. And we’ve curated a collection of exciting VR designs that prove the true value of this emerging technology. From a virtual reality treadmill to the world’s tiniest VR headset – every single one of these designs will make you pro VR all the way. Enjoy!

Interestingly the internet is going crazy with the freshly leaked images of the insect eyes like the HTC headset that gives off the futuristic vibe. The person in question is trusted leaker Evan Blass who has posted convincing images of HTC’s next-gen VR headset. The big question arises – will this HTC VR headset be able to compete with Oculus Quest 2? Evan has been posting a constant stream of tweets with photos of the said headset, building anticipation for the tech community. For neutral viewers, these images give a much better idea of how the Vive Flow VR headset will look like. It is not much different than the Project Proton concept headset in terms of the alienating presence.

Following the trends of today in regard to retro aesthetics and gameplay mobility, Tsai reimagined Nintendo’s virtual reality experience with Nintendo Switch Joy-Glasses. Tsai recognized Nintendo Switch’s hybridity that allows it to transform from a handheld gaming tablet to a plugged-in video game console for the television. This gives Nintendo Switch players the option of bringing a gaming console with them anywhere, making Nintendo Switch a mobile gaming device. This mobile hybridity gives the Switch a leg-up, and with today’s gamers being so nostalgic, it’s no wonder VR games like Pokémon Go are such global successes. Further, on the game’s market triumph, Tsai writes, “Successfully tapping into 1990s nostalgia, [Pokémon Go] is attracting millions of Millennials…Taking advantage of this retro hype, it’s about time to refashion existing technology and create something unique to connect with more recent generations.”

ConceptsiPhone has created a render of the two upcoming devices by Apple and mashed them together in a video dubbed iPhone 13 VR for creative writer’s delight. The VR headset is open to any imagination possible, and the folks over at ConceptsiPhone have taken that opportunity to show the world how the mixed reality headset will be like. It looks plush (after all it’s Apple) and is in sync with the design principles Apple has put in place for the headset – comfort and lightweight aesthetics. The strap looks reassuring as far as ergonomics go while the padding around the viewable area ensures utmost comfort. The concept shown here retains the iPhone 12 Pro’s DNA for the most part of it, and when you have a look at the rear camera module, it’s fresh nostalgia. The camera bump looks so strikingly similar to the newly launched Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra flagship.

The latest version of XTAL comes with a host of technical upgrades. Most significant of which is the high-density LCDs with 4k resolution per eye (making a total of 8k horizontally) giving a crystal clear view assisted by foveated rendering capabilities, improved lenses with a 180-degree field of view, and eye-tracking capable of running at 210 fps. That’s not all. It comes with an embedded Ultraleap hand-tracking sensor and conveniently connects to a PC via a VirtualLink cable. Oh, and did I mention that you can get an AR mixed reality module as an add-on? Pretty awesome, don’t you think? So impressive that the US Airforce has already placed an order for the latest headsets to train their pilots in simulations. The people at VRgineers have even designed a helmet-mountable version for such cases.

The creative minds sitting in Facebook’s Reality Labs (FRL), however, have been working on making VR headsets less clunky/bulky, and more like something you’d want to carry around and wear at work or at home. Facebook Reality Lab’s latest prototype VR wearable is, to mildly put it, ridiculously thin, measuring at just around 9mm. Designed to look like a pair of wayfarers, these glasses actually hold display units inside them, and Facebook’s research in viewing optics technology has helped them condense the headset from something that feels like a toaster strapped to your face, to a pair of frames that look like a pretty slick pair of shades.

What the GOOVIS Young changes about VR is that it embraces the technology for entertainment purposes, and does it in the best way possible… not by being a face-mounted computer, but rather a face-mounted display that’s compatible with practically any of your devices. With a 1080p display on the inside that’s designed to feel like a theater with an 800-inch screen, the GOOVIS Young is a universal VR display you can connect to your phone, laptop, tablet, set-top box, or even your console, allowing it to act as a dedicated display for everything between working, gaming, watching movies, browsing the internet, or even doing the odd stuff like tapping into your drone’s camera for incredible HD POV-ing.

With an undeniably better form factor, and better image quality too, Panasonic’s VR glasses are classier and well, ‘glassier’ (as opposed to the massive ski-goggles that most VR headsets look like). Fitted with micro-OLED panels on the inside, the VR glasses can afford to be made smaller and have much better clarity too. In fact, unlike most VR headsets, you almost don’t notice the pixels in Panasonic’s product, allowing your VR world to be much more immersive because of its higher resolution. Panasonic also claims that they’re the first-ever VR glasses to support HDR, or a high dynamic range, allowing colors, saturation, brightness, and contrast to all be incredibly lifelike. The glasses (they’re obviously not headsets) also come fitted with Panasonic’s own audio technology, using Technics drivers in those tiny earbuds to provide crystal clear audio.

I bet you’re just as baffled as I am looking at Canon’s new RF5.2mm F2.8 L Dual Fisheye Lens. It almost looks anthropomorphic, with the way the two eyes stare at you, but in fact, what’s really marvelous is where Canon seems to be going with their cameras. DSLRs and Mirrorless cameras are already some of the most powerful shooters out there, and rather than ditching that entire ecosystem of cameras to move to newer camera types – like drones and AR/VR cameras, Canon has just embraced good old-fashioned innovation instead, with a newfangled lens that is compatible with their existing EOS range of cameras. The lens, when paired with the company’s 1.5.0 firmware update, enables the humble yet capable 2D camera to shoot SBS 3D content. Pair the lens with the EOS R5 mirrorless camera and suddenly you can perform high-resolution video recording at up to 8K DCI 30p and 4K DCI 60p.

Compatible with a variety of games, movies, and multimedia content on platforms like YouTube VR, the Feelreal can generate a variety of aromas and smells, making you feel like you’re in the moment, whether it’s a forest, a race-track, or a battlefield. The Feelreal comes with a series of 9 aroma vials that combine to create as many as 255 different types of distinct smells, from flowers and petrichor, to food, to grease or gunpowder. The Feelreal goes the extra mile by providing a tactile experience too! It comes with its own water-spray, microheater (to simulate heat), and fan (to simulate wind), adding different layers to your audiovisual VR experience.

The Omni One by Virtuix – a virtual reality treadmill that’ll allow gamers to walk or run in 360-degrees inside video games and other virtual environments. The possibilities with Omni are unmatchable – it not only lets you walk but even jump, kneel, and crouch in the gaming world by mimicking the action on the treadmill in real life. Gamers who’ve tasted the VR flavor would have heard the name Virtuix before. The start-up is currently selling a commercial version of the Omni – “Omni Pro” – to entertainment venues in over 45 countries. Now, Virtuix is coming for the first time to our homes with Omni One treadmill aimed at pushing the bounds of in-home entertainment previously set by VR headsets.