Welcome to episode 28 of Lost in Immersion, your weekly 45-minute stream about innovation. As the VR and AR veterans, we will discuss the latest news of the industry. Let's go. Fabien, do you want to start? Yeah, thanks. Today I want to talk about this device that is set to be released next year. It's called Vizor. I will scroll down through the website. It's very interesting to see how they present the device. And to see what it is actually. So they present, as you can see, similarly to Apple, spatial computing designed for work. So this is clearly a positioning market. And it's a collaboration between a company called Immersed. And they are basically doing software that you install on your computer that streams your screens on your VR device. So it works on the Quest and other devices. So you can work with multiple screens as is most advertised on the Apple Vision Pro release. So it works already. I actually spent a bit of time this afternoon trying this software. And so it's a collaboration with a tech giant, undisclosed. So we don't know. Is it Google? Is it Samsung? Is it someone else? We don't know. So it seems to be a very high-end device with a high field of view. And so again, as you can see, it's to work. And you can stream your computer with many screens like this. And you can look at VR videos as well. And something that is to mention is it's custom built. So it's not explained how they will do it, but your eye distance and maybe like a facial scanning will happen. We don't know, but the fitting will be custom to each user. And so that's it for the technical description. So as you can see, it's very vague. So basically, it seems like it's only a device that you will wear to work and to work on multiple screens and that it will be tied to your computer. So I think it's a very interesting positioning. And so I'm curious to know what you think. And just as a brief comment, so yeah, I spent about 15-20 minutes working with the Quest 2 on my head with the multiple desktop. So yeah, it's very cool to have a very large screen and to be able to look at multiple screens at the same time. But very quickly, after the five minutes of hype, I would say the weight of the device and the crispness of the fonts is really starting to be a problem when working in such situations. So I was on the Quest 2. Is this kind of solution, like very large, like 4K per eye, I think, will solve these kind of issues? And it seems to have a very light device, 25% lighter than a smartphone. I have doubts, but I'm really curious to know what you think. So let's start with you, Seb, maybe. Oh, you're muted, Seb. Yeah, I was saying, like you, I did some tests also with the Quest 2 and the Quest 4 working, trying to work this way. I did not manage to get my keyboard set up correctly. So I was trying to use the controller with the windows displayed in 3D, and that's not convenient. You lose a lot of precision. And after a while, after actually a very quick time, you are tired of pointing at something in the air. So I don't know if you use the mouse and keyboard, and if it works for you. Yeah, so in the Immerse software, in the Immerse app on the Quest, you can cut through the virtual reality and see the mixed reality. You draw around your keyboard and mouse, so you actually see them in mixed reality. I think that's kind of it, but now I'm wondering, after a while also, being like watching different screens and moving your head all the way around to look at all your screens around you, even if it's sharp, I don't know if you win some time after a while, or if you start losing time or losing focus because you have too much screen. I think I saw the same kind of study being done, even with real screen, having too much screen around, you start to lose focus and lose efficiency. So I wonder if it's a good way to go, or we need more apps that allow quicker interaction and work better in VR somehow. That's my concern with that way of moving forward. But like you actually said, now I haven't seen anything with a very sharp resolution and lightweight headset, and I think that could help also the experience. And also, if you don't have to calibrate every time your keyboard, and it's tracking it in real time, so you can move it and change your position, because being steady and always keep the same position, that's never the way we... we never lock our keyboards to our board or table, because we are always moving around to change a bit the position, to rest a bit. That could help also the experience, in my opinion. Okay, and what about you Guillaume? Well, I just want to talk about the specification of the headset, given what you presented, the resolution and especially the 25% weight, like it should be very, very light. I guess we are facing another species of... You know, we introduced the term assisted reality, those kind of glasses that are just made for watching TV or playing video games with a widescreen in front of you, like the... I guess this is the Rokid AR glasses, and there are lots of them right now, because given the weight, we shouldn't expect a lot of captors and other technologies for tracking. So, they are just basically assisted based on the