The EU has announced the three winners of the European Social Innovation Competition (EUSIC), which seeks to find pioneering solutions to societal challenges.
The 2022 challenge, named “the future of living,” was designed to attract participants who can advance the affordability, sustainability, and re-invention of European housing districts.
“Social innovation is crucial to increase resilience and support the transformation of our economies, while putting people first,” Hubert Gambs, the Commission’s Deputy Director General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship, and SMEs, said.
“With this competition, which celebrates its tenth edition this year, we support social innovations that will bring social, environmental, and economic value at once. The three winners of the 2022 edition are social innovators greatly contributing through their innovative projects to the future of our living,” Gambs added.
The three winners, who will receive a prize of €50,000, are the following:
ReLearn (Italy)
The Torino-based startup has developed smart sensors that can be installed on existing bins. The sensors monitor daily waste production and sorting in designated bins using AI. They then provide reports and suggest the best waste management practices through a gamification approach that facilitates community engagement.
That way, ReLearn can help companies and municipalities reduce their environmental impact. The company says that its product can achieve a 60% increase in recycling rates. So far, it’s active in three countries and eight different cities.
Sostre Cívic (Spain)
Sostre Cívic is implementing an alternative housing model to address the accessibility and affordability issues of private ownership. It promotes cooperative housing, where collective ownership prevents speculation, as it renders individual profit-making from selling or renting a property impossible.
Members of the collective, who are also the property owners, can reside in the houses either for a very long time, or indefinitely. They are required to make an initial contribution and pay monthly installments that derive from the costs of acquisition, maintenance, and operation of the housing project — but not from the trends of the real estate market.
Sostre Cívic, which originally started as an association, is the first housing cooperative in Catalonia, and so far counts 17 projects and 86 homes in use.
Efficient Energy Technology (Austria)
To help residents use solar energy without the need to install solar panels, Efficient Energy Technology has developed a small solar power plant, designed for installation on balconies.
The so-called SolMate can be plugged into a socket and supply the apartment with renewable energy. Thanks to its proprietary measuring technology, SolMate supplies electricity when needed and stores the rest. This way it can also work as a back-up electricity generator in the event of power failures. The product comes together with an app, and, according to the startup, can cover about 60% of a home’s electricity needs, while saving around 16,000kg of CO2.
It’s no secret that the Netherlands is a European leader when it comes to the tech and startup sectors. The country attracted €1.8bn in investment in 2021 alone, more than double the €790m raised in 2020.
While many people think of Amsterdam as the country’s startup capital and a global tech powerhouse — and with success stories like Adyen, MessageBird and Mollie, they’re not wrong — the Netherlands’ lesser-known cities are becoming favorites amongst expats who want to be part of the country’s dynamic tech scene, without the hustle of big city life.
Take Groningen. Known as the country’s “capital of the north,” Groningen is a thousand-year-old city with a thriving student population thanks to its universities. This plethora of young, international talent, ground breaking research, and the presence of corporate powerhouses like IBM and Google, make Groningen’s tech scene one to watch.
For international talent looking to launch their tech career abroad, Groningen may be the answer.
Small in size but big in opportunities
Groningen may not be big, but it’s quickly becoming recognized for its startup scene.
The province of Groningen has just had its second consecutive year as the fastest-growing region in the Netherlands in terms of job growth, with around 1.2k local jobs being created by local startups.
Margarita Bernal-Cabas, Operations Resource Manager at EV Biotech, a company that develops microbial cell factories for industrial production, tells TNW that Groningen is an exciting place to be for its emerging biotech sector, which is churning out innovative companies thanks to its proximity to universities and wealth of local professors, research, and sector meetups.
Margarita Bernal-Cabas, Operations Resource Manager at EV Biotech
“There’s been a load of new startup companies… there’s a vibrant and growing biotech community with an exciting future and limitless possibilities,” she says.
And while it may seem like a drawback, one benefit that sets a startup ecosystem like Groningen apart from larger cities like Amsterdam is its small size.
Stella Tsoutsouri, a mobile developer at telecommunications startup Voys, says because the city’s ecosystem is small, it allows easier access for people to network and make meaningful professional connections: “There are plenty of meetups, conferences (one of the biggest Python conferences is in Groningen), there is a new library/cultural center that holds tech talks, the University has plenty of initiatives like venture lectures and conferences, so there’s a lot of great things happening.”
Tsoutsouri says that Groningen’s size makes it easier for new startups, initiatives, and groups to take off. For example, when she moved to Groningen from Greece, Tsoutsouri was surprised to find that the gender gap in IT students was worse in the Netherlands than in her home country. She went on to found the Women Devs group, a community dedicated to women developers working or studying in tech.
“Here, the people who are active in the tech scene are so visible, that makes it very easy to create a company or an initiative with those people because they’re very accessible… For example, last year my group Women Devs connected with another group in the city, Lean In Groningen, and together we organized a web conference on International Women’s Day to share more knowledge with the women of Groningen about tech and other topics.”
