DPVR, a leading provider of virtual reality (VR) devices, has today announced the launch of its newest PC VR gaming headset with the introduction of the 'DPVR E4,' which is aimed at dominating the consumer market for tethered PC VR headsets. In a different category altogether from standalone VR headsets such as the Meta Quest 2 and Pico 4 devices, the DPVR E4 provides PC VR gamers with a tethered alternative that offers a wider field of view (FoV), in a more compact and lighter form factor, as well as offering a more affordable solution compared to high-price tag devices such as the VIVE Pro 2.

DPVR has been making VR headsets for seven years. Prior to E4's launch, the company's efforts were primarily directed towards the B2B market, with a specialized focus on the education and medical industries. Over the last decade, DPVR has completed three successful funding rounds, which the company has used for its research and development efforts into furthering its VR hardware and software offerings. This latest announcement from DPVR marks the company's first step into the consumer VR headset market.

Based on the latest data and research, TrendForce has further corrected down the projected YoY growth rate of whole server shipments for 2023 to 2.8%. Three factors are behind this revision. First, lead time has started to return to its usual length for most orders related to server components from 3Q23 onward. Seeing this, server OEMs and cloud service providers (CSPs) have also begun to correct the component mismatch issue by lowering demand for items that are in excess while maintaining a constant inventory level for items that are still in tight supply. This development, in turn, has reduced the flow of server orders going to ODMs. Second, the wave of demand that was generated earlier from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is dissipating. Hence, expansion activities have cooled off noticeably for services such as video streaming, e-commerce, etc. Among CSPs, Meta, Google, and ByteDance (TikTok) have lowered their server procurement quantities for next year. Lastly, the global economic outlook has remained fairly negative, so companies across most industry sectors have formulated a more conservative expenditure plan and scaled back IT-related spending for next year.

Leading gaming headset and accessories maker Turtle Beach Corporation today unveiled a new charging system that delivers reliable power and provides convenient storage for Meta Quest virtual reality (VR) fans. The Turtle Beach Fuel Compact VR Charging Station for Meta Quest 2 ensures that gamers' devices are fully charged and ready for hours of use. The Fuel Compact VR Charging Station provides power and storage for both the Meta Quest 2 headset and its controllers. Two 20-hour battery packs for the controllers ensure VR gamers never miss a beat, while the magnetic charging system keeps the headset and controllers in-place, charged up, and ready for deep and immersive VR gaming. The Fuel Compact VR Charging Station for Meta Quest 2 is available for pre-order from participating retailers for $79.99 (£69.99/€79.99) MSRP and launches November 21, 2022.

"We continue to grow our best-selling Turtle Beach brand beyond gaming headsets. This year, we've expanded our top-rated game controllers and simulation product families with groundbreaking and innovative new products, and now we're entering the VR category with our Fuel VR charging station," said Juergen Stark, Chairman and CEO, Turtle Beach Corporation. "Not only does the Fuel VR keep gamers' Meta Quest 2 gear powered-up and ready to use, but it also looks modern and sleek and provides an organized, space-saving solution perfect for storing everything when you're back in the real world."

ASUS today announced its first move into Web 3.0 with the launch of Art Black hole, a new NFT platform created by its wholly-owned subsidiary, ASUS Metaverse Inc. ASUS Metaverse seeks to empower content creators, and create a trustworthy and deeper experience for all NFT users. Powered by the technological expertise of ASUS, especially in cloud computing, AI, and the blockchain, ASUS Metaverse aims to create an all-encompassing metaverse experience.

Joe Hsieh, ASUS Chief Operating Officer, explained why the company has chosen to enter the metaverse: "ASUS is particularly attentive to the development of new technologies and industries, especially the potential of Web 3.0. So, we have established a new company to declare our determination to operate in the metaverse for the long term. The first step is to build out an NFT platform and invite content creators from various fields to become our new partners."

