I’m back in Italy, after my two-week trip to China (where I had a troubled story with my Quest). I’m happy to be back eating pasta, but I will miss the small restaurants with delicious Asian food that I had close to my place in Shenzhen. Now I’m staying a bit here, and then, as soon as I get used again to the European timezone, I will scramble things up again, going to the US to attend AWE! I hope to meet you there…
Top news of the week
Meta overhauls the UI of the Quest
In the v77 of the Quest runtime, Meta has completely changed the graphical interface of the headset, introducing the Navigator. Navigator is a launcher overlay that integrates all the main system interfaces like Library, Quick Controls, Camera, and a shortcut to 10 favorite items, into a new overlay that appears over both immersive and 2D apps, with a translucent background.
This overlay has an interface that is more similar to that of a mobile menu or Windows start menu, so it should be easier to use for people that just entered VR. According to Meta, it should be a better interface in general, that integrates everything that Meta has learned over these years. Meta also teased that “this is just the beginning of a broader evolution of Horizon OS”, so many more evolutions are expected to come.
Navigator is rolling out to “some people on our Public Test Channel (PTC)”, and is “expected to roll out gradually to all users over the coming months”. This means that Meta is testing the Navigator on a small number of users, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and then plans to extend it to everyone as soon as it is confident about its quality and usability. This means you may not see this coming to your headset immediately.
Considering that the usability of the Quest UX has never been top-notch, I welcome an overhaul of the graphical interface. But before judging if it is a good change or a bad change, I would like to try it myself. I also hope that this big change is the beginning of a bigger stability related to the UI of the headset: until now, we had modifications to the UI basically every month, which makes little sense for an operating system.
Together with this big UI change, Meta also announced that in v77, Instagram on Quest will automatically convert your 2D photos to a 3D immersive format when you see them from within the headset.
More info (Meta Quest’s Navigator — Road To VR)
More info (Meta Quest’s Navigator — Upload VR)
Other relevant news
Apple may launch its smartglasses already in 2026
According to the usual Mark Gurman, Apple may launch its smartglasses in late 2026. Previous rumors talked about a 2027 release date, but it seems that Apple is ramping up its work on them after seeing the success of Meta Ray-Ban glasses and the announcement of the upcoming glasses made by Google together with prominent eyewear manufacturers. Gurman teases that large quantities of prototypes should already be ready by the end of this year.
Gurman says the Apple smart glasses will have cameras, microphones, and speakers, and be used for phone calls, music playback, live translations, turn-by-turn directions, and multimodal AI (which Apple calls Visual Intelligence). Basically, they sound like a clone of Ray-Ban Meta. This puzzles me: if I were Apple and I should release smartglasses by 2027, I wouldn’t design glasses with the technology of today, but with the technology that will be popular in 2 years. This means that at least I would add some basic displays to the mix.
I take this rumor for what it is relevant about it, that is that Apple still seems committed to releasing smartglasses and that it is realizing that it needs to speed up its work on them, because the whole sector is very active now. Regarding the actual release date, it seems to me the usual game of throwing random dates every week by the so-called “analysts”: they did the same game with the Vision Pro and made a lot of mistakes in predicting when the device would be launched.
Hands-on Android XR devices
After Google I/O, many journalists talked about their hands-on experience with Project Moohan, the Android XR prototype glasses made by Samsung, or Google Beam. It was interesting to read about their hands-on sessions, but honestly, I haven’t learned anything that truly surprised me. I’m linking a few videos below so you can watch them by yourself.
More info (Hands-on Project Moohan and Android XR Glasses — Android Authority)
More info (Hands-on Android XR Glasses — The Verge)
More info (Hands-on Project Moohan — Cas&Chary)
More info (Hands-on Google Beam — The Verge)
News worth a mention
Tobii announces new eye-tracking technology
Eye-tracking technology leader company Tobii announced a partnership with event cameras Prophesee to develop a new type of eye-tracking technology for XR headsets. While standard eye-tracking tech involves a monochrome camera that actually “sees” the eyes, Tobii and Prophesee want to create a system based on event cameras, which are high-frequency cameras that just record the difference between two consecutive frames (hence, the momevents). Event cameras have various advantages: they do not record the eye image, so they are better for privacy, they require to analyze fewer data, and they have lower power consumption. They are so ideal for future AR glasses, where all these characteristics are needed.
I know that event cameras are cool for tracking because at the latest AWE US, I tried a hand-tracking solution using a Prophesee event camera developed by Ultraleap and I could experience that it worked well.
Starfish Neuroscience unveils what it is working on
Gabe Newell’s company focused on BCI (Brain Computer Interfaces) announced that it is developing its first product. The company is creating a custom, ultra-low power neural chip in collaboration with R&D leader imec. The purpose of this chip is to be able to create battery-free brain implants capable of reading and stimulating neural activity in multiple areas simultaneously. The key here is “multiple areas”: many BCI systems are usually focused on a single area of the brain, while Starfish Neuroscience wants to create something that can operate on multiple areas of the brain at the same time.
I’m very curious to follow the developments of this company and how it will compare with Elon Musk’s Neuralink.
Godot gets support for VisionOS
Open-source game engine Godot has just got support for VisionOS. Last month, an Apple employee on the visionOS engineering team wrote the code to add the support (i.e. made a pull request), and recently this code has been merged into the main codebase of Godot. It feels a bit weird, but it is actually great that Apple is officially contributing to an open-source product. I hope that Godot always gets more support, so that there will always be a great open-source alternative to Unity and Unreal Engine.