Arne Bos, Managing Director at Parkos, a booking platform for airport parking, added that many of his friends who have moved to Amsterdam and the Randstad area face the challenge of finding affordable housing. But, for the same price as a tiny apartment in the outskirts of Amsterdam, you could easily find a nice accommodation in the heart of Groningen.
Arne Bos, Managing Director at Parkos
“There are a lot of new young ambitious companies, which makes it a great place to find a job. Combine this with affordable housing and life in a relaxed, calm but vibrant city.”
Top universities fuel innovation and student life
Groningen is home to top universities such as the University of Groningen, which is ranked in the top 100 universities in the world and has several Nobel Prize winners amongst its alumnae.
This means several things for the city’s tech ecosystem: a wealth of young international talent, spin-off funding opportunities, easy access to research institutions and professors leading in their field, and opportunities to network with a tight-knit community.
Groningen is home to two leading universities, the University of Groningen and the Hanze [University of Applied Sciences], bringing with it a great academic energy and student life.
“There’s quite a lot of study programs… we have a really big microbiology department and molecular genetics,” says Bernal-Cabas. “So there’s a really long history of the University. Very skilled professors, masters and PhD students. That creates a lot of opportunities and a lot of ideas.”
Proximity to universities means fresh opportunities for university spinoffs. The University of Groningen has seen several success stories including BioBTX, The Ocean Grazer Project, and the Sustainable Buildings initiative, which helps make buildings more energy efficient. There have also been a number of healthtech spinoffs from the University’s medical center including Ancora Health and VRelax.
For Tsoutsouri, this proximity made it possible to achieve a long-term goal:
“There is something that Groningen gave me that I wasn’t sure would be possible in any other city in the Netherlands: combining work with studies so I could support myself financially. I am working four days and doing a Masters in Artificial Intelligence at the same time. The way Groningen is structured gives you the opportunity to leave the office, go to class, and even go back if needed so it kept me present and energized both in the classroom and at the office. I think in a city like Amsterdam it would be impossible because of the distances. I’m very happy I could accomplish my dream: to get a great education, while still working in the industry.”
As she explained, for young and less experienced talent this can also make it easier to break into the professional world:
“Local companies want to absorb students as much as possible to keep that knowledge in the city. Companies do a lot of projects with the University and take on interns. They’re also more open to taking on junior professionals.”
A bite-sized cosmopolitan culture
“For me, the choice to move to Groningen was very easy,” says Victor Flick, Customer Success Manager at Klippa, a scaleup providing smart document processing powered by machine learning tech.
Victor Flick, Customer Success Manager at Klippa
“I visited the city once before and had a great feeling about it: not too big, not too small, clean, nice architecture, lots of young people and it felt dynamic! Plus, the Netherlands is a really good country to live in, so I didn’t think too long about taking the opportunity.”
“I think we’re close to over 200,000 inhabitants, so it’s like 1/5 of Amsterdam,” says Bos. “But having a really young population means there’s also a really vibrant nightlife. I think Groningen is the only city in the Netherlands where bars don’t have a closing time. But also culture-wise, there are a lot of cool things going on with Eurosonic, which is a really nice music festival. It has all the facilities you need from the city such as cinemas, shops, etc. It combines the coziness of a smaller city with the facilities of a bigger city.”
This coziness, as Bos points out, makes Groningen highly accessible — everything from nature to museums and nightclubs is all within reach.
“On a bike, you can go within 10 minutes from one side of the city to the other which people really appreciate,” says Bos. “Also access to nature. I heard a colleague say he can just cycle in a few minutes to a lot of different parks, which is really nice.”
But a small population doesn’t mean a small-town mindset. Groningen is also praised for its international appeal, thanks to its universities and emerging tech sectors. “You hear a lot of English and German on the streets and occasionally also other languages, like Spanish, French, Chinese…” says Flick. “It gives expats a sense of belonging, and a sense that there are other people in this city living a similar life to mine: being in another country, and building a life here.”
So for international people looking to relocate and make Groningen their home, what should they keep in mind?
“Moving here, I would say the most important things to consider are the ‘legal’ things: registering in the city, getting health insurance, registering at a dentist/doctor. Also getting a bike, and lights for the bike,” says Flick. “On the other hand, as a non-Dutch person, you need to be aware of the straightforwardness of Dutch people… As a foreigner, it can sometimes be uncomfortable at first. So that’s a process you need to go through once you arrive here. Adapt to that directness and blend in. I would also say that Dutch people will really respect you if you are actually down-to-earth and direct like them, they see you more as one of their own.
But once you adjust, says Flick, “it’s such a great city to live in. You’re never bored.”
