The Eureka Park section at CES 2025 in Las Vegas is an exhibition area dedicated to thousands of startups and early-stage products from across the globe. Our reporting team visited the space organized specifically for Japanese startups and discovered a few that are developing innovative technologies that could potentially be applied to 3D computer graphics modeling, XR, and gaming. Among the standouts were Tokyo-based CalTa that developed the digital twin platform Trancity — and Japanese telecom giant NTT Docomo’s exhibit of its ongoing Feel Tech system. Continue reading CES: Japanese Startups Showcase 3D Modeling, XR, Gaming

Fourth Frame Studios Head of Studio Oluwafemi Okusanya held a conversation with Blizzard Entertainment Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Monica Austin on how her company is defining its IP in the marketplace. Austin reported that “World of Warcraft” just had its 20th anniversary and reached one-quarter of a billion players. “Blizzard was the first studio to recognize community,” she said. “For the next 20 years, we want to think about a modern version of building community. Community from a marketing and Blizzard lens is the biggest opportunity for exploring our IP.” Continue reading CES: Power of Gaming IPs, Why Games Are the New Comics

James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment has debuted a new unit, Lightstorm Vision, which launches with a deal that sees Meta Quest become its exclusive mixed reality platform. The multiyear deal will see the Hollywood heavyweight partnering with Meta Platforms “to scale the creation of world-class 3D entertainment experiences spanning live sports and concerts, feature films, and TV series featuring big-name IP on Meta Quest,” Meta announced. In addition to producing original content for the Meta Quest, Lightstorm Vision will use its tech to help third parties create new programming and potentially conform existing work through MR conversion. Continue reading Cameron’s Lightstorm Vision Partners with Meta to Advance MR

D-ID has launched two new types of AI-powered avatars: Premium+ and Express. The company’s video-to-video avatar tools aim to provide personal look-alikes that can sub for their creators in uses ranging from instructional videos to business presentations, offloading on-camera duties in areas including sales, marketing and customer support. “Premium+ Avatars can generate hyper-realistic digital humans that are indistinguishable from real people and will serve as the foundation for fully interactive digital agents revolutionizing how brands communicate,” while Express Avatars can rapidly generate serviceable avatars “from just one minute of source footage.” Continue reading D-ID’s New Business-Use Avatars Can Converse in Real Time

From exercising in outer space to navigating via Google Earth VR, HTC has made inroads with its Vive headsets. The new mixed reality model, the Vive Focus Vision XR, has color passthrough and 2448 x 2448 resolution per-eye. Aiming squarely at the enterprise and high-end gaming markets, it accommodates tethered PCVR or standalone play, while IPD eye tracking makes it suitable for high-volume environments, like training or industrial use. Available for $999 for the consumer platform and $1,299 for enterprise, this latest iteration in the Focus Vision series is also made for location-based experiences. Continue reading HTC’s $1000 Vive Focus Vision XR is Built for Work and Fun

Snap is rolling out its fifth generation of Spectacles — standalone AR glasses that enable use of Lenses to “experience the world together with friends.” The firm is also launching a Spectacles Developer Program, and at a rental fee of $99 per month, that’s who the devices are aimed at, for now. Spectacles are powered by Snap OS, optimized to leverage people’s natural responses to interacting with their environment. They work seamlessly with mobile devices, turning smartphones into custom game controllers with Lenses. There’s even a Spectator Mode, “so friends without Spectacles can follow along, mirror your phone screen, and more.” Continue reading Snap Targets Developers with $99 per Month AR Spectacles

VFusion3D is the latest AI model unveiled by Meta Platforms, which developed it in conjunction with the University of Oxford. The powerful model, which uses single-perspective images or text prompts to generate high-quality 3D objects, is being hailed as a breakthrough in scalable 3D AI that can potentially transform sectors including VR, gaming and digital design. The platform tackles the challenge of scarce 3D training data in a world teeming with 2D images and text descriptions. The VFusion3D approach leverages what the developers call “a novel method for building scalable 3D generative models utilizing pre-trained video diffusion models.” Continue reading Meta, Oxford Advance 3D Object Generation with VFusion3D