SLM or other technology for them to be able to track the environment. And then, if the rendering are correct, it seems to be using some pancakes lenses plus some high resolution, and it's basically what all the competitors are doing right now with this assisted reality glasses. So, they are, I guess, surfing on the spatial computing vibes or wave made by Apple, but I don't think this kind of device will be a revolution in the short term. So, we should... So, if I understand correctly, they provide a piece of software that you tried for you to be able to see your screen. Okay. So, I guess their main innovation would be with this piece of software. So, this is my first comment about this. And the other one is you mentioned that when you tried this, you had like a five-minute hype and saying that it's very cool, it works perfectly and so on. And it perfectly matched the time that people had the Apple Vision Pro on their head. And I guess you presented the... Possibly the default of the Apple Vision Pro, especially with the distortion and all this kind of... The way that we won't be able to see letters and text clearly. And I'm a bit scared that when people said that the Apple Vision Pro was working very, very well with screens and text, we were in this hype window, this five-minute window when people are just like, whoa, it's awesome and they are not focused on this reading part. So, maybe in the second batch of tests, we will have more advised reviewers and they may be especially focusing on this and tell us if it's better to read text or see those very small characters in the Apple Vision Pro or if it's just the wow effect and so on that they witness with the headsets. It's basically this main point that, okay, it's great to see a bigger screen to work on, but this issue of being able to read the text correctly and with some kind of comfort is very concerning at some point because we know that the resolution and the distortion and the lenses are not there yet. So, I'm very curious to see, to know if the Apple Vision Pro is able to do so or not. Yeah, yeah. There was one more thing that I forgot to say that because it's network streaming of your screen, there is a very slight delay. So, I type quite fast, I think, and I was able to see the delay between actually typing and the letters appearing. So, for the clicking around, it was okay, but for typing, it was noticeable. So, yeah, it's not native in the headset, it's streamed. So, this is why there is a delay. Maybe to close up on this, I'm very curious to know what is the tech giant behind this. Samsung, maybe? I don't know. Well, they all seem to be occupied with the other project right now. We know that Samsung is working on his own, LG with Meta, and Google with another one. We'll be talking about this in a few minutes, but yeah, all the tech giants seem to be well occupied right now. Maybe the Chinese tech giants? Yeah, possibly, yeah. Okay. So, Seb, do you want to present your topic, please? So, on my side, I wanted to talk about the 3D Gaussian splatting, which is progressing a lot. So, it's similar to NERF, so the way you can take a picture of an object from every angle, and use that kind of tool to make it a 3D model out of that. Not exactly a 3D model for NERF, but at least for 3D Gaussian splatting, you end up with a 3D model. And yeah, there was some sharing this week around the new test that has been done, and the result is really impressive, so I just wanted to share that video first. So, it's a car, but like you can see, the front glass is looking quite amazing, really realistic. It's a model that is not that high in terms of polygon, and rendering in real time. So, quite an impressive one. And there was another one. That was shared, which is a 3D engine of an airplane engine. It's really detailed, you can see all the parts. And like I said, it's rendered in real time, so it's really impressive. And being able to really do that quickly, instead of getting the CAD model, and trying to low-poly that, and make it work in 3D, that makes the whole process quite nice. I don't know if you had the same opinion, if you have some thinking about that, around that. What is your thought, guys? Yeah, so first, of course, it's impressive. I think I saw some usage where people would place this type of objects, and I don't know what their rendering engine that they were using, but placed in real situations, and the reflections and the lightning would be really matching the real room. So I found that very, very impressive. I think it can, when these technologies are mature enough, I think it can really change the way we produce games, movies, media, applications, VR. So, yeah, pretty exciting to see what's going to happen. I don't know what's the timeframe for this to move from demonstration to actual implementation, in something that we look at every day. It's a very nice technology. It's an AI-based rendering, right? I think it's a bit different from AI. I need to dig further to tell you how it's done, but it's basically the same idea as NERF. I will look deeper on that later. What about you, Guillaume? Well, the thing is, I saw a lot of videos popping about this Gaussian new way