Meta today announced its next-generation AI platform, Grand Teton, including NVIDIA's collaboration on design. Compared to the company's previous generation Zion EX platform, the Grand Teton system packs in more memory, network bandwidth and compute capacity, said Alexis Bjorlin, vice president of Meta Infrastructure Hardware, at the 2022 OCP Global Summit, an Open Compute Project conference.

AI models are used extensively across Facebook for services such as news feed, content recommendations and hate-speech identification, among many other applications. "We're excited to showcase this newest family member here at the summit," Bjorlin said in prepared remarks for the conference, adding her thanks to NVIDIA for its deep collaboration on Grand Teton's design and continued support of OCP.

soundcore, Anker Innovations' premium audio brand, today announced the VR P10 Gaming Earbuds, the first audio product authorized for usage in Meta Quest 2. "We are excited that the VR P10 will be the first audio product to receive the 'Made For Meta' endorsement," said Steven Yang, founder and CEO of Anker Innovations. "Our new low-latency earbuds will be the perfect gaming accessory for Meta Quest 2 users."

The VR P10 were truly designed for video game fans. The VR P10 can pair to an included USB-C dongle that operates using a 2.4 GHz wireless connection with compatibility with the LC3 codec and when not in use, the wireless dongle can easily be stored inside the charging case. The USB-C dongle features soundcore's LightningSync wireless technology that provides a low-latency connection between the device and earbuds, reducing audio latency to 30 ms, perfect for avid gamers. Using the wireless dongle ensures that audio cues align with what's on a user's Meta Quest 2 VR headset. When playing first person shooter (FPS) games or reaction-type games, it is imperative that audio cues align with video as misaligned audio can be quite distracting to users.

Today at Meta Connect, Mark Zuckerberg joined leaders from Reality Labs at Meta and a few special guests to showcase our progress in making the metaverse a reality. We highlighted the incredible success of Meta Quest 2, discussed how virtual reality is becoming more social, and showcased innovations for fitness, gaming and work. We also revealed Meta Quest Pro, a breakthrough device that's bringing the physical and digital worlds one giant step closer together.

In recent years, we've shared a few details about our next VR device, which we called Project Cambria. Today, we're dropping the codename and introducing Meta Quest Pro. This high-end headset will begin shipping on October 25, priced at $1,499.99 USD. You can pre-order your Meta Quest Pro on meta.com. Meta Quest Pro is the first in a new line of advanced headsets built to expand the possibilities of virtual and mixed reality. Its pancake lenses fold light over several times, reducing the size of the headset while showing sharper visuals. A new, curved battery on the back helps make Meta Quest Pro a more balanced and ergonomic headset overall.

D-Link Corporation unveiled today its much-anticipated DWA-F18 VR Air Bridge, a wireless dongle designed specifically for Meta Quest 2 in an exclusive partnership with Meta. The DWA-F18 VR Air Bridge provides high-performance wireless links between Meta Quest 2 and PCs/laptops, eliminating cable clutter to provide enhanced and safer VR gaming experiences.

"While connecting Meta Quest 2 through a PC/laptop will significantly boost performance and graphic quality, most gamers are connected via the home Wi-Fi router or a dedicated gaming router. Many home Wi-Fi router connections can be unstable and are likely affected by other connected home Wi-Fi devices. Gaming routers can be significantly higher in cost, more time consuming to set up, and definitely not tuned for optimized Meta Quest 2 connectivity," explained CJ Chang, CEO of D-Link Corporation.

Fast Travel Games today announced a publishing deal with VirtualAge Games for Guardians Frontline, a strategic VR shooter set in a sci-fi setting. Featuring powerful weapons, structural crafting, and an in-game map editor, Guardians Frontline allows players to take on the role of both soldier and commander. Originally released as Guardians on Oculus App Lab, Guardians Frontline will launch for Meta Quest 2 and SteamVR in early 2023.

In Guardians Frontline, players must defend the federation from an enemy onslaught as they attempt to extract a mysterious energy source. Battlefields can be strategically secured with a blend of brain and brawn, including tactfully spawned buildings, mechs, spaceships, heavy weapons, and more. The game can be enjoyed solo in single-player mode, four-player co-op, or with up to eight friends in PvP.

