Welcome to episode 16 of Lost in Immersion, your weekly 45-minute stream about innovation. As VR and AR veterans, we will discuss the latest news of the immersive industry. So let's go, Fabien, with the first topic, please. Thanks. So this week, we were a bit overwhelmed with news and feedback about the Apple Vision Pro, of course. So it dominated the news. So there was some kind of other news that we can look into, and it's very interesting to put them in perspective. So Renewal did a new press release about the ThinkReality VRX. So it's a headset, as you can see, that is designed especially for enterprise. So they are focusing all the communications and all the PR on having a solution that is easy to set up, easy to deploy on multiple devices with device management and stuff like that. It seems that they also have quite, I would say, in the top range of the performances, a very good battery, the same Qualcomm CPU as the MetaQuest Pro. They have two cameras in the front. It seems like it's also not that heavy. Yeah, this is the first introduction for this device. I'm very curious to know what you think about this one, putting it in perspective with the Apple release. And they also have a lot of services around, so cloud services for meetings, communication, collaboration. Again, very, very focused on enterprise. So, yeah, I don't know, maybe Seb, what do you think about this new device? I think it's interesting. We need to have a look and have some feedback on the Mixed Reality through quality of the video. I think that's what's the main goal here is to get the best view so you don't diminish the reality inside the headset. And in terms of the interaction, I think it's good that you have the controllers. So, yeah, another headset to try, I guess. Right now, it's just an announcement. We need some feedback from the user compared to other devices. Yeah, they have hand tracking as well, it seems. And tethering from a computer as well. So, that's interesting. Yeah, Guillaume? Yeah, I was just making some researches because I know that Lenovo is on the VR headset market for quite some time now, quite some times. And indeed, they had their first headsets in 2017 with the Mixed Reality wave of Microsoft and so on, when a lot of manufacturers were releasing their VR headsets like Asus, Acer, Samsung, and so on. And since that day, they released like four or five different headsets. So, it's really interesting to see that a company like Lenovo is very interested in the VR market and they are targeting only the companies and the private sector. So, they're interesting. And as you mentioned, they are maybe overcompensating, they are compensating their lack of some technical feature by services for companies. That said, for all those years, I've never seen a Lenovo headset in big companies. So, I don't really know where their market is. If it is just some kind of communication strategy for them to be innovative or do they really sell that much headsets for them to create new iteration like every two or three years? I can't see how they can be as efficient as the Quest 3, for example. I don't know, do you have the price for this? Did they announce it? I don't have it right here, but it's over a thousand US dollars. Yeah. So, on the papers, this could be a competitor to the Quest 3 or Quest 2, but on the market price, it's not in the same bracket. So, I don't really understand their positioning there because they are not as technical and we can see that on the new headsets, they have a lot more of captors and the lenses as well. I guess they have the pancakes lenses on this one, but yeah, it's like they are doing Quest 2 plus with some upgrades and they are marketing it for companies. So, I don't know if they have some kind of relationship with Meta because they absolutely don't address the company market for them, it's only gaming right now. So, I don't know if there is some kind of partnership at some point with some other VR companies because I don't know how many headsets they are really selling and what's their business case there. And yeah, just to make another reflection on what Seb said, in the video, we can only see the VR use case and not the AR or Mixed Reality one. And I saw some avatars as well animated with this headset for video conferences and it was a bit cringy because the avatar was not realistic or maybe not moving that beautifully. So, yeah, they shouldn't have shown that in comparison to what Apple is now proposing on the market. But that's my point of view. The video is really nicely done, by the way, but that's another topic. I think it's also important to note that Lenovo is very big on AR glasses. So, they have a lot of devices like that. I don't know if we can include that into the headsets really, but back to what we often go back to is the assisted reality. I think this is the device that they are selling the most. So, AR glasses for companies. So, I don't know if they are leveraging this for companies and the company trusts Lenovo for device management and stuff like that. So, maybe for an industry leader that wants to push virtual reality or Mixed Reality into the company between Meta, Apple and Lenovo, maybe we go to Lenovo because it has more industry company image. I don't know. We'll see, but yeah, it doesn't seem to be a major company for right now. We can't see that they are having this huge breakthrough to the market, but yeah, why not? I wonder if they have a better quality of pass-through than the Quest 4 and they are targeting the same price, then it becomes more interesting