of doing NERF-type polycloud and so on, and they were basically advertising it as a revolution, and all the classic marketing or communication language or vocabulary for this kind of innovation. So, they presented some other examples, like the classic room that you can not scan, but process. And indeed, the result is very impressive, better than what we've seen until now with the NERF. And they were advertising that they had some awesome or great performances as well. They were talking about 300 hertz or FPS when they were displaying the results. So, I was a bit cautious about these numbers, especially when you are presenting yours and they are at 60 FPS. So, they are also advertising that you can extract the polycloud and then use the result inside your game engine and create games or other immersive or not applications. So, I'm always very cautious about these announcement videos for new algorithms, because, of course, the results that will be presented are great, but we know that, especially with the NERF in the latest months, that when you are trying to extract this information and put them in Unity or Unreal, the meshing point is now the issue with this, meaning that you won't have this crisp, very clear rendering that we are seeing right now, which makes this algorithm very impressive. So, I guess we have already talked about this, but as a technical demonstration, it is great. But for us to be able to use this result in immersive applications, for example, where I'm not there yet, and it's a bit weird that the meshing algorithm that is a technology that we've been working on for decades is now the technology that is not advanced enough to be able to make us work with this great rendering. So, we can see that sometimes technology is moving at a different pace, and now something that we thought was mastered is not anymore. So, there will be some other work to be done on this. So, yeah, it's great news. Once again, they are advertising this as, like, the 3D scan is dead, and we can do whatever we want with a simple video or movie. So, in the context, it would be great, but we know that it's not completely the case. So, hopefully, it will arrive in the upcoming month, and that's pretty much it. Yeah, but one impressive thing is on the other thing that you showed, it's a car, and we can see that the windshield and the reflection of the windshield is perfectly done, and we know that when you are doing 3D scans, clear or transparent surfaces are a mess. So, it's very impressive that it works with this technology. That was my point, and I agree with you. The editor on Unity needs to allow this kind of rendering to happen, so they need to embed that kind of rendering system inside their tool so we can use it differently. But, yeah, it's great. Particularly, like you said, the windshield and the glass and the reflection are really looking great, and that was not the case before with the other solution. So, yeah, nice to see it moving forward. Yeah, one thing to mention on that scanning topic is I saw some videos of iOS 17 that seems to have a really nice 3D capture tool. So, I don't know what technology they are using. I think it's more classic technology, maybe improved. It's also something to track and to test. That's right, and although all the samples are nice, the video I saw was not containing any reflection, so it was more statue that has a matte-made fabric, so nothing that has reflection. So, that's usually the issue. The first time you try it when you have something furry or with reflection, you start to have a really weird shape in the stream that you end up with. But, yeah, like you said, it needs to be retested with this new version that has been released. Okay, great. So, I'll do my topic right now. Do you have another thing to present, Seb? No, I think that's it. Okay, great. So, just two quick topics to end this podcast. The first one is a topic we have been talking about for several weeks now. It's Meta and another video that they released. And surprisingly, we don't know if Facebook team members are looking at our podcast, but they are finally releasing a video where they are presenting industrial, very practical use of their headsets. So, there were some protein chemists use, there are some industrial use, training, maintenance, and all the use cases that we've been using in VR for the past 10 to 20 years. But it's refreshing to see that a big player like Meta is finally focusing on those use cases that also will be bringing a new community or new customers to their environment and the Meta VR and mixed reality part. So, very interesting to see that they are finally doing this. It's been a while since we proposed them to do so. So, we know that this recipe is the best one because we saw Magic Leap doing the same, focusing on entertainment and games and then switching to the industrial part. Maybe too late because I don't know if you heard, but Magic Leap is not in that good shape right now. They are shrinking their teams and they are basically living on the exploitation of their patent. So, not the best situation for Magic Leap right now. But we can hope that Meta with its power and ability to do this will