Law enforcement is investigating an alleged mail-bomb attack towards the Northeastern University's VR department (Boston). A 45-year-old mailroom employee was caught in an explosion late Tuesday evening after opening a parcel containing a hard plastic case, leading the improvised explosive device to activate. Luckily, the employee survived the attack with only lacerations on his hands.

A low-tech way of delivering explosive payloads, mail bombing in the US rose to prominence through the actions of the Unabomber. Now, it seems that this delivery method is once again being weaponized for political purposes, as the package carried with a note (described as "rambling") that criticized Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the relationship between university VR research and private interests. Northeastern University hosts several VR-oriented facilities, including an Immersive Media Labs Suite that "includes technologies for design, development, and exploration of virtual worlds, AR/VR/XR, and 360 video." It remains to be seen if this is a lone event or if it's a part of a more elaborate strategy of preventing change through fear.

Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI), a global leader in enterprise computing, storage, networking solutions, and green computing technology, is announcing its most advanced GPU server, incorporating eight NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs. Due to its advanced airflow design, the new high-end GPU system will allow increased inlet temperatures, reducing a data center's overall Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) while maintaining the absolute highest performance profile. In addition, Supermicro is expanding its GPU server lineup with this new Universal GPU server, which is already the largest in the industry. Supermicro now offers three distinct Universal GPU systems: the 4U,5U, and new 8U 8GPU server. The Universal GPU platforms support both current and future Intel and AMD CPUs -- up to 400 W, 350 W, and higher.

"Supermicro is leading the industry with an extremely flexible and high-performance GPU server, which features the powerful NVIDIA A100 and H100 GPU," said Charles Liang, president, and CEO, of Supermicro. "This new server will support the next generation of CPUs and GPUs and is designed with maximum cooling capacity using the same chassis. We constantly look for innovative ways to deliver total IT Solutions to our growing customer base."

Meta (Oculus) is readying its next-gen high-end VR HMD, the Meta Quest Pro. Someone left a retail-looking box behind in a hotel room, with an engineering sample. At this point we don't know if it's a Meta employee who got very sloppy with their ES, or an ISV eligible to receive an ES. It was found by a hotel employee, who also claims to be a game streamer. He claimed to have found several such boxes full of Meta samples. The Quest Pro VR appears lightweight, with no unnecessary bulk anywhere, Meta seems to have redesigned the head-straps and light-blockers of the HMD. The controllers feature a more compact appearance, as if to better with with smaller hands. Meta is expected to formally launch its "next-gen" headset at the Connect Conference on October 11, but we can't tell if this is what the company is planning to unveil.

Meta has recently announced that it will be increasing the cost of the Quest 2 VR headsets by 100 USD with the 128 GB model set to retail for 399 USD effective August 1st. The 256 GB Quest 2 will now sell for 499 USD while the various accessories and refurbished headsets will also see price increases at the same time. Meta has stated that the price increases are a result of increasing component prices and will allow the company to further invest in VR technology. This announcement comes after the Facebook account requirement were dropped and Meta will also be including a free copy of Beat Saber for all Quest 2 headset purchases until 2023.

Hopefully you were able to tune into our second annual Meta Quest Gaming Showcase today. But if not? Don't worry, we've got you covered. Below you'll find a recap of every announcement from today's show (and all of the trailers too). NFL PRO ERA, Among Us VR, Red Matter 2, Bonelab—the list goes on. Best of all: Every game we showed off today is slated to release within the next year.

We're also celebrating today's show with a sale in the Meta Quest Store. Grab games like Moss and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners so you can get caught up before the sequels drop later this year. And we gave away the world the showcase took place in as a new Home environment—look for Crystal Atrium under the Personalization tab of your settings menu.

Qualcomm today announced the launch of the Snapdragon Metaverse Fund, established to invest up to $100 million in developers and companies building unique, immersive XR experiences, as well as associated core augmented reality (AR) and related artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The fund plans to deploy capital through a combination of venture investments in leading XR companies by Qualcomm Ventures and a grant program by Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. for developer ecosystem funding in XR experiences such as gaming, health and wellness, media, entertainment, education, and enterprise.

