Amazon has launched a new business-to-business program called Amazon Anywhere that lets makers of video games and mobile apps turn their platforms into e-retailers selling physical merchandise using Amazon’s back-end. “With Amazon Anywhere, you can now discover and buy physical products from Amazon stores without ever having to leave your game or app,” the company said, promising to enable “immersive shopping experiences” for virtual worlds, starting with Niantic’s new augmented reality pet game “Peridot.” Companies like Niantic can invite users to link their Amazon account to their apps to purchase merchandise like toys and apparel. Continue reading Amazon Anywhere B2B Platform Helps Creators Set Up Shop

UK-based Immersive Gamebox has been bringing interactive play to venues, first in London and now in the U.S., where the company is currently in about 20 markets including New York, San Jose, Dallas, Denver and Salt Lake City. The goal is to expand to 100 stateside locations by 2025. Teams engage in social play in interactive smart rooms, taking part in adventures based on IP that so far includes about a dozen titles, including “Squid Game” and “Angry Birds.” Players are outfitted with 3D motion-tracking visors and touchscreens, eliminating the need for headsets. Continue reading The Growth of Location-Based Immersive Team Video Games

What a difference a year makes. CES 2023 attracted more than 115,000 attendees from 140 countries to Las Vegas where 3,000 companies filled 2 million square feet of exhibit space. Among the major themes relevant to M&E this year were artificial intelligence, the multiverse, AR and immersive experiences, displays, mobility, IoT, and numerous policy and regulation topics. ETC@USC attended the convention with onsite and remote teams, once again blending its in-person tradition with a virtual presence. Our post-show report features extensive coverage and perspectives related to these key creative, business, and technology areas. Continue reading CES 2023 Report: Connection, Collaboration and Cooperation

Netflix is hoping that offering cinema-like spatial audio on a catalog of more than 700 titles for those who subscribe to its $20 per month premium tier will encourage more customers to upgrade. Spatial audio is engineered to deliver a 360-degree audio experience, including sounds that appear to come from behind the viewer. Customers who subscribe to Netflix’s Standard or Basic plans will have access to some spatial audio titles “but only on a small, select number,” the company said, describing the audio tech as “a game changer for the Premium plan viewing experience.” Netflix Premium already supports 4K, HDR, Dolby Atmos and Netflix Calibrated Mode. Continue reading Netflix Premium Offers 700+ Titles That Feature Spatial Audio

The National Basketball Association is extending its partnership with Meta Platforms in a multiyear deal that will include virtual reality experiences via the Horizon Worlds online platform and Meta Quest, “the official VR headset of the NBA and WNBA.” The NBA Arena in Meta Horizon Worlds will feature live NBA League Pass games in VR throughout the season. NBA-licensed apparel will launch in the Meta Avatars Store. Authenticated NBA accounts will also be able to experience shared watching in HD using Quest with VR sports hub Xtadium. Continue reading NBA Arena and Avatar Apparel Debut in Meta Horizon Worlds

Canon went all-in on VR at CES, demonstrating how the technology can be applied beyond games. As part of a partnership with director M. Night Shyamalan and his upcoming Universal Pictures thriller “Knock at the Cabin,” Canon invited attendees to don a VR headset and interact with characters from the film using the company’s Kokomo software for 3D VR video calls. The camera-maker’s goal is “to bring people closer together by revealing endless opportunities for creators,” Canon USA president and CEO Kazuto Ogawa said, invoking the theme “Limitless is More.” The company demonstrated solutions spanning entertainment, sports, communication and more. Continue reading CES: Canon Demos VR for Movies, Sports, Video Calls, More

The sluggish consumer adoption of virtual reality has pointed to a broader hesitation with immersive technologies that separate the user from their environment. In response, a niche market has evolved for technologies that unobtrusively live on the body while contributing an augmented sensory experience when needed. (See earrings that also offer directional audio from a company called Nova, for instance.) The Japanese exhibit section of the CES Eureka Park startup arena, however, showcased a more environmentally integrated — although still individualized — vision of immersion. Continue reading CES: Targeted Sensory Immersion at the Japanese Exhibition

