Samsung teased its upcoming Extended Reality (XR) headset during the recent Galaxy Unpacked event. The device promises to be a major player in the burgeoning XR market, potentially going head-to-head with the likes of Apple’s Vision Pro and Play for Dream’s MR. It’s probably worth noting that this headset wouldn’t be Samsung’s first foray into AR and XR headsets – does anyone remember the Galaxy Gear?
As mentioned by TM Roh, the President of Samsung’s MX division, at Unpacked, the company is collaborating with Google on the software side, leveraging Google’s expertise to create a seamless and immersive user experience. This partnership hints at an Android-based XR platform, potentially offering a familiar and user-friendly interface for Android users.
Samsung has been tight-lipped about the headset’s technical specifications and design. However, based on industry rumours, we can expect a powerful processor capable of handling the demanding graphics required for a truly immersive XR experience. The headset might also feature high-resolution displays and advanced tracking technology for precise hand and eye movements within the virtual world.
While a consumer launch seems slated for March 2025, Samsung is planning a developer release much sooner. An early version of the headset, codenamed “Moohan”, is expected to be available to developers by October 2024. This allows developers to create and optimize content for the platform before the official consumer launch, ensuring a robust library of games, applications, and experiences available from day one.
The developer release expected later this year will be a key indicator of the platform’s capabilities and potential. Until then, we’ll have to wait with bated breath for more details about Samsung’s foray into the world of Extended Reality.
Play for Dream Technology, a mixed reality company currently based out of China, is taking Apple’s Vision Pro head-on with its new Play for Dream MR. The new mixed reality headset is not only bringing a lot of the features that made Apple’s Vision Pro notable, but it’s also making some big improvements.
The Play for Dream MR headset runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR+ Gen 2. The processor is built from the ground up for Mixed and Extended-reality experiences. It has 16GB of RAM supporting this processor and is available with up to 1TB of onboard storage. When it comes to optics, the Play for Dream MR comes with two 8K micro OLED screens – one per eye. Unlike other mixed-reality headsets, the Play for Dream MR headset comes with a Pancake optics solution that is developed by the team at Play for Dream Technologies. The company’s solution is made of ultra-lightweight resin which reduces the weight of the lenses tremendously. According to the company, it’s the lightest available right now.
Design-wise, the same approach is also being used when it comes to the design of the wearable. The MR headset is built to not only look futuristic but also be light. The main factor behind this approach is simply the comfort of wearing the headset over prolonged periods of time. The headset is only 33mm thick and even has a built-in battery. You can also get extra juice with an additional power bank for even longer MR sessions. It’s also designed with a 3:2 weight distribution to minimise neck strain.
There are a total of 11 high-performance cameras that are paired with 7 different types of sensors and 22 infra-red LEDs for precise multimodal interaction. The main cameras on the Play For Dream MR are dual 32-megapixel sensors which are used for view through for extended and augmented-reality application. In addition, these cameras can also be used to capture immersive, 3D content that can be used with the Play for Dream MR. The MR also has a large 103° field of view with about 45 pixels per degree (PPD).
On top of these specs, Play for Dream Technologies has also developed its own MR OS called DreamOS based on Android. This OS while built on Android expands the capabilities of it to include productivity features, the ability to create 3D content and more. What could be a hallmark feature when it comes to the MR is its AI Assistant, Xiao Hu. The cute, furry little creature is the Play for Dream MR’s visual manifestation of Iron Man’s Jarvis. For now, Xiao Hu is able to handle searches, music composition, translation and precise voice control. That said, Xiao Hu is only one of the AI features that will be coming with the MR.
While augmented- and mixed-reality are amazing, it’s not worth much if there’s no content. Play For Dream Technologies is partnering with over 100 content companies to ensure that the platform has a robust app and content ecosystem. In addition, partners like Unity are helping the company figure out apps as both immersive 3D experiences and regular app experiences. When it comes to content, the headset is able to provide an immersive theatrical experience as the in OS screen can provide experiences that mimic a screen that is over 1000-inches big.