"We deliver the groundbreaking platform technology and experiences that will enable both the consumer and the enterprise to build and engage in the metaverse and allow the physical and digital worlds to be connected. Qualcomm is the ticket to the metaverse," said Cristiano Amon, president and CEO of Qualcomm Incorporated. "Through the Snapdragon Metaverse Fund, we look forward to empowering developers and companies of all sizes as they push boundaries of what's possible as we enter into this new generation of spatial computing."

Basemark launched today GPUScore, an all-new GPU (graphics processing unit) performance benchmarking suite for a wide device range from smartphones to high-end gaming PCs. GPUScore supports all modern graphics APIs, such as Vulkan, Metal and DirectX, and operating systems such as Windows, Linux, macOS, Android and iOS.

GPUScore will consist of three different testing suites. Today, the first one of these was launched, named Relic of Life. It is available immediately. Basemark will introduce the two other GPUScore testing suites during the following months. Relic of Life is ideal for benchmarking high-end gaming PCs' discrete graphics cards' GPUs. It requires hardware accelerated ray tracing, supports Vulkan and DirectX, and is available for both Windows and Linux. GPUScore: Relic of Life is an ideal benchmark for comparing Vulkan and DirectX accelerated ray tracing performance.

AR/VR device shipments revised up to 14.19 million units in 2022, with an annual growth rate of 43.9%, according to TrendForce research. Growth momentum will come from increased demand for remote interactivity stemming from the pandemic, as well as Oculus Quest 2's price reduction strategy. Microsoft HoloLens 2 and Oculus Quest 2 are first in market share for AR and VR, respectively.

According to TrendForce, the topic of the Metaverse has driven brands to actively plan for and stimulate product shipment performance. However, the AR/VR device market has yet to experienced explosive growth due to two factors: component shortages and the difficulty of developing new technologies. In addition, cosmetic and size considerations have made the more optically and technically difficult Pancake design the first choice for new high-end products. Furthermore, various embedded tracking feedback technologies key to enhancing the user's immersive experience such as eye tracking and 6DoF further affect the development progress of a new product as a whole. Since there are no new foreboding products on the horizon, TrendForce believes, no other branded products have a chance at supplanting the current mainstream status of Oculus or Microsoft until at least 2023.

Arm announced today that its board of directors has appointed 35-year semiconductor industry leader Rene Haas as chief executive officer and member of the board of directors, effective immediately. Mr. Haas succeeds Simon Segars, who has stepped down as chief executive officer and member of the board of directors after 30 years with the company. In the near-term, Mr. Segars will support the leadership transition in an advisory role for Arm.

"Rene is the right leader to accelerate Arm's growth as the company starts making preparations to re-enter the public markets," said Masayoshi Son, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. "I would like to thank Simon for his leadership, contributions and dedication to Arm over the past 30 years."

The latest Steam Hardware survey from January 2022 shows significant growth for VR headsets with the number of connected units reaching 3.4 million or 2.14% of Steam users. This is up from 2.95 million in December 2021 with the Meta Quest 2 responsible for the majority of this growth now accounting for 46.02% of the VR headsets used on Steam despite being able to operate without a connected computer. Meta now controls 67.3% of the PC VR market with Valve coming in second at 14.4%, HTC third at 11.2%, and Microsoft fourth with just 5% market share. The total number of monthly-connected VR headsets has risen 29.5% since this time last year but it remains to be seen if this growth will continue past the holiday season.

Meta has recently confirmed during their latest earnings call that Quest store content sales had surpassed $1 billion in sales since its launch in 2019. This represents tremendous growth for the platform with average monthly revenue quadrupling from $12.4 million in mid-2020 to $51.3 million currently. The total number of Quest 2 headsets sold is likely near 10 million units as estimated by Qualcomm but never officially confirmed. Meta is likely selling the Quest 2 headset at a loss to gain market share and at least according to these figures they appear to be succeeding.