Full Microsoft Teams integration has come to HoloLens 2 headsets, which are now able to make calls, browse and view calendars or join group meetings, among other things. Microsoft is also combining its key Dynamics 365 Mixed Reality Apps Teams and OneDrive to existing integrations with the Azure cloud and Power Platform. “No matter where they are,” HoloLens 2 users can “summon an array of holographic windows with a Teams call or chat, a Power BI dashboard, a Word document, a PDF or video, their OneDrive folder, or their calendar and operate in an immersive, 3D experience,” the company says. Continue reading Microsoft Goes All-In on Teams Integration with HoloLens 2

The industry is buzzing about a new Sony product called Mocopi that offers motion capture priced for consumers. The Meta Quest-compatible Mocopi utilizes six tracking bands to be worn on the head, back, hands and feet. Priced at 49,500 yen (or about $358), Sony announced Mocopi on its Japanese YouTube channel, with a U.S. release expected toward the end of January 2023. Touted as a way to operate avatars in the metaverse or make videos, Mocopi will have an SDK that can import motion data into 3D animations. Continue reading Sony Targets the Metaverse with Consumer Motion Capture

There’s trouble in virtual paradise, according to The Wall Street Journal, which says internal Meta Platforms documents show that its initial goal of 500,000 monthly active “Horizon Worlds” users by the end of 2022 has been revised to 280,000, which is over 80,000 more than it currently has. Meanwhile, Forbes says the debut of avatar “legs” demoed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at last week’s Meta Connect was actually “staged” using motion capture. However, a Meta spokesman explains that the company’s metaverse efforts were always expected to be a multiyear project, with ongoing improvements based on user feedback. Continue reading Meta’s ‘Horizon Worlds’ Is Struggling to Attract New VR Users

As it continues trying to close its $44 billion sale to Elon Musk, popular social networking service Twitter is taking steps to update its image, introducing multimedia posts for Android and iOS users, who can now augment text with photos, GIFs and videos in a single tweet. Previously, each tweet only accommodated one type of media, though multiple attachments of a single format were permitted. Simultaneously, the company has begun rolling out the “edit” button to U.S. subscribers using the premium Twitter Blue platform, which price increases from $2.99 to $4.99 this month. Continue reading Tweets Go Multimedia, Edit Button Rolls Out for Twitter Blue

LG Electronics is touting two world firsts — the “largest OLED TV,” the 97-inch G2 OLED evo Gallery Edition, and the “first bendable 42-inch OLED TV,” the LG Flex. Described as “epic,” and bringing “theater-like viewing” to the home, the 97G2 carries an epic MSRP of $24,999. The outsized OLED Gallery Edition uses LG’s proprietary Alpha 9 Gen5 AI Processor and advanced picture algorithms to deliver a bright and immersive viewing experience. At CEDIA 2022 in Dallas, Texas, LG also showcased a short-throw projector that can display a 120-inch, 4K picture from just 7.2-inches away. Continue reading CEDIA: LG Debuts 97-Inch OLED TV Billed as World’s Largest

Despite speculation that Apple will debut a realityOS (rOS) headset next year, CEO Tim Cook says the metaverse is not yet ready for prime time, telling a European publication he’s “really not sure the average person can tell you what the metaverse is.” On a continental excursion that included a commencement address at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, Cook appeared bullish on augmented reality, while downplaying virtual reality, the technology around which Meta Platforms is building its future. “I think AR is a profound technology that will affect everything,” Cook told the magazine Bright. Continue reading Cook Hints Apple’s First realityOS Glasses Will Be AR, not VR

Virtual character developer platform Inworld AI has raised $50 million in a Series A funding round led by Section 32 and Intel Capital. The Mountain View-based startup — one of six companies chosen to participate in the 2022 Disney Accelerator — will create virtual characters for games, the metaverse and other entertainment and marketing applications. Because it is focused on providing an interior life, or “mind,” Inworld AI is platform agnostic, with APIs that work across Unity, Unreal Engine, Omniverse and others. Another convenient feature: it lets developers build characters by describing them in natural language. Continue reading Inworld Raises $50M to Create AI-Powered Virtual Characters

Amazon is introducing a voice-activated gaming feature called Alexa Game Control that lets players dictate the action. The February 2023 release “Dead Island 2” will be the first game to incorporate Alexa Game Control. Currently in private beta, the new feature will initially roll out to a wider audience only in North America. Players who want to use the technology will need either a free Amazon account or Amazon Prime. With that in place, one can activate Game Control using push-to-talk or with a hands-free Voice Activity feature that automatically detects speech. Continue reading Amazon Schedules Rollout of Alexa Voice Control for Gamers