than the Quest 4. So, it's really the feedback that we've seen, if the pass-through is better or not, because right now the Quest 4 and the Mixed Reality, it's pretty tough to have a scenario where it's not creepy on the video capture. So, it's really some artifacts that are not good for an experience. So, Seb, do you want to continue on your topics or Fabien, do you have anything more to say? No, that's it. Thanks. Okay. So, my topic was about the feedback we had from other companies, competitors to the Apple Vision Pro. So, first, it's Mark Zuckerberg, which expressed himself about his vision, which is completely different from the Apple one. He said that he would rather prefer some interaction and that's what they are targeting with the Quest 3, is to have interaction between different users and being able to be sharing the same experience and move in the space, not being sitting on your couch. And, on the other hand, it's Stan LaRock, which is the CEO of Lynx, which they are releasing the Big Sur one in a couple of months now. And he said that he was very happy to have a high-end competitor in the market, which addresses another kind of market. And they compared it to having now the Ferrari of the Big Sur headset on the market, and his own device would be like a Mercedes or a BMW. So, much more affordable, but yet very performant and a very good device to do a lot of things. So, I think the comparison was interesting. I wonder what you think about that, and the feedback also from Facebook. Yeah, I can start. So, Apple is the Rolls-Royce, Lynx is the Ferrari. I wonder what is Meta. I saw someone, and I will hardly quote exactly what was said, but roughly what they said is Apple is doing a computer, like they call it spatial computing, but Meta is doing like a social network and experience. And it's exactly as you were saying, the release of the Apple device is all about what you can do with it and the high quality. And Meta, you always see Mark Zuckerberg playing or fighting with virtual swords and stuff like that. So, more on the social experience side. So, I think it's good to have more possibilities and a wider range of devices. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about that. Okay, so I get the point. Yeah, I've already seen this declaration of Mark Zuckerberg, and I went on some VR discussion forum to see what people were saying about, and apparently people are very enthusiastic to the idea that there is a new competitor on the market. Especially on the UX UI side of the VR. Because for a lot of people, Meta is not good on that part. If we were only supposed to use the Oculus Meta environment, it could be very painful and not that ergonomic. And the reason why the Oculus Quest is working is only because of the content companies that are doing something interesting with the UI and XR experience. So, for a lot of them, the Quest is good when you're playing. When you're not playing, it's just awful. And the thing is, you know that we talked about how VR is not as used as it should be. And for me, and I guess you as well, the issue is not on the hardware part. Meaning that we now have VR headsets that are not that expensive. The performances are very, very good. So, for me, the next step to adoption is on the content and the experience itself. And this is a part that Meta and Mark Zuckerberg, I don't know if they are not listening or they are not understanding this. And every time the sales postage are released, they are just saying that, oh, yeah, there's not as many users as we expected. It's because of the headset. So, we are doing another headset to make them buy this one and hopefully have more users. And a lot of users are saying it's not a problem about the headsets. It's about content. We need something that is interesting and that brings us back to the headsets for doing it in everyday use case VR headsets. And on that part, I guess Apple is understanding that, as we said last week, they are just presenting the headsets or the system as something that would replace your screens, your TVs and stuff like that and make it an everyday device. And, of course, on the UI UX, Apple is way ahead of that. And some people are hoping that by doing these differences, maybe Quest and Meta will wake up and try to do a better overall experience with their headsets and bring the whole market to another level. I'll divide my answer in two because the links part is interesting as well. So, I'll let you answer, well, react to what I said just about Meta. Yeah, yeah. On that, I saw. So, I don't know how valid these remarks are, but there is maybe a next Google-Samsung collaboration on the headset that is coming up. And I don't think it's announced yet. Yeah, so the Lynx CEO also said that there are like 10 different devices that are about to be released by the end of the year. So, we are, I guess, relieving the 2016 AR waves for another joy or not, but yeah. Yeah, so my point is, will the release of the Apple have these companies get back to the drawing board and maybe indeed level up everything for the next release of new devices? So, I think it's a really good thing indeed. Yeah. And I had something else. Oh, yeah. So, you are talking about content. I like to take the prism of friction, like if for a meeting or a call, for example, I'm just taking one example. If I have to take my device and put it on, remove my glasses and remove, I don't know, remove my hat or whatever and put my headset, there's a lot of friction there. Although I can just take my phone and call someone. So, I think there