If you’re thinking of making a move to Groningen, here are some great resources to check out:
The new Netflix murder mystery film Glass Onion is a cautionary tale – but not about influencers, tech bros, or ironic architecture, as some have suggested. Glass Onion (along with HBO’s Succession) is actually a warning about the potential perils of going into business with your friends or family.
Such businesses are a huge contributor to any economy. Globally, between 70 and 80% of firms are co-owned or co-managed by family or friends. Close relations can be a great source of support and positive influence on a new idea or business.
My research, focusing on new business development within universities, shows that friends can be successful business partners. For students especially, entrepreneurial colleges and universities offer a range of support for friends to realize business dreams.
There are a few challenges when you start a business with someone that can be made easier when working with people you’re close to. Founders should trust one another, and understand each other’s likes, dislikes, and ambitions. If you and your partner have similar values and approaches to life, you’ll likely be able to predict how they’ll react in times of crisis or uncertainty. With this in mind, turning an existing relationship into a business relationship can be easily done.
The pitfalls
Of course, things don’t always work out. What can start as occasional bickering or disagreement about the direction of a new venture can lead to resentment, a decline in the business (and relationship) and even legal trouble.
A business involving family or friends can seriously disrupt work-life balance — which is critical to business success. Lack of boundaries and additional time spent discussing work can interfere with your personal relationship, leading to fatigue and resentment. It’s not realistic or healthy to talk about work all the time.
A family business spanning decades with the same people at the top may eventually stagnate, becoming overly reliant on what are now exhausted markets. This complacency, as with any type of business, can creep in and affect customer relationships, knowledge of competitors, and ability to innovate.
Without proper care, these issues can become commonplace. As happens in Succession, personality battles and power grabs can distract from productivity and threaten to derail the venture.
Protecting yourself and your business
Before getting started, it’s important to plan ahead. This should include creating a strategy for business partners to amicably exit the firm when necessary. It also must involve a consideration of the legal implications of a disagreement, and a plan to protect ideas, business contributions, and other intellectual property.
Research shows that in longstanding family businesses the existence of known successors can influence how seriously the founders take intellectual asset protection. Even with friends and loved ones, you should still document and register ideas, designs, prototypes, products, processes, and slogans.
Before you sign your ideas away (or write them on a napkin), here are five things to consider:
1. Transparency – what are everyone’s plans?
When embarking on a new business venture, it’s important to be upfront about intentions and goals – in the short and long term. What brought you all to this potential startup? What do you wish to achieve? These are questions you should ask.
2. Security – seek legal advice early
Along with officially registering the company, the owners should contact an intellectual property lawyer to receive expert guidance on fairly protecting initial and ongoing contributions with appropriate trademarks, patents, and copyrights where required.
3. Prioritise – stick to your strengths
This is what adds distinct value to businesses: remembering what skills you bring to the table. Even with friends, this isn’t an opportunity to simply hang out and have fun. Yes, you must enjoy your work, but time, money and livelihoods are at stake. A team comprised of many people with a variety of skills and experiences brings creativity, multiple perspectives, and resilience amid inevitable change.
4. Be kind – appreciate and consider life changes
Like the volatility of business, our lives can change instantly. Co-owners should be mindful of changes to working patterns, lifestyles, and important events to maintain health and happiness. This can be particularly relevant when friends co-owning a business are at similar life stages, such as starting a family or getting married. Showing compassion and preparing for these factors, when they arise, can reduce tension and conflict in the day-to-day running of a business.
Ahead of the launch of PSVR 2, we’ve got a close-up look at the finished version of the headset and what you can expect to find when you crack open the box.
It’s just two weeks until Sony’s newest VR headset hits the streets, and while we’re not yet allowed to go into detail, today we’ve got a close-up look at the production hardware and Sony’s official controller dock. Stay tuned for our full PSVR 2 review.
Photo by Road to VR
The very first thing to notice about PSVR 2 compared to the original is the simplicity of setup… this is everything you’ll see in the box.
PSVR 2 | Photo by Road to VR
Compare that to the original PSVR which had a breakout box requiring extra cables and its own power adapter—not to mention the PS Eye camera that was required for the headset (and the photo below doesn’t even include the Move controllers).
PSVR 1 | Photo by Road to VR
Compared to the original, PSVR 2’s single-cable operation and inside-out tracking makes it so much easier to use.
Getting closer to the headset itself, we get a good look at its range of adjustments. On the top there’s an IPD dial for dialing in the distance between the lenses. Also on top is a button to adjust eye-relief (the range of which is pretty impressive). And on the back is the crank to tighten the headstrap, with the center of the crank acting as a button which releases the springy tension.
As we learned in our early preview of PSVR 2, the headset has an assisted calibration step which helps the user hone in their individual headset orientation and IPD settings, thanks to the in-built eye-tracking.
On the bottom of the headset is the power button and a button to activate PSVR 2’s passthrough view. Alongside those is the built-in microphone.
