After having debuted the HTC Cosmos late last year with an innovative flip-up display to switch between the virtual and real worlds, HTC is expanding its Vive Cosmos series in a surprising new way. Faceplates with different features that can be upgraded to or purchased with the Cosmos.
The star of the show remains the different experiences you gain when adding HTC’s unique and modular faceplates. This allows users to grow with their Vive Cosmos investment by being able swap faceplates to gain new functionality in the future.
There are three new faceplates for the Cosmos: The entry-level Cosmos Play, the Cosmos Elite, and the Cosmos XR. These are in addition to the standard Vive Cosmos, which still sells for $699. The neat feature of these faceplates is that they can be swapped out for one another in mere seconds. That means if you want to upgrade to the Cosmos Elite, you don’t necessarily need to buy an entire new headset.
HTC is billing the Cosmos Elite as its most advanced VR headset, and rightfully so. It supports a number of add-on peripherals and accessories depending on how invested you are in the VR space. The headset, which retails for $899, comes as a bundle that includes HTC’s External Tracking faceplate. Although the Vive Pro is still being, the Cosmos Elite really feels like its spiritual successor.
While the original Cosmos shipped with a faceplate that relies on camera sensors for positioning, the External Tracking Faceplate delivers more precise tracking when used with the lighthouse base station. The precision will be welcomed by VR gamers who need more precise tracking of their movements for an even more immersive experience. In addition to the External Tracking faceplate, the Cosmos Elite will also work with the Vive and Vive Pro controllers, as well as HTC’s Wireless Adapter for untethered VR experiences.
And if you just want to update your Vive Cosmos to gain external tracking compatibility, HTC stated that the External Tracking Faceplate will be available as a stand-alone accessory apart from the Cosmos Elite bundle for $199 when it launches in the second quarter of this year.
HTC Vive Cosmos Play VR headsetThen there’s the Cosmos Play. It uses the original Cosmos’ inside-out tracking, but has just four cameras instead of six. It also has a more limited field of view, down from 210 degrees to 110.
The Play is described to be suited for VR titles like Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs, The Curious Tale of Stolen Pets, and A Fisherman’s Tale, and HTC envisions the affordable device to be an ideal fit for public VR experiences, like museum spaces.
The device is slated for a release in the coming months, though HTC did not release pricing information for its entry-level Cosmos Play at this time.
Lastly is the Cosmos XR for developers. The XR is available as both a stand-alone edition and faceplate upgrade. Interestingly, it brings passthrough cameras to the Vive Cosmos for the first time so that developers can work in a mix of VR and AR while creating.
The Vive Cosmos XR will be available as a developer kit in the second quarter at an undisclosed price.
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.