It isn’t CES without virtual reality, and this year we saw the first steps toward making wireless VR a reality. At its CES booth, VR company Displaylink explained to us how it aims to bring a fully wireless VR experience to both single and multiplayer VR gaming setups in the near future.
The Displaylink XR setup is designed from the ground up to offer total freedom of movement — no cables, no toppling over furniture, or accidentally yanking over your PC. It’s also the technology powering HTC’s official Vive Wireless Adapter, which works with both the upcoming Vive Pro and legacy Vive headsets.
So, how does Displaylink make this possible? After all, most high-end VR headsets have been notorious for being a tangle of cords, tethering you down to small play areas near your PC, and presenting potential hazards and obstacles to playing. Including a wireless option would require a very quick wireless connection, because of the massive amount of data streaming from the PC to the headset and back again.
“Enabling the very best wireless VR user experience requires a combination of the best technology and partnerships,” said Frank Soqui, general manager of VR and gaming at Intel. “Intel 802.11ad WiGig radios working in conjunction with DisplayLink’s XR codec take HTC’s Vive to a whole new level.”
To do that, the Displaylink technology uses Intel’s WiGig technology — think of a typical WiFi connection on steroids. Connectivity runs over the 60GHz frequency band, which is great for preventing interference with existing Wi-Fi networks. Bandwidth fluctuations are bad for graphics, but Display link’s codec dynamically adjusts the bandwidth in real time, to deliver 90 frames per second with its current build, and up to 120 fps in the future.
You’ll have to wait a little while before you get your hands on one of these wireless adapters — they won’t hit store shelves until the third quarter of 2018. Still, keep an eye out — pre-orders will likely open in advance of the official launch date.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Google DeepMind's AI world model Genie 4 can now build interactive worlds that you can explore and reshape as they run. It also generates ambient sounds, music, and dialogue that respond to your actions.
The new world model builds on Genie 3 with improved realism, more natural human movement, and better simulations of real-world physics. It could eventually help with everything from game development to training robots.
Apple has an incredible talent for making me admire its products while simultaneously questioning what on earth it's thinking with the pricing. This isn't even something as bizarre as a monitor stand, but the audacity for starting a new laptop lineup from $2,000 doesn't surprise me.
The newly announced 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 is just the latest to showcase this. The funny thing is, I already know that it's going to be a reliable workstation. You get a powerful new 2nm M6 processor, a gorgeous Liquid Retina XDR display, and up to 24 hours of battery life. We were impressed by the M5 MacBook Air, so the high-end M6 powered MacBook Pro definitely won't let us down.