The development of immersive content experiences has also influenced the design and features of the headset. The Play for Dream MR comes with speakers that are able to deliver DTS:X audio and IMAX immersive audio. These speakers are developed in partnership with Xperi (the company behind DTS:X) and IMAX. The built-in speakers are able to deliver simulated 7.1-channel audio that has been IMAX Enhanced certified. The built-in speakers are also able to create 3D immersive sound. CEO and Founder of Play for Dream, Huang Feng, mentioned that the company chose to go with built-in speakers to create a more immersive experience but more importantly, to provide an integrated experience that is more conducive to long hours of use. He iterated that using earbuds may not be the best option.
Like other VR headsets, the MR comes with controllers or joysticks. These controllers come with 6DoF and lack the halo design we’re used to seeing in other systems. However, they are more accurate and have better range of movement. In addition, the Play for Dream MR has basic and advanced gesture controls. These gestures are developed in collaboration with Sogou, a company that has already made waves with gestures based controls in the past. These gestures are detected by the large number of sensors on the headset. These sensors are supposedly able to track the gestures with increased accuracy and precision.
Pricing & Availability
The only official pricing announced during the launch of the Play for Dream MR is USD$1X99 – which is a fraction of the price of the Apple Vision Pro. However, the MR will be rolling out officially in Malaysia and Singapore starting in October 2024. Other Asia Pacific countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and more will follow in 2025.
We expect that the headset will be priced at about USD$1,899 or just a tad bit lower. However, at this point, the MR is entering a market which is stagnating barring the interest behind the Apple Vision Pro. However, with an option that is not only cheaper, but more open for everyone with a lower price point and what looks like to be a promising competitor that can invigorate the space when it comes to gaming and even how we consume our conent.
OPPO is no stranger to wearable tech. The company announced its first Air Glass concept more than 2 years ago. This year, it’s working to up the ante when it comes to this concept while leveraging AI and Generative AI advancements that have been the hallmark of the past two years.
The OPPO Air Glass 3 comes with a slew of improved features including a reduced 50g of weight. Together with this, OPPO is deploying a brand-new material called a resin waveguide which it has developed in-house. This waveguide has a refractive index of 1.70 which is similar to the lenses we use for corrective glasses. Together with this, the new OPPO Air Glass 3 comes with a full-colour display – a massive update from the previous monochrome display. It also comes with a peak brightness of 1000 nits.
Even with all those upgrades, OPPO is managing to bring even bigger updates to the Air Glass 3 in the form of Generative AI and AI-enabled features. When the Air Glass 3 is paired to a smartphone with the Air Glass app, it will be able to leverage AndesGPT, OPPO’s in-house AI model. While the company has not elaborated on how exactly the Air Glass will be able to fully leverage the AI, it is accessible through voice commands. This can be done by touching the temple of the glasses. OPPO also collaborated with Qualcomm and startup, AspenTek, to develop a new AI motion algorithm that allows for better quality pictures and video from moving subjects.
Like previous models, the Air Glass 3 also supports touch and gesture controls. This can be used to control music playback, navigate information displays and the UI as well as quick actions when in calls. Speaking of calls, the Air Glass 3 features reverse sound field technology. This is an open acoustic design that allows you to listen to calls and music without the need to wear or plugin earphones. OPPO has also improved noise isolation in the Air Glass 3 by including 4 mics among other innovations.
The company hasn’t yet announced any availability for the Air Glass 3 but it looks ready for the market. We’ll just have to wait and see when and if the XR Glasses hit the market.
Apple’s Vision Pro gave VR and XR experiences extended time in the spotlight recently. However, it looks like Finnish company, Varjo, is about to steal that spotlight with its new headset – the XR-4. Varjo is banking on VR and XR experiences that are indistinguishable from real life with the XR-4.
While the Apple Vision Pro can work independently, the Varjo XR-4 must be connected to a fast-paced PC. The new XR-4 comes with controllers that were co-designed with Razer. It also doesn’t need any external VR base units for full-motion 6DoF, also known as six degrees of freedom tracking. The XR-4 has excellent specs, like a wider field of view (FOV) of 120 degrees horizontally and 105 degrees vertically. It also comes with LiDAR sensors that allow it to track and map more accurately. Varjo itself promises 8x clarity for better object and hand scanning in VR and a more accurate mixing of real-world and virtual reality images.
Varjo’s XR-4 moves further into AR and VR with a multifocal passthrough camera and higher headset resolution. The setup essentially blurs the lines between mixed reality and real life.