Exponential demand growth for remote and unmanned terminals in smart home, logistics, manufacturing and other end-user applications has driven iterative updates in Wi-Fi technology. Among the current generations of technologies, Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) is mainstream while Wi-Fi 6 and 6E (802.11ax) are at promotional stages, according to TrendForce's investigations. In order to meet the connection requirements of industry concepts such as the Metaverse, many major manufacturers have trained their focus on the faster and more stable next generation 802.11be Wi-Fi standard amendment, commonly known as Wi-Fi 7. Considering technical characteristics, maturity, and product certification status, Wi-Fi 6 and 6E are expected to surpass Wi-Fi 5 to become mainstream technology in 2022, with global market share expected to reach 58%.

The leading global motherboard, graphics card, and mini PC manufacturer, ASRock, today announces to join the era of metaverse and support the designer and creator community. ASRock issues the first non-fungible token (NFT), Phantom Gaming EVO on OpenSea, the world's first and largest NFT marketplace. ASRock Phantom Gaming EVO is a crypto art, a short footage of the evolution Phantom Gaming logo. ASRock plans to release 100 pieces of Phantom Gaming EVO. The first 30 pieces are sold on January 28th and priced at 0.1 ETH each.

As digital experiences continue to evolve and attract increasing amounts of people's attention, the launch of the Phantom Gaming EVO leads ASRock to embrace the era of the metaverse. By leveraging the new technology and design, the NFT delivers the next generation collectibles for preservation. This helps ASRock to serve and connect the community closely and extend the digital footprint to the new stage.

Factors such as the rising popularity of topics related to the metaverse and UGC (user-generated content), as well as the rapid increase in AR/VR device shipment, will likely result in the creation of a growing body of virtual reality content in the market, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. TrendForce expects annual global virtual reality content revenue to grow at a 40% CAGR from US$2.16 billion in 2021 to US$8.31 billion in 2025.

TrendForce further indicates that gaming/entertainment, videos, and social interactions comprise the primary categories of virtual reality content. Incidentally, as the construction of the virtual world and the development of virtual reality content are unlikely to be accomplished by only a handful of companies alone, companies in this space will therefore place an increasing emphasis on UGC instead. Leading companies will likely leverage the build-out of virtual reality platforms/environments and the provisioning of developmental tools/interfaces in order to not only lower the barrier to entry for content creation, but also raise user participation, thereby driving up the content market for virtual reality applications.

AMD on Monday made several major announcements covering different parts of its enterprise product roadmap. These included the 3rd Gen EPYC "Milan-X" processors with 3D Vertical Cache memory; Instinct MI200 CDNA2 compute accelerators, and announcements related to next-generation "Zen 4" based EPYC "Genoa" and "Bergamo" processors that come with core counts as high as 128. The company's stock rallied up to 12%, closing up 10%, which left many in the tech community scratching their heads. It turns out that the AMD-Meta deal has a profound impact on investors.

Meta, the holding company of Facebook covering all its businesses, aspires to be a major cloud solutions provider on par with Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. The deal could see Meta buying large stocks of AMD processors and compute accelerators to drive its next-gen server infrastructure. Sales of enterprise processors doubled year-over-year for AMD, and EPYC processors now account for 20% of the company's revenues.

Mark Zuckerberg has recently announced a rebrand of Facebook to Meta during the companies Connect 2021 AR/VR event. This change will involve the dissolution of the Oculus brand for hardware naming and will also introduce an arguably more significant change in that Oculus/Meta accounts will be disassociated with Facebook accounts removing the need for a Facebook account to use the headsets. This change has allegedly come about due to the negative connotations regarding the Facebook brand and to encourage new users who aren't interesting in creating a Facebook account. While these changes won't be fully implemented until 2022 some users have reported that Oculus support is able to unlink Facebook accounts immediately while retaining purchases and most non-social features on the headset.

Andrew BosworthAs we've focused more on work, and as we've heard feedback from the VR community more broadly, we're working on new ways to log into Quest that won't require a Facebook account, landing sometime next year. This is one of our highest priority areas of work internally.