The Vive Cosmos was not the only major announcement coming out of HTC's Vive business unit at CES this year. While that has massive mainstream appeal, the company was quick to let us know that it was still to early to comment further than what has already been covered in the aforelinked news post. Instead, they invited us to their suite to take a closer look at the Vive Pro Eye- one of the few things that really stood out for us at the trade show.

The Vive Pro Eye is, as the name would suggest, a new SKU with integrated eye tracking in the Vive Pro HMD. Working together with Tobii, the Vive Pro Eye allows for a more natural control mechanism within VR via eye controls, which in turn means a revamped menu navigation system is possible. This allows for increased accessibility to end users with disability, more optimization on VR performance, and detailed analysis of VR experiences for both the client and the businesses alike. Read past the break for a breakdown of our experience with the Vive Pro Eye, and the various demos on hand to showcase the feature.

A few weeks ago Valve developers announced a new technology called Motion Smoothing that would enable low-end GPUs to support VR games without problems. The system "looks at the last two delivered frames, estimates motion and animation, and extrapolates a new frame. Synthesizing new frames keeps the current application at full framerate, advances motion forward, and avoids judder".

Motion Smoothing has been available in Beta for some time, but the test phase has come to an end and it seems the technology is ready to enter the final, stable stage. You'll still need an HTC VIVE or HTC VIVE Pro headset -Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality headset have their own display drivers with other tricks to sustain frame rates-, and the lack of AMD GPU support is somewhat disappointing, but hopefully Valve will fix this in future iterations of this technology.

After forming a partnership back in May of this year, HTC and McLaren are now seeing their cooperation pay off with the launch of a Limited-Edition HTC VIVE Pro headset ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that takes place this weekend. The overall goal for this launch is to give fans a "unique experience that can't be had watching on television" according to Alvin Wang Graylin, HTC's China president. The racing simulation released with the headset is rFactor 2 Mclaren Edition, which is based on rFactor 2 and was produced by Studio 397. This particular version allows users to race classic cars from the British team's history. As expected it sports a full day-night cycle along with dynamically varying weather, which pairs well with the "real-road" technology that changes grip characteristics as more cars drive on the track. The most prominent new feature to be added with this release is the inclusion of mixed class road racing. The game is available now but requires a Viveport subscription.

Have you heard the news? Analyst reports are in and apparently, it's curtains for Virtual Reality (VR). Pardon us if we're not heeding the alarms. News of the so-called death of VR comes once a year and is greatly exaggerated.

That's not to say analyst VR forecasts don't have valuable information-they most certainly do. But we thought it would be helpful to look more closely and critically about how they came to their conclusions.

The HTC VIVE Pro Full Kit is one for the enthusiast, with the full bundle launching with the updated Steam VR 2.0 compatible base stations for a total play area of an incredible 10m x 10m, over three times that of the original. Also included in the Full Kit is a new set of pro controllers in the iconic blue colour. The VIVE Pro headset itself features a resolution of 2880 x 1600 (an increase of 78% over the original), with a built-in deluxe audio strap and slimlined cable management.

HTC Vive today announced that the HTC Vive Pro Head Mounted Display (HMD) will be available for $799 with global pre-orders starting now. The company also announced a $100 price reduction for the current Vive full kit, bringing it down to $499 across the globe. All Vive Pro HMDs purchased by June 3rd, which will begin shipping on April 5th, will come with a free six-month trial to Viveport Subscription, where consumers can choose up to 5 titles per month from the more than 400 titles available.

"With the Vive Pro we are delivering the best quality display and visual experience to the most discerning VR enthusiasts. Our goal has always been to offer the most premium VR platform available and to drive adoption for VR," said Daniel O'Brien, HTC Vive General Manager, US. "By lowering the price of the current Vive, we are making VR more accessible while expanding the potential market for developers. Whether you're a VR enthusiast or new to the platform, there's never been a better time to join the most complete VR platform available."

HTC took to CES 2018 to announce the next iteration in immersive VR with the VIVE Pro VR headset. The new Vive Pro boasts of much increased per-eye resolution (1440 x 1600 per eye compared to the original VIVE's 1080 x 1200 pixels). Furthermore, the new Vive Pro abandons the 90 Hz LCD technology and makes the move to AMOLED technology for its panels, which keep the 90 Hz refresh rate of the LCD screens with much higher pixel density and image fidelity.