Photo by Road to VR
While PSVR 2 doesn’t have directly integrated audio, it comes with a pair of custom earbuds which attached to the underside of the rear headstrap and stow in little holes at the sides of the headset. You can use your own 3.5mm headphones instead if you’d like to.
And then there’s the PSVR 2 ‘Sense’ controllers, which have a particularly interesting shape to them. Inside the circular strut is hidden infrared LEDs which can be seen by the headset to track the controllers.
Compared to something like Quest 2, the unique shape and placement of the ring does a good job of reducing the likelihood that you’ll bump the controllers into each other during hand-to-hand interactions. However, the design has a somewhat off-kilter balance to it.
The wrist-straps are mounted on the inside of the tracking ring and can be removed if desired.
The PSVR 2 controllers are rechargeable via USB-C, but Sony is also selling a purpose-built PSVR 2 controller charging dock to make it easy to charge your controllers without fiddling with cables. While its existence is appreciated, and it generally gets the job done, it’s a bit funky to sit the controllers in just the right spot to initiate the charge. Still, I’d rather this than plugging in two cables every time I’m done playing.
We’re looking forward to sharing our full PSVR 2 review in the near future—if you’ve got questions for us, drop them in the comments below!
In a coordinated action with US authorities, the UK has imposed sanctions on seven Russian cyber criminals associated with the deployment of the Conti and Ryuk ransomware as well as the Trickbot banking trojan. This follows a thorough investigation led by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and marks the UK’s first-ever joint cyber crime sanctions.
According to the British government, ransomware is a “tier one national security threat” that’s increasingly used to attack businesses and public sector organisations.
Ransomware groups known as Conti, Wizard Spider, UNC1878, Gold Blackburn, Trickman, and Trickbot have been responsible for the deployment of ransomware strains including Conti, Ryuk, and Trickbot.
The groups target organisations they expect would pay the most and time their attacks to cause the maximum damage. Conti and Ryuk alone have affected 149 UK individuals and businesses, extracting at least an estimated £27 million.
Conti’s recent victims in the UK include the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, food distribution firm Reed Boardall, Cleveland Council, and forensic laboratory Eurofins.
“These criminals and those that support them are not immune to UK action.
Conti was also one of the first cyber crime groups to declare support to Russia’s war in Ukraine, while the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has assessed that key members of the group are “highly likely” to “maintain links” with the Russian Intelligence services.
And although the group was disbanded in May 2022, government reporting suggests that members continue to be involved in threatening UK security with new ransomware strains.
“The sanctions are the first of their kind for the UK and signal the continuing campaign targeting those responsible for some of the most sophisticated and damaging ransomware that has impacted the UK and our allies,” Graeme Biggar, NCA’s General Director, said in a statement.
“The United States and the United Kingdom are taking coordinated action targeting cyber criminals who launched assaults against our critical infrastructure,” Antony J. Blinker, US Secretary of State, highlighted in an associated press release. “We will continue to work with the United Kingdom and with other international partners to expose and disrupt cyber crime emanating from Russia.”
The people sanctioned include the following individuals:
The seven individuals are now subject to travel bans and asset freezes. In addition, making funds available to them, such as paying ransomware — including crypto assets — has been strictly prohibited.
The US Treasury Department warned that “any foreign financial institution that knowingly facilitates a significant transaction, or provides significant financial services for any of the individuals or entities designated today could be subject to US correspondent or payable-through account sanctions.”
Through their collaboration, the UK and US authorities said they will continue to expose cyber criminals associated with the ransomware groups and crack down on their activities, aiming to reinforce their cyber security.
The vast potential of extended reality cannot be underestimated. Used as something of an umbrella term to encompass “all real-and-virtual combined environments and human-machine interactions,” XR has become a buzzword that’s closely associated with other popular terms like virtual reality, augmented reality, spatial computing, ubiquitous computing, and the metaverse – and deep into this litany of jargon lies the next frontier for digital learning.
Although the edtech sector has grown significantly in voracity since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s extended reality that holds the key to unprecedented levels of immersiveness.
Furthermore, Mordor Intelligence data suggests that the XR market is growing globally, and experiencing particularly high levels of growth in Asia and Oceania. With both Europe and North America also experiencing notable XR growth, it’s likely that XR learning platforms and initiatives will gather momentum at a significant rate over the coming years.
With this in mind, let’s take a deeper look at why extended reality holds such vast potential for the future of learning across the world of education and many other sectors.
Unprecedented Immersion
When it comes to education, the challenge of delivering an immersive learning experience to all students and pupils can be a profoundly difficult one.
According to a Udemy survey, 74% of Millennials and Gen-Z claimed that they would become easily distracted in the workplace. This means that educators must find new ways to keep modern students engaged for as long as possible.