are still a lot of frictions there that can be removed with a better user experience. So, yeah, that's a way of thinking. On that point, I think the standout from the Leaks company said that they went further than Apple on this point because they removed the, you know, it's like a hat that you put on your head when you put the Leaks, like the Quest Pro. It's really not resting on your nose. It's easy to bring in and out and you have also the way to remove the headset like this, you know, to put it up. To flip, yeah. And that makes less friction and I think that he's right on that part. It's really more easier to wear his headset than something that you have to strap and really adjust your eyes every time. So, that was interesting also on his feedback on that. Great. So, I'll continue with the Leaks reflection on that Apple is bringing something good for them because they are not on the same kind of market. Something that, because I also said in my interview as you were, I guess, and one thing that maybe red flagged me at some point is that he said that they were not able to produce as much as headsets that are ordered right now. And as a French company, I guess this is a red flag because probably they won't be able to manage this wave of order if it's a reality for them that Apple is bringing a lot of motion to the AR market and therefore a lot of orders for them. Which, in one way, the good news for them, but we all know with small companies, especially in France, then when you have this huge amount of headsets or devices to deliver, it's very hard to find cash to end production solution. And it, unfortunately, it's very often a way of closing your company because you are not able to deliver in time. It's not like the US companies that are able to get a huge amount of funding in a very short timeframe. So, I'm a bit scared for them or concerned. So, I hope they'll find the solution for that. On that point, I think on one of the latest YouTube video, he spoke about bringing a lot of things from China to France to make the products easier and be able to produce more. And also, in the latest video, maybe the one you saw, I think it's the video from Underscore, he talked about in a couple of weeks there will be an announcement from the French government from helping this kind of company to produce their devices. So, maybe something will come up to help them on that. Yeah, I don't want to be too defeatist, but yeah, we know what this kind of announcement means. It's like the budget will be released in two or three years. It's not that kind of agility that we can see in other countries. We are big on an announcement, but not on the administration part and stuff like this. We know that in that way, usually a bigger company can catch those funding more easily and not the smaller one because you have always the administrative part. So, I just hope that they can manage that because for me, this is a huge achievement for them to have a VR headsets company in France. It's really, really hard and I hope I give all the best for them in the next months. And just to make a comparison, we heard that Apple is also not able to sell that much Apple Vision Pro headsets because they are limited on their screens that are not produced as fast as they would like to. So, I guess they talked about half a million devices tops for them to be able to produce next year. So, it really shows their will to limit the sales as well. And I think this is why the headset is as expensive as it is. It's a way for them to limit this frenzy of selling that they couldn't be able to manage as well. So, when you are bringing all the PCs all together, we can see that it's really some kind of MVP or prototype headsets for them to make the developers try. And yeah, hopefully there will be another iteration for mainstream market or with, of course, a smaller price. I guess the price could be lower than that. And then they did it on purpose to limit the orders. But maybe they will have a lot of orders nonetheless. So, we will see if their strategy is working or not. Do you have any reaction about this production orders equilibrium? I think you're right. Limiting the number and putting the price right for them so they can still invest in it and see also with a low amount of person the feedback they have so they can improve on the next iteration. Which they plan on 2025, right? Yeah, I should read that, yeah. A smaller, less expensive device with less thin limit, maybe not like the cover. Yeah, they are giving one year for developers to release some stuff on 2024, especially on the US market because apparently it should be available in Europe in September 2024. So, they are giving more time for US developers. Fabien, anything just to add? Yes, on that topic, while related, I saw that last week Apple bought a company called Mira. And Mira, they are producing headsets for theme park and military. They are very scalable type of headsets. Of course, Apple didn't comment, they didn't say anything. Other than that, they confirmed the acquisition. I don't have any guess as to why they bought that company. Exactly the week of the announcement, maybe it's just a coincidence. Just for information, I don't know what they are doing for the military side, but on the theme park, they are doing the Mario Kart headsets that are in Universal Studio. So, I don't know if Apple wants to go on the theme park or the military domain since it's a bit strange. Maybe there is something specific about the Mira technology that they want to include in the headsets. I was a bit surprised