be able to work with professionals and be able to engage in those use cases in an efficient way. So, I don't know if you have anything to say about this. For me, like you said, the HoloLens went the same way. They did the first one with some games embedded in the headset and they completely shit for the second version and focused only on enterprise and business solution, even in their communication. So, I think that's what we were saying for a couple of months. That's what Meta should have done if they wanted to go for the pro market with the Quest Pro. Now, they are doing it for the new version. So, I think that's great. That shows that they understood where they need to be. They want to move forward with pushing the headset inside the industry. Now, I'm working with some industrial companies right now. We have some feedback that they don't want to use Meta headset. And they prefer to use HTC Vive or open solution like Lynx. So, I don't know if that's the market they will manage to go through with. We'll see if they open up a bit more their platform for Pro. Where you can remove part of their software, access some of the cameras or their sensors. It seems like on the MetaQuest 3, there are some leaks saying that we will have access to the dev sensor. So, that they could be already opening up a bit their platform. That could be great. We'll see, I guess, how they move forward. Yeah, I think it's very interesting to see. Even the style of the video is completely different from the usual style that Meta has. Very professional, very sleek. So, it's interesting. And I think as you were saying last week, Guillaume, they are not showing the Quest 3. But I can understand this is for professional and industrial targets. So, they are showing the Quest Pro. And maybe they are showing the Quest Pro in what we hope are actual usage. Like the people in the videos are people that actually use the device and not actors. But it's interesting to see. And yeah, as you were saying Seb, I totally agree. Are the industry ready to engage with Meta? Because it's not like a device that industry will buy and use for a couple of hours. It's something that they are using a lot for training, for maintenance and so on. So, it's a device that needs to be... It's an investment that will hopefully last for a couple of years. And again, we say that a lot. But Meta has not yet a clear explanation of their strategy and roadmap. But at least it's a nice move in a good direction. Yeah, it's one that should have done at the release of the headset to hopefully sell more to companies. It's a bit late now to show some new things on the Quest Pro which didn't announce that they will discontinue the headset and not build anymore. They announced a new iteration with LG. There will be a Quest Pro 2, but it will be called the Quest 4, if I remember correctly. Once again, they are not very clear about the name and the strategy. But even before that, I think they were saying that they will discontinue the production of the Quest Pro. Yeah, there were some rumors and then it was... I guess there's a bit of miscommunication or I don't know in the Meta teams. But if there was this leak, it means that someone must have said it in the internal teams of Meta. And then maybe some team members were not aware of what they were doing. Or maybe just after that, seeing the reaction, they switched their decisions. We don't really know what is going on, but it's clear that it's not clear for them. Maybe this video is their way to say, no, no, it still exists and we're still producing some Oculus Quest Pro. Yeah, but you're completely right. This is exactly the type of video that should have been released at the same time as the Quest Pro. Just to present what professionals can do with their headsets. It's late. It's late. It was the kind of success that had Microsoft with the HoloLens 2. Because when you go to air shows, you can see there is a lot of HoloLens 2 being used for manufacturing, for training. And they really managed to sell their headsets to companies and to focus on business. It's really for industrial use case. And they did that with Microsoft when they released the HoloLens 2. All their videos were about business use case. And very quick on the HoloLens topic. I saw that the military program in the US was approved to the next phase for HoloLens. So, I don't know what that means for the HoloLens itself. And would it lead to new versions of the HoloLens? Even though Microsoft said that they won't be. I have some hopes. Basically, it means that they unlocked the 400 million dollars that were blocked through this phase. So, I guess it's good news for Microsoft. And as it was the situation that leads to the VR mixed reality lab to be completely cleared off. I hope that maybe they'll get their dev back at some point to improve or continue the HoloLens project. Yeah, because there is a whole team at Microsoft that went directly to that headset which is not open to the public and did specific development on this one. I did a couple of cameras like infrared cameras that allows the user to see in the dark and stuff. That might be retrofit afterwards to their new headset. We'll