Through embracing extended reality, we’re already seeing more immersive experiences delivered to students, and platforms like GigXR can help users to engage in real-time with digitally rendered content.
Such platforms are excellent for learning via accurately rendered 3D graphics for topics like human anatomy and medicine–carrying its functionality beyond classrooms and into medical training for industry professionals.
Although embracing XR can seem like a daunting prospect, its potential applications within the world of learning are vast, including:
Refreshing the range of learning techniques available to students in order to deliver foundational learning;
Delivering more customized and personalized learning experience for students exploring complex topics;
Better defining competencies and assessment criteria for student experiences;
Offering data that can be utilized to deliver more focused interactive lessons for students that can incorporate better collaboration as well as engagement.
While this can go some way in showing the potential possibilities of XR, these applications also have the power to fundamentally change education over the course of the decade. As a future within the age of Web3 and the metaverse continues to redefine how far reality technology can evolve, the prospective applications for the future of learning appear to be endless.
Inspiring Curiosity
Crucially, a recent survey conducted by the XR Association in collaboration with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) found that many current educators are optimistic about the prospect of a future built on extended reality learning experiences.
Of 1,400 high school teachers surveyed, some 82% of respondents stated that they believed the quality of AR/VR learning activities has improved in recent years–with 70% expressing their hope that XR tools can become more commonplace in schools moving forward. In total, 94% of respondents were happy to highlight the importance of aligning XR-driven curricula to academic standards.
The study also found that 77% of those surveyed believed that XR technology “inspires curiosity,” and that the tools can help to address issues in maintaining student motivation and well-being which have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“To get a good sense of XR’s potential in schools, you have to ask the teachers and staff who will be administering this technology. The survey’s results suggest that VR, AR and MR technology is well positioned to become an essential teaching tool in school classrooms across the country,”explained Stephanie Montgomery, VP of Research at the XR Association.
Extending XR Into the Workplace
Beyond the traditional education sector, XR-based learning can also pay dividends when it comes to workplace training and recruitment.
The potential of VR onboarding is vast across a number of industries, and it can be an essential tool when it comes to upskilling and combatting turnover challenges among existing workforces.
Through the potential of extended reality, trainees and candidates alike can collaborate with human resource departments to undertake virtual interviews–which can provide real-time metrics and behavioral analysis for more accurate and unbiased assessments of competencies.
By combining XR technology with artificial intelligence, companies can actively spot knowledge gaps among existing employees and automatically enroll them in new tailor-suited courses to enhance their skill sets.
Extended reality can also help in a number of practical training scenarios. In practice, this is best illustrated within the healthcare industry, where The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing has become one of many providers to implement comprehensive VR training programs ranging from doctoral to prelicensure nursing.
Delivering experiences via Meta Quest headsets and an Alienware computer, Johns Hopkins has managed to deliver multiplayer VR learning experiences that can render practice scenarios capable of accommodating up to 100 learners.
“We make decisions based on what’s going on — time-critical decisions,”said Kristen Brown, Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and the Simulation Strategic Projects Lead at the Johns Hopkins Medicine Simulation Center. “So one of the important components was that there was some sort of AI that’s really adapting to what we’re doing.”
The beauty of extended reality in terms of training, is that it can provide a platform for learners to build their competencies in high-risk or highly sensitive areas without having to worry about high margins for errors to take place.
In surgery scenarios, for instance, XR experiences can place students into a virtual operating theater with a 3D subject to deliver a true-to-life simulation of an operation. Similar experiences have been continually growing in quality within industries like aviation.
Achieving Immersive Learning Within the Decade
The rapid growth of the extended reality market means that we’re likely to see comprehensive learning technologies become commonplace sooner rather than later. This will undoubtedly delight the 70% of teachers surveyed in the aforementioned XR Association’s survey, but it has the potential to resonate across multiple sectors.
From providing more immersive and comprehensive learning to students, to helping employees to gain a better quality of work experience during their onboarding and training processes, the arrival of XR learning can bring profound improvements to countless lives.
Better onboarding programs can help to improve job satisfaction and to lower turnover rates, while competencies will improve immeasurably as more impactful learning experiences emerge. With this in mind, extended reality is well placed to improve the lives of learners of all ages, and across a number of industries.
Guest Post
About the Guest Author(s)
Dmytro Spilka
Dmytro is a tech and finance writer based in London. Founder of Solvid and Pridicto. His work has been published in Nasdaq, Kiplinger, VentureBeat, Financial Express, and The Diplomat.
Slated to arrive on all major VR headsets later this month, The Light Brigade is well positioned to make a name among the top VR roguelikes, as it follows most visibly in the footsteps of bowshooter In Death (2018) in all the right ways. In our hands-on, we got to see just how Light Brigade is setting itself apart though with a strong focus on an array of realistic WWII-era weapons and magical upgrades galore.