by this announcement because it's a really small player regarding what they are proposing right now. It's a kind of Google Cardboard AR devices designed when you have the screen reflecting on your lenses, like the one you tried with the iPhone as well. I didn't really catch the goal there. Maybe it's just to kill competition and be sure that there won't be any low-cost devices that could be turning heads. But in that way, they should be buying links as well. So, I don't know if this is something that is in their goals. But yeah, we know that Apple can do that and bring all the competition altogether and buy them to make something better or just to be the only one on the market. They can't buy Meta, but they could buy links very easily. So, we'll see. As they already bought Veena in Montreal a few years back and they used some part of their technology. So, we'll see. Yes, maybe there is something in R&D that they did not show me to happen. That's what they are interested in. It's hard to have more info about that. Fabien, you mentioned the fact that the other companies should maybe realign and maybe change their design. I think one thing that is very interesting is that on the latest device, a lot of them announced before their release that they would have eye-tracking in it and removed that at the last minute because it was too expensive. And now, with the feedback we have from the Vision Pro, it seems like the interface and the way to interact with the UI with the eye-tracking plus hand gesture, works very great and seems to be adopted by everyone. So, I think you're right on that part. I think that will bring back the eye-tracking technology on the UX platform. Okay, so I'll bring you a few other topics that I found about the Apple Vision Pro. The first one is about the interface itself and the eye-tracking because users that tried the headset were very impressed by the capacity or the use of the eye-tracking plus the hand-tracking and they found it very easy and natural to use. And apparently, they have a huge layer of AI behind that where they are doing some kind of prediction. They know that you're about to click or to do something before you're doing it. So, it's just a confirmation they need, like just a small movement and they are doing it. So, I think this is the key. And about this AI part, we know that a lot of people are kind of disappointed that Apple, they are not talking about AI at all and they don't have any competition. They are not proposing any competition to Chattopadhyay or other. And for some, there are new kind of generation of AI that is coming up that is only based on microprocessor and internal, you know, personal AI not linked to the internet or external servers. And they are guessing that with the new generation of processors that they announced, the M1 Ultra, M2 Ultra and so on, that they dedicated their processor to being able to do AI as well. And because they can manage bringing up lots of gigabytes all together in their processors and making some parallel computing as well. And some people are extrapolating and thinking that maybe with this new approach of AI and personal assistant, they could bring some kind of Jarvis inside the Apple Vision Pro based on their microprocessing power. So, this is a very interesting way of thinking of that. And yeah, they could propose a Siri++ iteration of their assistant and could bring another AI UI experience to the table. And I guess this would bring way more, the CSX would get more value with that as well. And it could be very, yeah, could change the market all at once by proposing a new headset, a new way of working, like looking at your TV or screens, plus having your AI integrated already in your everyday life. So, it's a whole new dimension for the headsets. I don't know if you heard about this and do you think this is what they are willing to do? I think we talked about it earlier also during our podcast. But yeah, I saw the same video as you and I think that's definitely something they are working on apparently on the background. There's a lot of developers working on the M2 chipset, the AI to run directly on it. And I think that maybe they are careful about it and not announcing it right away. Like you said, having a Siri on this kind of mixed reality headset and a Jarvis assistant makes you responsible for maybe the action that it will ask you to do. So, they need to be really careful on that. And so, I don't know if they will announce it or if they are waiting for developers to develop apps so they don't take the responsibility and they just provide the headset and that's it. Like I said, if it's the case, how will they control that? Like they do on the iPhone and the Apple Store market or about all the apps being developed for their device? I really wonder how they will play on that and maybe they have not yet decided on that part so that's why they did not announce it. Yeah, it's a very Apple way to do just to announce things that they are sure it's working. Yeah, I guess they are just waiting to see what they can do and what AI will become in a few weeks or months. We can see that apparently the wave is decreasing as well on this because there are not that much topics right now. Maybe the discussion about limitation and restriction are making their way to the different players of the AI or I don't know. But yeah, you can see that the AI market is a bit more silent right now. Yeah, OpenAI announced yesterday that developers can now create custom functions into GPT. So yeah, that's another way to give ears and hands