Meta tries to step up the game on Horizon Worlds
Meta has partnered with Blumhouse to bring social VR experiences based on its movies to Horizon Worlds. Blumhouse owns many of the most famous IPs related to horror, so the Blumhouse Horrorverse world in Horizon Worlds includes experiences based on M3GAN, The Purge, Wolf Man, The Black Phone, and others.
While I’m not much into Horizon Worlds, this news caught my eye because Blumhouse Horrorverse was developed by ARVORE, the studio behind the Pixel Ripped VR game series. Meta officially contracted this team to develop this world, meaning that from now on, probably Meta will hire other renowned studios to make high-quality worlds inside Horizon Worlds. This means that the quality of some featured creations on Horizon is going to go up. And I also hope that it means that this is an opportunity for various indie studios that are struggling on the Horizon Store to make some extra money with contract jobs from Meta.
Upload announces its Summer Showcase
I’ve lost count of whether this year in VR we had more headset announcements from Pimax or more VR gaming showcases. To increment the score of the latter, Upload just announced that its Summer VR Showcase is happening on July 11th at 10 am PT. If you have some interesting XR games you are working on, contact the editorial team at Upload, and you may be featured there.
Some news about content
- The very popular VR survival shooter Into the Radius 2 is now available in early access on Quest 3 and 3S
- Rebellion has delayed Zombie Army VR to June 12th, after the game had already been delayed to May 22nd
- Into The Darkness, the physics-based PC VR narrative-driven sci-fi adventure game, confirmed an early access launch for $19.99 on May 29
- Anime-inspired roguelite Mecha Force received its full release for $9.99 on Meta Quest and Steam
- Mezmer is a music visualization VR application that delivers mind-blowing interactive experiences set to your favorite music in Quest headsets
- Vivarium lets you create your terrarium or aquarium, and is now available for Meta Quest for €11
- Alex and the Jets is a lighthearted arcade game that turns your play space into a dogfight arena for small planes, and is available on the Meta Horizon store for €8
- Out of Sight VR, the game in which you have to guide a blind girl through the eyes of her teddy bear, is out now on Steam Early Access for $24.99
- Neon Cipher is a new VR puzzle action platformer inspired by Moss and Portal, and it’s out next month on Quest and Steam
- Prehistoric eco-aware educational sim Dino Hab is now available for Meta Quest. UploadVR went hands-on with it and found it needs polish
- Syberia, the classic point-and-click adventure, is getting a VR edition on Quest 3 later this year
- CleanSheet Pro is a subscription-based VR goalkeeping sim coming to Quest 3 in late 2025
- Ping Pong Club is a free ping-pong game for the Apple Vision Pro. Anyway, because of how things work on Vision Pro, this game can’t deliver the same quality of ElevenVR
- Knights of Neon is a high-octane VR hack ’n’ slash game out now on Quest
- Wiped Clean is a story-driven cleaning simulator that asks you to uncover mysteries, one pool of blood or dead body at a time. It is out now on Quest and is coming to PC VR on June 1st
- Upload VR has published its usual XR News Roundup, containing minor XR news
More info (Into The Radius 2)
More info (Zombie Army VR)
More info (Into The Darkness)
More info (Mecha Force)
More info (Mezmer)
More info (Vivarium)
More info (Alex And The Jets)
More info (Out Of Sight VR)
More info (Neon Cipher)
More info (Dino Hab)
More info (Syberia VR)
More info (CleanSheet Pro)
More info (Ping Pong Club)
More info (Knights Of Neon)
More info (Wiped Clean)
More info (XR News Roundup)
Other news
Meta released North Star, an opensource game from which Unity developers can learn how to create games for the Quest
An interesting experiment about being productive using only a phone, a keyboard, and XREAL glasses
Omdia wrote a report predicting the evolution of XR glasses in the next 20 years
There is a good deal to buy the Pico 4 Ultra in the UK right now
Pimax announced an Ultrawide (140°) optical engine for the Pimax Crystal Super
More details about the Android XR SDK Developer Preview 2 that Google announced at its I/O event
News from partners (and friends)
Iron Rebellion released a cool update
Mech action VR game Iron Rebellion has just released an update that adds two new community maps, a custom camo maker that lets you decorate your machine as you want (which looks cool!), and various bug fixes.
Phygtl Is Hiring!
Who We Are
A Silicon Valley-Based Startup on a mission to transform digital engagement from the ground-up by merging the physical and the digital world. A Creator Platform for next-gen to ‘Socialize.’ With former leaders from Amazon, Riot, Ubisoft, Samsung, and a strong Advisory Board from Nike, Lego, Coca-Cola, and Mastercard, led by a serial-entrepreneur with 2 exits, UC Berkeley Faculty, 2x Author, we are handpicking brilliant minds and devoted souls like you to join the team.
Who Are We Looking For
Unity Developers (both Junior and Senior levels)
Join our Unity team and be at the forefront of innovation in the global mobile-AR industry. If you’re passionate about fine-tuning Unity components and creating groundbreaking AR experiences, we want you to be a part of our team, shaping the future of engagement.
Contact me and I’ll forward your CV to the team!
Some XR fun
What Apple thinks about Android XR glasses
Funny link
Location-based VR on a budget
Funny link
Every time I want to use an online image on my blog or in some presentations
Funny link
AI can already substitute developers.
Funny link
Donate for good
Like last week, also this week in this final paragraph I won’t ask you to donate to my blog, but to the poor people who are facing the consequences of the war. Please donate to the Red Cross to handle the current humanitarian situation in Ukraine. I will leave you the link to do that below.
Let me take a moment before to thank anyway all my Patreon donors for the support they give to me:
- Alex Gonzalez VR
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And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
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