see. Hopefully, they will manage to get some new features inside the new headset with lower cost because they did all that test with the army. Okay, so final topic which is more like a rumor. So, that's why we'll be talking about this very quickly. But apparently, Nintendo would be working with Google on a VR or mixed reality headset. So, just to make a bit of history and to present why it could be good news. So, first of all, Nintendo is known to be not that good with partnership. We all remember the 1988 try-on with Sony with Nintendo PlayStation and them creating their biggest competition in the following years after that. Because they couldn't manage to seal the deal with this new console. And by sharing too much information about how to make entertainment console. Well, Sony did their own device and we know the history from there. So, they may be trying to do the same with VR. So, why not? We'll see if they can manage a partnership this time. But I guess the biggest information about this is that we all know that Nintendo is very, very cautious about innovation. And them arriving on the mixed reality slash VR, AR field is a very good news for us. It means that it's mature for them. So, we are maybe entering this new era where VR and AR is completely accepted. Because we also know that Nintendo is most of a family brand. So, if they succeed in creating this very efficient and user-friendly device, it could announce that at some point we will be seeing VR and mixed reality headsets in pretty much every house. Maybe even in elderly house. Because we know that the Wii did some kind of blowout in this field. So, we have just a very few information about this. It should be a standalone and being able to do mixed reality, meaning VR and AR. So, yeah. That's pretty much it. So, I would like to know what you are thinking about this, guys. On my side, I think Nintendo needs Google because they're the only hardware CPU available to render. So, such a thing as the Qualcomm chipset. And I don't think they will make their own CPU or GPU. So, they need to use that and it's using Android. So, at one point, they need to get closer to Google to do anything. So, I think that's where the relationship starts. And maybe they need to have a way for sure that they need to log their games and make sure everything is running only on their headset and not compatible with all the other headsets. So, they need an Android version that is locked by them in a way that is pretty strong for them to make sure they are selling their game afterwards. But yeah, like you said, Nintendo is always coming with new ideas, new design. And usually, they make a hit and they manage to really push that forward to the public and have a well-fought price for their device. So, it's affordable for the user. So, it would be great news to have this kind of device coming to the market and having Nintendo to even make some games because they're really good at that. So, get a new interaction and put that and have some games using that new kind of interaction. They always have been good at this. It's great for them in the game. Just as a reminder, they tried some stuff with the 3DS and we can't say that it was a success. They were trying the auto-stereoscopic display, which was some kind of a revolution at the time. But I don't know anyone that was very enjoying this view. And they had the Wii U as well. But yeah, they tried some stuff, some more successful than others. But yeah, we can hope that it brings some traction or power to the VR field and maybe convince the last people to adopt VR and mixed reality content. One thing, I think VR is still recommended for older than 12 years old. So, they will cut a big part of the market going that way, I think. Or they will lower the age. Yeah, I guess it will be like Meta did. It's six years old now to be entering Horizon with the MetaQuest. So, basically, they are not listening to the medical advice for children, which is indeed between 10 and 12, for them to have their eyes completely built and not have some side effects in the long term. It's not even only the eyes problem. It's also the fact that you enter VR environment and you lose... At that age, your brain is not meant to do this kind of experience. Basically, the main issue is about depth, because the focal point... It's way past my ability, but yeah, the focal point is still in construction and this ability to see depth until you are 10 or 12. And using too much VR could destroy that ability to see depth. So, it's kind of annoying if you can't see depth as an adult. So, this is the main concern about using VR. And of course, we know that VR can heal some psychiatric issue like phobia and so on. So, we can guess that it can do the other way around and create some bad stuff. But be very cautious with children and screens anyway. One thing on that, on Nintendo, is if they release this... So, yeah, they are very good at doing super nice UI user experience, nice user experience that can be used by the whole family. But I think here the expectations will be very high if Nintendo releases something. So, maybe similar to Apple, the expectations are super high on the Vision Pro. And