Oculus Touch controller release delayed to second half of 2016

Finally, the consumer-grade Oculus Rift virtual reality headset will be coming first quarter of this year. The bad news is the Oculus Touch controller won’t be arriving with it. The Oculus development team said in a blog post that they needed to finish work on the controller so they had to push it back to “some point” in the second half of the year. Initially, the release of the Touch was set for the second quarter of the year.

Based on the same blog post, Oculus hinted that they were working on additional tweaks to the controller: “On Touch hardware, we’ve made significant advances in ergonomics, and we’re implementing many changes that make Touch even more comfortable, reliable, and natural. We’re also implementing changes that improve hand pose recognition.” Oculus said they will start taking preorders for the controller several months before it hits the market but they still won’t say when this could be. At the moment though, they are said to be releasing more pre-production runs to developers who need it.

Source: Oculus via PCWorld

Samsung brings the Gear VR Consumer Edition to Canada

Canadians who have been waiting for Samsung and Oculus Gear VR Consumer Edition have to wait no longer. Samsung Electronics Canada has brought the VR set to the country. This latest version of the Gear VR works with the Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6 edge+, S6 and S6 edge. It’ll make use of the Super AMOLED displays to give you the virtual reality experience you want. The unit is also said to be 19 percent lighter than the Gear VR Innovator Edition and it comes with an improved touchpad as well to make using the Gear VR more intuitive.

Samsung and Oculus boast that now more than ever there are more content options available for users such as Samsung Milk VR appicaltion, which has become available for download in Canada today.  This will bring high-quality content to Canadians, including exclusively developed content like GONE, a thriller produced by Robert Kirkman and David Alpert’s Skybound Entertainment. You can even watch things like The Hunger Games: Mockingjay and other channels for music, sports, action, and lifestyle. The Samsung Gear VR Consumer Edition will be available in Frost White and it comes to select Canadian retailers and Samsung Experience Store for $139.

Tech specs for Google Cardboard version 2.0 surface

Back in May, Google debuted version 2.0 of its Google Cardboard VR headset. Now, the company’s released the technical specifications and drawings for Google Cardboard v2. Those who have bigger phones and couldn’t fit in their devices before can do so now. The second iteration of the VR headset can handle larger phones. With the drawings up, you can start building your own headset. But we can also expect manufacturers to start building their versions, if DIY isn’t your thing.

Source: Android Community | Download: Google

HTC’s Vive VR headsets are now with developers

And the development phase for HTC’s virtual reality headset goes into full swing. The Valve and HTC-made Vive has finally started making its way to developers. The developer kits are being shipped to the likes of movie studios and game developers with key components like two Lighthouse base stations, which is the mounted hardware the Vive needs to locate and track users in a room; two wireless Steam VR handheld controllers; cables; and “everything else needed to get started.”

Although it is a bit worrying when it comes to the timeframe these developer kits started to arrive to the developers. HTC Vive was touted with a late 2015 release so with half of the year done, there isn’t that much time left to ship the apps. All we can do now is wait and see.

Source: ReadWrite.com