The Varjo XR-4 has a pixel quality of about 4K per eye and a pixel density of 51 pixels per degree. The display panel is a Mini-LED panel with a peak brightness of 200 nits. The cameras’ better dual 20-megapixel image sensors make the XR-4 even more powerful. Varjo’s Focal Edition, which includes gaze-directed autofocus cameras, is for people who want an even more advanced experience. This feature, controlled by the headset’s built-in eye tracking, makes the experience more immersive by letting you focus on real-world items and adding virtual ones on top of them.
Pricing & Availability
There are four variants of the XR-4. The first is the standard XR-4, which costs $3,990, and the Focal Edition, which costs $9,990.
Then there is the XR-4 Secure Edition, which has two variants: fixed-focused, which costs €7,990, and autofocus, which costs €13,990.
It can now be ordered via their official site only for companies and businesses, or join their waitlist to buy it individually and will only be shipped starting December.
How will we connect with colleagues in five to ten years’ time? Will we all be interacting with holograms? Fully immersed in virtual worlds? Or will the reality be much closer to how most of us work from our laptops today?
Virtual worlds and immersive experiences could offer exciting new ways to connect with others – and our content. And with people more dispersed and working patterns more personalised than before, how we collaborate and get things done has never been more important.
It’s my team’s role to dig into future trends and technologies, experiment with solutions and reimagine experiences. Though immersive environments will play a role in the future of work, face-to-face meetings, instant messages, collaboration tools, and video calls aren’t going anywhere. That’s why we’re focusing on the user experience and honing in on everyday micro-moments that could be disruptive as we potentially bounce between physical, digital and virtual worlds in the future.
We’re asking questions like: How will people interact at the intersections of these worlds? What tools will people need to move between these locations seamlessly? What if people don’t want to wear a headset and dive into a virtual world for 8 hours a day – would they be excluded from future projects or collaboration opportunities?
Intelligent, familiar tools for future interactions
Using Concept Nyx’s ability to deliver compute all around, powered at the edge, we have been exploring how familiar devices and peripherals could be paired with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to work together as an ecosystem to deliver easily accessible and immersive experiences beyond gaming.
Our labs are packed with curated immersive demonstrations and concepts to help us test and explore how Dell could help people move between various spaces and tasks intuitively in the future. From fully immersive Virtual Reality (VR) builds to Mixed Reality (XR) experiences featuring displays and other tools that remove the need for a VR headset, these environments have helped us evolve concepts like the Concept Nyx Companion. As a lightweight tablet-style device that could be viewed and accessed in VR and XR environments, the concept could be a consistent tool throughout all these spaces and could ensure a user’s content is in one place as they move between spaces and tasks. No more taking photos of whiteboards or copying notes to be uploaded to a different space – users could just screenshot their project space and/or easily copy content for sharing across screens.
Together with the Concept Nyx Stylus, you could input notes by voice or via pen, and drag + drop them into digital and virtual collaboration spaces, and even use the voice activation for AI image creation – perfect for non-aspiring artists! All these tools could also seamlessly be used alongside the Concept Nyx Spatial Input in a future desktop environment with a keyboard and mouse, and possibly 3D displays too. We’ve been looking at creative ways to connect these traditional tools for a clutter-free space, and we’ve also been thinking about intuitive gestures for interacting with content – for example, using the tip of the Stylus for writing and the top of the Stylus for interacting with onscreen content or using the Spatial Input as a dial for a 360 view or for zooming in on details.
We’ve even been thinking through how people might show up in future digital and virtual spaces. We’ve all been on video calls where we need to step away for a moment to answer the door or tend to a pet or child off-camera. Instead of leaving a blank screen, empty seat, or static 2015 headshot, imagine with a wave of your hand, you could stay present as an intelligent avatar while you step away or stay off camera completely. To explore this, we’ve been experimenting with gestures and movement tracking and building on our imaging technology and video conferencing expertise to create the Concept Nyx Spatial camera, which when paired with AI software, could learn a user’s expressions and mannerisms to deliver a more authentic representation of them for future interactions.