to GPT models. And I think Europe is voting on the AI regulation this week or very soon. So yeah, I totally agree. It's like a bit into the rationalization phase. And back to Apple, I saw that they announced a new evolution. Like it's not a new AI, it's a new evolution of doing AI. So basically instead of doing a lot of transformation on an image or on a text before feeding it into the AI, they found a way to feed just the bytes. So it could be text, it could be video, it could be image, it could be anything that is represented in digital that can be fed into their model. So all of this to say that they are very active. And I'm sure as you are saying, it's very Apple to have AI in the headset for eye tracking and for predictions, but not really saying it like AI powered Vision Pro that would maybe frighten the global audience. So very Apple again, nice move. And to continue with this maybe secret way of working of Apple, we saw that there were a lot of VR announcements regarding the Apple Vision Pro. We talked about this last week after the announcement about the fact that the SLC is able to do VR, but they never talked about this during the presentation. And now they are announcing that the VR headset is compatible with WebXR and that they are bringing the Rec Room support, which is some kind of metaverse right now, which is a competitor to VRChat. And the developers of Rec Room are making them compatible with the Apple Vision Pro because they don't have any controllers. They have to implement the end movement navigation inside their app. So we can see that they are orienting their device to AR, but they are also targeting the VR market as well because they are completely aware that the headsets can do VR. So we'll see what they are targeting. And I'm very curious to know that if Bluetooth VR controller can be linked to the headsets, which would be a good way of doing games. But if they do, how people will manage the Steam library, because I don't think this is compatible right now with Apple. Maybe Steam will release some kind of app for the Vision Pro, I don't know. So still a lot of shadow in this, but we can see that Apple is willing to work on the whole market and just not AR. What are your guesses about this? I'm sure they don't want to lose that part of the market. That would be stupid. They don't want to talk about it yet because I think a lot of games have to be, like you said, redeveloped for only end tracking. And maybe developers are not okay with that, because sometimes it uses many buttons and many gestures on the controller that can't be reproduced only with end tracking, I guess. So yeah, that would be hard for them to bring all the catalog of games on their platform. At least at the beginning. Do you think that they are reflecting about doing an Apple VR controller for that? Or just... I don't know if they will do that or only provide... Like for the keyboard or for the mouse controller, I guess they provide the hardware requirements to companies that can produce them. So maybe they will not do that themselves, but ask for other companies to develop different kinds of controllers. Because if we are making a relation with the Quest Pro, for example, we practically don't have any infrared trackers on their controllers now. They are just basing on the end tracking. So we could think that Apple just have some way of clicker. We saw that on the other lens at some point, for you to avoid doing this all the time and have a different way of having different buttons as well. So I could easily see some kind of clicker or switch-like, very small devices for us to be able to interact and it could unlock all the VR content, I guess. About that, I think we had some feedback about the controllers from the Quest 3. And it seems like it's okay, but not as good as the Quest Pro controllers. Because like you said, they use the end tracking, small infrared around the device, but it's limited and there is not a ring, so sometimes they lose the tracking. But apparently with Beat Saber, it's the way for them to test the controller, Beat Saber in ultra mode seems to be okay to work. So I guess it's more when you go in your back, that they use the tracking like the previous version of the controller. But I saw also that the Quest 3 is supposed to be compatible with the Quest Pro controllers. So you have to buy another set, okay. At launch, you will be able to decide which kind of controller you want and buy only the headset and the Quest Pro controllers. I guess that would be the better solution. It's not very compatible with their way of selling it because you can buy them right now in Best Buy or Walmart. I can't see how they make you decide what kind of controllers you want. So we'll see. Maybe on an online purchase, it could be doable. But when we see how they are selling this right now, I don't see how they could do that. Fabien, any last word? Just a very quick word about you mentioned WebXR that will be supported on the Apple device. So that will open up a lot of different experiences that will not be approved by Apple. I mean, that won't have to go through the approval process for Apple. So that's a whole new ecosystem. I don't know if they will enable WebXR from the start or if it's just a developer switch for now. But yeah, it's a very interesting move. And hopefully this capability can go as well on the iPhone and other Apple devices. Okay. So we are a bit out of our schedule. But yeah. So anything more? We are done. Okay. So it's a wrap up. So thank you again for this week's episode. And we'll see.
