A metaverse high school is opening in Japan, as reported by Automaton. Students will get the same qualifications they would at a real-world high school, but they’ll attend in VR and show up as an avatar. You can learn more about in a press release and on the official website.
If you’re spending $3,499 to be one of the first 70,000 or so people with Apple’s Vision Pro, we can probably assume you own a recent iPhone. But just in case, 9to5Mac points out details from an Apple email explaining the online ordering process.
Despite rumors of required in-store appointments for face scanning, it looks like Apple will let you use FaceID on another device to judge the fit requirements and provide a current prescription if you need the $149 vision-correcting lenses.
Supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo closely follows Apple’s production plans and is saying that for the February 2nd launch day, “Apple will produce 60,000 to 80,000 units of Vision Pro,” with around 500k shipping in 2024.
We had our first Vision Pro experiences last year at WWDC, and in just a couple of weeks, everyone can decide if they’re ready to spend $3,499 for an early entry to the world of spatial computing.
Glasses-free 3D, anyone? Samsung is previewing a 37-inch 4K gaming monitor at CES 2024 that can automatically switch between 2D and 3D. It includes eye and head tracking tech to analyze your position and gaze to create the 3D experience without destroying the colors and brightness.
You can use it to watch 3D movies or play VR games since it’s also compatible with SteamVR. Samsung says more details are to come later this year.
“Refer to your app as a spatial computing app,” Apple says in visionOS developer guidelines reported on by 9to5Mac. “Don’t describe your app experience as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), extended reality (XR), or mixed reality (MR).”
Yes, visionOS may be used to power not-VR apps in the future, and I get why Apple may want to distance itself from terms like VR or MR. But the Vision Pro device that comes out on February 2nd is a VR headset, even if Apple won’t admit it.
You’ll be able to watch shorter movies, though; Apple has updated its Vision Pro website to say the headset will let you watch “up to 2.5 hours” of video. When Apple first announced the device, the company had only said that the Vision Pro’s battery would offer up to two hours of use.
In addition to running iPhone and iPad apps or mirroring your Mac, Apple says the Vision Pro can stream movies or TV shows from Disney Plus and Max on an HDR screen that feels 100 feet wide, while the Apple TV app will have “more than 150 3D titles” plus there are Apple Immersive Video experiences with “180-degree, three-dimensional 8K recordings captured with Spatial Audio.”
Game Room, What the Golf?, and Super Fruit Ninja will be some of the spatial games rolling out when the Vision Pro launches February 2nd.
That’s according to Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter in Bloomberg.
Apple doesn’t participate in CES, of course, but Gurman writes that he still expects an announcement about Apple’s fancy AR / VR headset to come “in the next week or so” ahead of a February release.
