Pokémon Go / Magic Leap / Fallout 4 — Inside VR & AR

A new ordinance in Milwaukee County, WI will require developers to obtain a permit before they can incorporate county parks in location-based AR games. This comes after the county’s parks department was unable to hold Ninantic, developer of Pokémon Go, financially responsible for damage done at a county park by players of the popular AR game. At the height of the game’s popularity last summer, county officials said visitors damaged turf and littered while playing Pokémon Go at Lake Park in Milwaukee. — AP

Magic Leap has acquired Dacuda’s 3D scanning assets. Dacuda’s 3D team, which includes company founder Alexander Illic, will be joining Magic Leap. Magic Leap is a mixed reality startup that has raised $1.4 billion in funding, has raised $1.4 billion in funding, but has yet to release a product, and a recently leaked image of a prototype has led to widespread skepticism. Current Dacuda CEO Peter Weigand will remain at the company, leading the productivity solutions division of the company. Magic Leap’s recent acquisition will expand its work in computer vision and deep learning, while also building out its operations in Europe, where Dacuda is based. — TECHCRUNCH

Bethesda’s Todd Howard gave an update on Fallout 4 VR, saying that the game is currently playable from start to finish. But, as the game studio’s director points out, there are still improvements being made on the interface. "There's no content that we removed or changed [for VR]," Howard explained to IGN. Bethesda first unveiled plans for a VR version of Fallout 4 at E3 last year, showing off a demo version of the game. The company has promised a release date in 2017 and will support the HTC Vive. — IGN 

HTC is reportedly launching a mobile VR headset this year. HTC’s chief financial officer Chia-lin Chang said the company will reveal a VR product that will be compatible with the U Ultra smartphone. HTC has delved into the world of VR with its Vive headset, but Chang’s comments suggest the company is looking to cast a wider net with this new product. “Vive is very top end, and in the coming months you'll see our plans in terms of mobility and VR, and it's not a phone slapped onto a headset,” Chang told CNET. — CNET

Snap’s Spectacles are now available online in the U.S. Spectacles have been on sale since November, but were only available through the company’s pop-up vending machines. Spectacles will take approximately 2-4 weeks to ship and customers may purchase up to six pairs per household. The $129 sunglasses allow users to record 10-second video clips, formatted for playback in the Snapchat app. Users can then augment the experience by overlaying stickers, filters or text on video clips. — THE VERGE

According to a recent survey of game developers, 24% of respondents said they are creating game titles for VR/AR headsets. The 2017 GDC State of the Industry Report also shows that one in ten game developers are working on a platform-exclusive VR/AR game. Of those game developers, 33% are creating exclusively for the HTC Vive and 24% are developing for the Oculus Rift. The HTC Vive is also leading other VR/AR headsets in terms of developer interest, with 45% of respondents saying they were interested in the platform over other VR/AR headsets. — GDC

FROM THE FORUMS 

On the /r/Oculus subreddit, people are responding to UploadVR’s story on a man who says he felt sensation in his missing fingers after using the Oculus Touch. You can read that story here. 

Redditor Doc_Ok said “I found V.S. Ramachandran's 'Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind' a very interesting read. Ramachandran ran a series of experiments on phantom limbs and phantom pain, and used an analog virtual reality setup of sorts, a Pepper's Ghost box mirroring a patient's healthy limb onto an injured or amputated one, to study the coupling between the visual sense and the body's feeling of self. It's a very well-written popular science book, to boot. Highly recommend it.” 

MjrJWPowell said “It makes sense. Amputees suffer phantom pain, where you feel pain in a missing limb. Therapists have been using mirrors to alleviate the pain because it was theorized that the brain is trying to activate muscles that aren't there which means the brain is contracting the muscles well beyond what you can if you aren't missing a limb. The mirror tricks your brain into thinking you are relaxing the muscles that aren't there.”

JOBS AND EVENTS

Experiential Technology Conference & Expo: March 14 & 15th (San Francisco)

Shaper Tools is looking for an AR digital fabrication front-end software engineer 

Left Field Labs is looking for a senior iOS developer 

Turtle Rocks Software is hiring

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