they will be very high for Nintendo as well. So, I hope that they do a very good job at that. And yeah, maybe the help from Google will prove worthwhile. It's kind of weird that Sony, for example, with this PSVR2, they didn't seem to have this kind of issue because they were presenting... Like the PSVR1, it was not perfect. It has its community right now and its users. And when the PSVR2 has been released, there was not that high level of expectation. They were like, yeah, it's another headset, why not? And I didn't see that much bad reviews or people saying, oh, it's Sony, it should be perfect, and it's not, it's awful. So, yeah, I really don't know why some companies like Nintendo have more weight on their shoulders for this kind of device than others. It's very interesting to see as a whole. It would be interesting to see how much they are selling the PSVR2. I don't know if we have a way to find that, but that could be interesting to share that. Yeah, the last numbers I saw, it's been a while now, but they were not as good as they expected. But given the economical context, I think they were pretty impressed with this anyway. So we could have an updated numbers at some point. All right. Just wanting to mention, Magic Leap was in the bite shape. They also announced that the first version of the headset will stop working next year. And we had one, I tried to sell it just before they announced it. So now I guess I will keep it. But it will be a brick, something to put on a shelf as a decoration. But yeah, it's very weird that they did it this way. I think that the first headset I heard of that has software limitation date, expiration date, that's pretty weird that they went this way. I don't know what they were thinking. I don't know if they did the same for the Magic Leap 2, because they are selling them right now. Some of them bought it and discovered that they have the same kind of expiration date. I wonder what they would do if they tried to sell it too. But I don't know what you think about that. I found it very weird to have done it this way. Well, for being a Magic Leap user as well, I was a bit shocked as well by this announcement. We all know that they had some battery issues and there was some kind of updates. And I guess the update for the software auto-destruction maybe was with this update at some point. I didn't do it. I'm sorry. So I don't know if mine will be exploding at some point, either with the battery or the software self-destruction feature. But yeah, it's very, very weird. It's not a good message to send for new customers, meaning that you will be in trouble. It's not a good message to send for new customers, meaning that you will be buying some temporary devices, especially at that price tag. It means also that you won't be using it as a piece of history because none of those devices will be working anymore in 10 years. So yeah, as you mentioned, it's a brick. It's a good art object you'll be putting on your shelves. Given the financial situation of Magic Leap, I guess it's one more nail in the coffin for them with this kind of announcement. So yeah, they are preparing their ending in the short term, I guess. They are just closing doors everywhere. They are doing this for competitors not being able to tear it down or use it in another way. So yeah, it's basically self-destruction. We fail, everything will fail, and no one will be benefiting from this at some point. It's very rare as a strategy, to be honest, but yeah, why not? Yeah, I have one last thought on Nintendo. Currently, the Nintendo consoles are like more family and friends. So you have multiple controllers and you can play with multiple people here, depending on the price tag. It can be expensive to buy two or three or four devices. So what I would be very interested to see is how they connect into the same experience. Someone will have the headset and some people will be on the console. That could be very interesting, a very nice experience. So we'll see, I guess. There was a couple of games on the Quest that were available and allowing a person to use an Android phone or iOS phone to play with the person that is using the headset at the same time. So there is already some games out there that are using this kind of interaction between a tablet and the headset and bringing the user together. But yeah, like you said, a big part of the game they released and the success they have, Nintendo, is the fact that it's really a family console, like you said, and play together at games at the same time. And here with VR headset, we know that that's the issue. You are isolating yourself or meeting people inside the headset that are not with you at the same place. So it could be great if they think already from start at room scale, sharing the space together and being able to be in the same room and do an escape game, for example, together in your space. And also have a price that is allowing that people can buy two and play together. Okay, guys, I think this is a wrap up for today. I thank you very much for your different topics and we'll be seeing you next week for another episode of this Lost in Immersion podcast. So see you guys. Have a nice week.
