18 May 2016
News
What are the trends and the biggest things to have happened in the world of VR, 3D printing and other CGTrader-related stuff? Read on and find out!
$8.5 BN In VR In China
Image source: roadtovr.com
Analysts now predict that Chinese VR market will be worth $8.5 billion and everyone will want some of that dough. It‘s not hard to see it come to fruition, as three of Chinese internet giants are investing heavily in the area. Baidu Inc., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. – collectively known as BAT – are not aiming to produce headsets. Rather, they‘re seeding start up incubators wherever they go and supporting both hardware and software developers while everyone waits to see which headsets will reign supreme. You have the Chinese government investing in innovation in an effort to break away from reliance on heavy industry and to revitalize economy. Over two hundred startups are working on VR just by Baidu‘s estimates. About 40% of the 6.3 million VR headsets expected to ship this year will go to China, where BAT serves almost 700 million internet users. If there was ever a fertile ground for basically unfeterred growth, it‘s in China.
Google Likely To Present VR Headset At I/O Conference
People on the internet have collected evidence and sites as respectable and trustworthy as Engadget are convinced that Google will unveil an Android VR headset on their I/O conference. It might be something more powerful than Cardboard, it might even be something that needs no phones nor PCs. We just have to wait several hours to find out.
HP To Invest In Startups
HP has launched a new venture capital arm, HP Tech Ventures (gets no points for originality) which will work to discover and fund new innovators. The main areas of interest will be 3D, virtual reality, hyper-mobility, internet of things, and smart machines. It will operated from two bases, one a tech center in Tel Aviv, the other in Palo Alto. We don‘t know the director or the exact investment into the venture, but it‘s still something to be excited about!
360 Game Screenshots With Ansel
Arranging ragdolls in amusing patterns is a time honored tradition for gamers, and Nvidia is introducing the next step. Ansel is a screenshot-making technology that developers can embed into their games. It allows the users to take 360 screenshots, move camera to any place of the map or the gameworld, apply filters like you would on Instagram and grab resolutions of up to 61,000 pixels. I can see this feature being popular with both hype building and game reviewing! While we don’t know when Ansel will be released, it will be a feature in games like Tom Clancy's The Division, The Witness, Lawbreakers. The Witcher III, No Man's Sky, Paragon and the newest Unreal Tournament.
3D Printer Sales Increase 70%
Going by the Wohlers Report coming for the industry research firm Wohlers, last year saw a 69.7% increase in the sales of desktop 3D printers – that’s the kind that’s affordable to folks like you and me! That’s 163,999 units in 2014 and 278,385 in 2015. Wohlers knows what they’re talking about, since they track 51 industrial system manufacturers, 98 service providers, 15 third-party material producers and numerous manufacturers of low-cost desktop 3D printers. In addition to the current findings, the report states that the compound annual growth rate of 3D printing industry over the last three years was 33.8% and 26.2% over the last 27 years, most of which the world spent mostly ignorant of this technology.
Formlab’s New $3,499 Printer
Formlab is plucky company that introduced their Form 1 3D printer via a smashing hit of a Kickstarter. Well, now they’re launching a new printer, Form 2, which comes with a $3,499 price tag. Aimed at commercial businesses, The Form 2 printer includes 8GB of memory, Wi-Fi support (I guess that’s important for wire-allergic people)), a streamlined interface with one-click printing, a better touchscreen display with diagnostic readouts, new cartridge types, and better quality control. It will have a 40% bigger build volume than the Form 1+, and a laser that is 50% more powerful. Form 1 owners will get a $400 discount while Kickstarter backers will net a $600 discount.
Oculus’ VR For Good
Oculus is starting a new initiative, called VR For Good. Inspired by movies the likes of Clouds Over Sidra, it starts with two pilot VR film programs. 360 Filmmakers Challenge partners nine San Francisco Bay Area high schools with professional filmmakers as well as furnishing their teams with a Samsung Gear VR, a Galaxy S6, Ricoh Theta S 360 cameras, access to editing software, and VR film mentors. The task will be to create 3-5 minute 360 films about their communities
360 Bootcamp for Nonprofits will see 10 rising filmmakers team up with 10 nonprofits two make films about a variety of social missions. Again, they’ll be given everything they need, including Nokia OZO cameras.
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