Facebook parent Meta announced better-than-expected earnings for Q2 last week, surpassing Wall Street estimates for revenue and profit. The company plans to continue spending heavily on artificial intelligence and virtual reality, despite significant losses in its AR/VR and metaverse businesses. Meta reported a revenue increase of 22 percent from $32 billion for the same quarter last year, representing four straight quarters of growth exceeding 20 percent. The company noted that net income jumped 73 percent to $13.47 billion. Advertising revenue, largely from Facebook and Instagram, was up 22 percent year-over-year. Continue reading Meta Reports Q2 Digital Ad Growth, Will Continue AI Spending

Stability AI has unveiled an experimental new model, Stable Video 4D, which generates photorealistic 3D video. Building on what it created with Stable Video Diffusion, released in November, this latest model can take moving image data of an object and iterate it from multiple angles — generating up to eight different perspectives. Stable Video 4D can generate five frames across eight views in about 40 seconds using a single inference, according to the company, which says the model has “future applications in game development, video editing, and virtual reality.” Users begin by uploading a single video and specifying desired 3D camera poses. Continue reading Stable Video 4D Adds Time Dimension to Generative Imagery

Meta Platforms is bringing its Meta AI assistant to Quest 3 headsets in the U.S. and Canada. As part of the company’s ongoing collaboration with Microsoft, Quest 3’s Horizon OS will also get access to real-time information courtesy of Bing search. The update will also bring Meta AI with Vision — already integrated with the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses — to Horizon OS, initially just in passthrough mode. “These changes will begin rolling out in the U.S. and Canada in experimental mode next month — and we’ll continue to improve the experience over time,” Meta explains. Continue reading Meta Brings AI Assistant, AI Vision to Some Quest Headsets

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that the company will test a feature to create AI characters through the AI Studio on Instagram that can engage with fans and respond to messages. “Rolling out an early test in the U.S. of our AI Studio so you might start seeing AIs from your favorite creators and interest-based AIs in the coming weeks on Instagram,” he wrote. “These will primarily show up in messaging for now, and will be clearly labeled as AI.” Zuckerberg noted the beta test will help the company improve AI characters and will be made “available to more people soon.” Meta launched AI Studio last year to help businesses build custom chatbots. Continue reading Meta Testing AI Chatbots for Instagram Created by Its Users

Sony Pictures Entertainment has agreed to purchase Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a 35-location U.S. theater chain known for creative cocktails and craft food service as well as “no talking, no texting” policies. To manage the acquisition, SPE has established Sony Pictures Experiences, which will be headed by Alamo Drafthouse CEO Michael Kustermann. The exhibitor chain was purchased from founder Tim League, Altamont Capital Partners and Fortress Investment Group, who had quietly been shopping it this past year. Established in Austin, Texas in 1997, Alamo operates in 25 U.S. metropolitan areas and is the seventh-largest theater chain in North America. Continue reading Sony Is Purchasing Popular Alamo Drafthouse Theater Chain

Apple is previewing visionOS 2, the next-gen operating system coming this fall for its Vision Pro mixed-reality headset. The new system includes a Mac Virtual Display that creates the ultra-wide equivalent of two side-by-side 4K monitors. The new OS updates navigational hand gestures and adds a Photos app feature that turns existing 2D pictures into spatial images. At WWDC Apple also announced that Blackmagic Design will release the URSA Cine Immersive, the first commercial camera system designed to capture images for the Vision Pro, and Canon unveiled a dual-lens optical setup for APS-C cameras. Continue reading Vision Pro Adds Dual 4K Virtual Display, URSA Cine Immersive

Magic Leap and Google have entered into a strategic partnership to develop augmented reality solutions, combining Magic Leap’s optics expertise with Google’s technology platforms. “By combining efforts, we can foster the future of the XR ecosystem with unique and innovative product offerings.” Google VP and General Manager of AR/XR Shahram Izadi said of the union, seen by some as effort by Google to jumpstart an XR business that could someday be competitive with offerings from Meta, Microsoft and now Apple. The company was an early mover in the space, with Google Cardboard and Google Glass, but dropped out. Continue reading Google Teams with Magic Leap in Another Run at AR Glasses

Meta Platforms has rebranded its Quest VR operating system Horizon OS and is opening the platform to third parties. While licensing terms have not been publicly disclosed, Asus and Lenovo have said they’re going to be designing hardware using the system. Microsoft and Qualcomm are also in round one of the companies on the inside track as Meta positions Horizon OS along the lines of a universal VR standard, not unlike Microsoft’s Windows OS for computers. All four companies have already been working with Meta on VR for Quest or its predecessor, Oculus. Continue reading Meta Opens Mixed Reality OS to Third-Party Hardware Makers