Coming February 22nd, The Light Brigade is the latest VR title from Funktronic Labs, the team behind Fujii (2019) and Cosmic Trip (2017). With a few hours of Quest 2 gameplay under my belt, I can say that The Light Brigade is certainly something to watch out for when it lands on PSVR 2, PSVR, Quest 2, and SteamVR headsets in the next two weeks.
Although The Light Brigade isn’t related to the award-winning roguelike bowshooter—In Death was developed by Sólfar Studios and Superbright—there are more than a few comparisons here to make. The Light Brigade similarly features a high degree of visual polish, well-realized enemy classes, and a fun array of weapons that make you really second guess stepping out from behind cover.
It’s also culty as all hell, as you battle it out as an acolyte warrior of light on a quest to pry the world from the grasps of the (totally not Nazi-inspired) Obsidian Forces.
What the hell does that all mean? I can’t say just yet, but it all ends up feeling like a cool mix of World War-inspired trench warfare mixed in with a heaping dose of medieval-style religious quackery and magic.
The Light Brigade tosses a smorgasbord of realistic weapons your way, all of which require a deft hand at manually reloading in the middle of a firefight. You’ll get your hands on rifles and pistols, all of which are upgradeable. Besides the Mauser C96 (aka ‘Broomhandle Mauser’), most everything is what you’d consider WWII standard stuff, including Gewehr 43, Sturmgewehr 44, Colt 1911, M3 submachine gun (aka ‘grease gun’), and Nambu Pistol Model 14. Guns have a virtual weight to them too, so you won’t be waggling around a 10-pound rifle or running too fast either when you’re supporting the gun with your non-dominant hand.
Each gun has three upgradeable power levels, which also let you tack on things like red dot scopes and powerful trinkets that allow you to charge and execute special shots. There are also so mini potato masher-style grenades, health kits, and interesting tools like deployable decoys which draw enemy fire away from you.
You’ll have to grind it out to level up each gun, which usually means sticking with the corresponding class long enough to generate points to sink into upgrades. The game’s actual difficulty seems to scale relative to your weapon’s current upgrade level, giving you more and different baddies to encounter as you head back in after your inevitable death—although that’s a bit of speculation on my side. There are two user-selectable difficulty levels though should things get too tough, ‘Arcade’ and ‘Realistic’.
Levels start out fairly small in size, although all of them encourage exploration thanks to the important items that can be found around every corner, such as the game’s tarot card upgrades that you’ll find in glittering chests. These buffs stay in effect for your entire run, and are automatically applied when you choose one of the three presented to you from each chest.
Image courtesy Funktronic Labs
My typical level run goes more or less like this: kill every enemy in the level, comb the entire level again for lootable chests and other goodies, and then summarily step into a trap, like the sort of couter-weighted log traps Arnold Schwarzenegger tangoed with in the original Predator (1987), or even a simple bear trap.
Once I’ve dusted off my stupidity, it’s time to head to the level gate, which requires you to bring your hands together in prayer to activate—a really cool and immersive touch. There are level bosses, although I only ever made it to the first, which I won’t spoil for your here.
Image courtesy Funktronic Labs
Meanwhile, I’ll be playing a lot more of The Light Brigade’s and reserving my thoughts on game mechanics and immersion for the full review later this month. Still, it’s safe to say I really enjoyed the entire vibe.
One thing to note is that Funktronic Labs included a good number of comfort modes, including smooth turn, variable snap-turn, smooth locomotion, and teleportation. Currently, the game’s inventory system includes a hip-mounted holster, which can be difficult to access whilst seated, making standing gameplay recommended at the time of this writing. We’ll have more info in our deep dive review when the game launches on February 22nd.
In the meantime, you can wishlist the game on Steam (PC VR), pre-order on PSVR 2 and PSVR, and pre-order on Quest 2—priced at $25. Also, in case you missed out on the announce trailer, take a gander below:
Ioanna is a writer at SHIFT. She likes the transition from old to modern, and she’s all about shifting perspectives. Ioanna is a writer at SHIFT. She likes the transition from old to modern, and she’s all about shifting perspectives.
Magnetic floating pods traveling through a series of tubes sounds like a scene from sci-fi movies, right? But what if they could become a new mode of mass transport? Yes, we’re talking about the hyperloop.
The company is developing hyperloop tech for passengers and cargo, enabling travel through a network of low-pressure tubes using magnetic levitation. The pods are expected to reach a 700km/h cruising speed and a 1,000km/h top speed, drastically reducing travel time. And sustainability-wise, the system doesn’t produce direct emissions and can be powered by green electricity.
We caught up with Mars Geuze — Hardt Hyperloops’ Chief Commercial Officer — at TNW 2022 and asked him what’s hyperloop’s advantage and which modes of transport are over- or underrated. The result was a fast-paced, fun video, which you can find embedded at the top of this article, or watch right here.