Advancing the Concept Nyx Ecosystem
From infrastructure to devices, Dell is at the centre of present and future workplaces and is focused on developing the tools that will be needed to navigate these spaces. Right now, this means bringing tools to market like a new generation of UltraSharp conferencing monitors and intelligent webcams with motion-activated controls and presence detection, and building on technologies like storage, 5G, multi-cloud and edge that provide the advanced connectivity and infrastructure to allow organisations to shape how they work. In the future, productivity tools will be connected and intelligent enough to seamlessly move from experience to experience and task to task, helping to break down barriers and redefine how colleagues connect with one another.
My team continues to explore the future of compelling, immersive experiences in both work and play. Concepts play a huge role in allowing our designers, engineers, and strategists to test and tweak devices and solutions to inform future experience roadmaps. We’re excited to keep you updated on our journey!
When someone asks us what TV they should buy for their homes, we always go back to Sony. We are big fans of Sony’s TV line-up and that is no secret too. We do think that they have been consistently making great TVs for a long time now. When you get a Sony TV as well, you get a sort of assurance that it will at least work properly with your Sony PlayStation 5; they are made by the same manufacturer, after all.
The BRAVIA series from Sony has also proven itself to be some of the best TVs in the world. While some of their TVs are based on older LED technology, the BRAVIA TVs still offer one of the best, if not the best, image contrasts and colour accurate images in the industry. Comparatively as well, BRAVIA TVs are more reasonably priced than some of its competitors.
Sony has just announced a new BRAVIA series with a very small difference that makes a lot of difference in how you experience TV in 2021. They have introduced the BRAVIA XR with a new processor, the Cognitive Processor XR. Yes, it is just a new processor to the TV.
As its name suggest, the new processor is a more intelligent processor Sony produces for the BRAVIA XR TVs. As with any modern processors in the market for any electronics items, it is also an Artificial Intelligence (AI) equipped chip. Sony claims that it is not conventional AI that they use here though.
Source: Sony
Source: Sony
They call it cognitive intelligence, and it does kind of work to work with our cognitive behaviour when we watch the TV. Sony says that the processor is designed to replicate the ways we see and hear, like replicating focal points on the TV screen anyway; at least they are attempting to. In some sense, the processor is not attempting to create better, more vibrant, and upscaled image. Instead, they are trying to make images look more natural to our eyes.
The processor divides the display panel into zones to detect focal points in a picture. It still works like conventional AI where colours, contrasts, and details are refined. It does a bit more than just analysing and refining the general elements though. When it finds the focal points of each frame it automatically enhances its elements to the best it can be alongside the other parts of the image. The result of that is a more natural looking image that is almost lifelike, at least according to Sony.
The processor also tampers a little bit with audio and its signal positions. The processor will identify the images, analyse sound positions and correctly places them through the speakers. The processor also converts the audio signal into proper 3D surround sound for an immersive experience without you spending extra on sound bar or a separate sound system. All-in-all, the Sony BRAVIA XR with Cognitive Processor XR is meant to really elevate your TV experience with little tweaks that matter.
Source: Sony
Source: Sony
Source: Sony
Source: Sony
With the introduction of the new Cognitive Processor XR too, the BRAVIA TVs get some new features. For one, Google TV is now available on Android TV. All BRAVIA XR TVs also get HDMI 2.1 and e-ARC compatibility for 4K 120fps support, beneficial for modern console gaming. The new BRAVIA XR TVs will also add additional support for smart speakers like Google Nest Speakers so you can control your TV with smart speakers too. On top of all of that, the TVs will also come with Netflix Calibrated Mode for studio like Netflix experience on Sony BRAVIA XR TVs.
For now, the Cognitive Processor XR will be available in five models in Malaysia. The Sony BRAVIA XR XR-65A90J OLED TV (65-inch, MYR 17,999), XR-65A80J OLED TV (65-inch, MYR 14,999), XR-55A80J OLED TV (55-inch, MYR 9,199), XR-65X90J Full Array LED TV (65-inch, MYR 7,599), and XR-55X90J Full Array LED TV (55-inch, MYR 5,399) are all available in Malaysia. There will be an 8K XR-85Z9J, OLED XR-77A80J, Full Array LED XR-75X90J coming soon into Malaysia. For more information on the Sony BRAVIA XR TVs, you can head over to Sony’s website.
