Founder of VR content startup Jaunt joins Apple

Arthur van Hoff (left) joins Apple as senior architect for unnamed team

Apple might be making strides towards improving its augmented reality plans with one of its latest hires. The company recently brought onboard Jaunt founder Arthur van Hoff to become the senior architect for an unnamed team. Jaunt specializes in virtual reality content. And van Hoff has history working with multi-camera systems and creating content for VR and AR as well as capturing 3D images with depth-sensing cameras. He has helped the company shift to AR until he left in December 2018. He’s brought to the company a couple of months after HoloLens co-creator Avi Bar-Zeev left following three years of work on a rumoured AR headset.

We can’t say if van Hoff will be picking up that work. But some have reported that Apple also has plans to add laser-assisted cameras into the iPhone for capturing depth data and van Hoff could lend his expertise there. Only time will tell what the Jaunt founder can bring to the company.

Source: Engadget

Sony PlayStation VR gets support for streaming app Jaunt

Sony PlayStation VR adds tons of video content onto its platform with the support for streaming app Jaunt. Considered the Netflix for virtual reality video content, Jaunt brings over 150 videos for VR headset users to enjoy. The videos are arranged by category and ready for consumption. The app is currently free with no monetization strategy in place at the moment but the company behind Jaunt says that paying content creators “is on the roadmap.” At the moment it’s a way for creators to show what they have for the VR space.

Videos on Jaunt are usually in the eight- to ten-minute range so you can easily get through a lot of them. But the fun thing with VR is you can change your perspective of a clip by looking in a different direction.

Source: BGR

‘Bourne Identity’ director to create a VR action miniseries

Bourne Identity director Doug Liman is working on an ambitious new project—a six-part virtual reality miniseries called Invisible. It’s described as an action-adventure series revolving around a Manhattan family named the Ashlands. According to its description, “As capacity of their extraordinary ability continues to grow in power, the birth of an exceptional new child draws public interest and their family secret teeters on the brink of becoming exposed.” It’ll be presented in five- to ten-minute segments. It’s going to be written by Dallas Buyers Club screenwriter Melisa Wallack and will be directed by Liman and Michael Witlak and Jerome Sable. They’re partnering with virtual reality cinema company Jaunt on the project.

Source: The Verge