Geuze argues that hyperloop is still underrated, even though it can travel with 10 times less energy than aviation, or road transport. But optimistically, “in the latest survey, there was about 35% acceptance rating, scoring higher than autonomous cars,” he told us.
Trains and buses are underrated for Geuze as well. Trains, in particular, can aptly connect cities and provide high capacity with a lower carbon footprint compared to cars, he explained.
In contrast, Geuze finds passenger cars an overrated means of transport. “They’re the biggest contributor to your energy footprint and we need to shift away from them,” he noted.
Virtual store builder Emperia recently announced a new funding round, as well as hints at how that funding round will impact their roadmap going forward. In the meantime, PINKO is joining the list of retailers showing us what Emperia is already capable of.
PINKO’s Virtual Store From Emperia
Emperia isn’t a Harry Potter spell, it’s a tech company that “marries the reach and accessibility of e-commerce with the impact of physical customer service shopping experience.” ARPost first met Emperia about a year ago when the company launched “Artemis”, its software-as-a-service solution for virtual storefronts.
“With the realization that clients will be using these spaces in the long term, and the need to constantly change/update the virtual store the same way they would change their physical space, Emperia created a platform that enables full customization of product displays as well as decor, allowing brands full creative control,” Emperia co-founder and CEO Olga Dogadkina said last year.
PINKO, the other name in our story, might be less familiar to ARPost readers. The Italian womens fashion brand is using Emperia to open its first virtual storefront and explore virtual sale items. The opening of their first virtual store coincides with the opening of a new brick-and-mortar boutique location in Milan, according to a release shared with ARPost.
“Opening in such a prestigious and internationally established location, we decided as a mission statement to give global resonance to our new and unique store,” said PINKO CEO and founder Pietro Negra. “The virtual shop is the most innovative environment that can guarantee us the possibility of expanding our vision of engagement for our consumers everywhere.”
A Look at the Virtual Store
To be clear, PINKO isn’t a stranger to e-commerce generally. The company’s online purchasing infrastructure is already robust. However, there’s a big difference between experiencing the PINKO shopping experience online and the PINKO shopping experience in one of their stores. Their virtual store from Emperia is partially intended to help bridge that gap.
Further, PINKO’s one-room virtual storefront in the clouds isn’t only for physical goods. Interactive 3D models of PINKO’s recognizable handbags help users understand the physical bags that they can purchase through the experience. Some of the 3D models also represent “Meta Love Bags” – an exclusive line of NFTs.
“Our 3D technology ensures a high merchandise-viewing quality, which complements its real-life twin product, to the smallest detail, allowing PINKO to present and directly-sell its exclusive capsule collection in a way that simulates a realistic shopping experience,” Dogadkina said in the release.
$10M Can Do a Lot for a Good Roadmap
Of course, there’s also big news for Emperia. The company recently announced a $10M series A funding round led by Base10 but including a number of other funders including the Sony Innovation Fund.
“I’m confident that the pool of participating investors in this round, from both the U.S and Europe, will make for a great network of advisors as Emperia continues its global expansion, pioneering e-commerce’s next generation,” said Dogadkina “I’m looking forward to delivering an even more impactful experience for our brand partners.”
The release also included some insights into what the company plans to do with the funding round. Goals include growing the team, improving Artemis, developing its customer data suite, and increasing the platform’s market presence. The release also expresses the intent to work with more partners in the space, which is always exciting for the product and the general field.
Speaking of the general field, the comments provided by investors help to speak to Emperia’s exact position within the emerging technology ecosystem. Base10 partner Luci Fonseca described Emperia as a “Web 2.5” solution.
“It is a device-agnostic bridge for brands to engage with a new generation of consumers while driving real commerce,” Fonseca said in the release. “Emperia is pioneering the development of virtual store creation and maintenance, and we’re excited to be partnering with a team that is truly building for the future of e-commerce.”
InfiniteWorld CEO Brad Allen used “Web 2.5” to describe his company “building a bridge to Web3” in an October interview with ARPost. The term is gaining traction in the industry to describe experiences that utilize and explore emerging trends like immersive tech or blockchain without relying on them completely as a business model.
More Coming Soon
It’s naturally exciting to see a company in the space clear funding rounds, particularly with prodigious investors like those backing Emperia. It’s even more exciting to see the sorts of plans that the company has for that money. Checking in with companies like PINKO to see how these movements are affecting their business models also sounds like a promising discussion.
Sandbox VR, the location-based VR destination, announced a new partnership with Netflix to create a virtual reality experience based on South Korean hit show Squid Game.
Netflix’s most watched show of all time will soon have its own location-based VR experience, which will let fans take on the role of Squid Game contestant.
Set to roll out to Sandbox locations in late 2023, the location-based VR game promises “pulse-pounding challenges” where users compete against each other to be the last one standing. What’s more, game sessions include personalized highlight videos capturing in-game reactions for post-game review.
