Last Week in AVP #28: New SpongeBob SquarePants Environment from Paramount, National Geographic Immersive Environment from Disney+, Virtual Boy Emulator with VirtualFriend!
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New SpongeBob SquarePants Environment for Paramount+ (source)!
Watch movies in Bikini Bottom with SpongeBob!
Disney+ Gains New National Geographic Apple Vision Pro Immersive Environment, New 3D Movies (source)
Available now, Disney+ subscribers watching via Apple Vision Pro can access a new immersive environment based on Iceland’s Thingvellir National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, on a snowy winter day. Marking National Geographic's debut immersive project for the headset, your surroundings feature immersive elements.
Apple Vision Pro title Puzzle Sculpt launching on Apple Arcade on September 5 (Apple)
Puzzle Sculpt by Schell Games
In this relaxing game, players will decipher increasingly challenging clues to solve puzzles in their living room. They will slowly remove blocks from the puzzle by logically carving away the unnecessary cubes, revealing a cute collectible buried within the cube, called a Deco Object. Players can arrange Deco Objects anywhere in their real-world space. There are plenty of puzzles and adorable Deco Objects to collect for hours of cozy, puzzle-solving fun.
Two forthcoming headsets: a second-generation model of the Apple Vision Pro, and a cheaper version leaked (Bloomberg)
A new report from Bloomberg outlines two forthcoming headsets: a second-generation model of the Apple Vision Pro, and a cheaper version of the headset which could be dubbed simply the "Apple Vision." The latter product may appear as early as sometime in 2025.
The company is continuing to look at another category entirely, the "smart glasses" area that is presently defined by Meta's $329-and-up smart Ray Ban glasses. The Apple version, which might be dubbed "Apple Glass," has no timetable at present, much like the second-generation Apple Vision Pro.
Apple Vision Pro review: A revolution in progress (Tomsguide)
In this 5000+ words review, we take another deep depth onto this platform 6 months in
And I was left almost speechless when I viewed a 3D spatial video of my three dogs coming towards the camera. It’s so immersive you may get a bit emotional. Oh, and you can watch regular 3D movies in Apple TV+ that blow away your local theater.
The Apple Vision Pro is an incredible piece of technology, with eye and hand tracking interface that puts the competition to shame. But there’s some early bugs and some very weird things that come along with this revolution, including a freaky digital Persona version of yourself that can appear in FaceTime calls.
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So my bottom line on the Vision Pro is that it’s definitely revolutionary, but it’s a revolution very much in progress.
It Took Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro to Make Me Appreciate Nintendo’s Virtual Boy (source)
The VirtualFriend app on Apple Vision Pro is the best way to experience Nintendo's forgotten console, despite the headset's obscene cost.. Screenshot: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
Other Virtual Boy emulators like Virtual Boy Go already work well for headsets like the Meta Quest 3. Still, VirtualFriend is intuitive and seamless, perhaps more so than other current iOS emulation apps. You can control eye separation in-game with a pinch of your fingers if the 3D doesn’t look quite right. Plus the AVP’s ability to throw the screen around the room means you can make the window as comfortably big as it needs to be. It needs to be said, that these near-30-year-old games look especially sharp on the AVP’s micro-OLED displays.
Apple Vision Pro rockets to number 2 in VR/AR (IDC)
Learn how to play drums like real in AVP (source)
Interactive physic based cimbals, kick detection, learn and practice modes.
Apple Vision Pro project called Spatial Photons demos amazing physics engine (source, source)
First Avengers movie is now available in 3D in IMAX aspect ratio on Apple Vision Pro in DisneyPlus app
Why I bought an Apple Vision Pro, 4 Months After Launch
First AVP controllers that supports SteamVR games directly via ALVR streaming
They are called "Surreal Touch" and they promise us to be compatible with all SteamVR games directly via ALVR streaming! They track themselves via cameras just like the Meta Touch Pro controllers do!
Apple Vision Pro 6 months review
WebGPU demo with 3D Gaussian Splatting and Compute Shader Particles (source)
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The Vision Pro impresses with revolutionary features but still faces early-stage challenges.