There’s no trailer for the Squid Game VR game, although the company’s hype video should give you a good idea of what to expect:
Sandbox’s locations feature motion-tracking technology, which captures the movements of a player’s body and props, such as guns. Its haptic system also provides players with added realism to go along with the large room-scale VR experience.
The company currently features six proprietary experiences based on both exclusively licensed IP (Star Trek: Discovery), as well as in-house experiences. All Sandbox VR experiences are developed by an in-house gaming studio, which tailors the company’s social experiences for groups of up to six users at a time.
The Squid Game licensing deal is likely the direct result of its $37 million Series B funding round from November 2021. The company has made a strong rebound from the stagnation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, seeing the company’s eventual reemergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy following debt restructure.
Sandbox now operates 30 VR locations, spanning major cities in North America, Europe, and Asia. The company says it’s launched a dozen such locations over the past twelve months, making for one of its largest growths spurts.
Despite major layoffs from Meta, the company has affirmed that its next-gen consumer headset, Quest 3, is planned for release this year. While it will adopt some of the features from Quest Pro, not all will make the leap.
In November last year, Meta announced plans to reduce its workforce by 13%—a whopping 11,000 cut jobs. And though CEO Mark Zuckerberg said recently in the company’s latest earnings call that 2023 would be focused on streamlining the company, Meta continues to prioritize its VR headset lineup and plans to launch Quest 3 sometime this year.
Meta’s XR division, Reality Labs, is burning more money than ever in its pursuit of beating tech-sector rivals Apple, Google, et all to the metaverse and XR. And even though the company is slashing some XR projects, it’s still full-steam ahead with its consumer headset, says Zuckerberg.
“Later this year, we’re going to launch our next generation consumer headset, which will feature Meta Reality, [like Quest Pro], and I expect that this is going to establish this technology as the baseline for all headsets going forward, and eventually of course for AR glasses as well,” Zuckerberg told investors.
“Meta Reality,” as the company calls it, is Meta’s color passthrough AR solution which was first included with Quest Pron—meaning Quest 3 will include similar color passthrough AR capabilities.
While Quest 3 is likely to adopt the passthrough AR system of Quest Pro, it sounds like it won’t get the eye and face-tracking features of that headset. Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth said as much during a Q&A session on Instagram last week.
Replying to a question about when face-tracking would come to consumer-priced headsets, Boz noted, “it’s gonna be a little while… it’s gonna be years. The reason is simple: all those extra cameras and the compute power required to actually do the face-geometry and recognition has a lot of tradeoffs with it, and one of the main tradeoffs is cost.”
This lines up with leaks from last year that also pointed to a Quest 3 with color passthrough AR and no face-tracking; however the lauded ‘pancake’ lenses from Quest Pro may flip to the consumer side.
While the Quest headset line continues, not all of Meta’s hardware projects have been spared the axe. Last year Meta discontinued its Portal video-calling smart speakers, and reportedly cancelled two unreleased smartwatch projects, according to The Verge. That Meta is charging ahead with more headsets shows the company’s priorities remain focused on immersive devices.
Along with those cancellations, Zuckerberg during the earnings call told investors that he was marking 2023 as the “year of efficiency”; an effort to streamline the hulking company to be more nimble and get more done.
“We closed last year with some difficult layoffs and restructuring some teams. When we did this, I said clearly that this was the beginning of our focus on efficiency and not the end. Since then, we’ve taken some additional steps like working with our infrastructure team on how to deliver our roadmap while spending less on capex. Next, we’re working on flattening our org structure and removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster, as well as deploying AI tools to help our engineers be more productive. As part of this, we’re going to be more proactive about cutting projects that aren’t performing or may no longer be as crucial, but my main focus is on increasing the efficiency of how we execute our top priorities.”
Samsung’s 2023 Unpacked event was all about the company’s Galaxy S23 hardware, although at the end of its hour-long presentation the South Korean tech giant announced it was working with Qualcomm and Google to develop an XR device.
TM Roh, Samsung’s president and head of mobile experiences, didn’t reveal any more than what was said on stage, namely the existence of the partnership itself, however speaking to The Washington Post he announced the companies are “getting there,” and that the XR device was “not too far away.”
It’s not clear what sort of device it will be, since ‘XR’ essentially covers the entire gamut of immersive headsets, including augmented reality (e.g. HoloLens), virtual reality (e.g. Meta Quest 2), and mixed reality (e.g. Meta Quest Pro). Our best bet though is on a standalone MR headset, which uses passthrough cameras to layer computer-generated visuals on top of the user’s physical space, essentially replicating the experience you might have on a see-through AR display, albeit on a VR device.
As you’d imagine, Qualcomm is tasked with building the XR device’s chipset, while Samsung will manufacture the headset’s hardware. Software will be provided by Google; WaPo reports it will be running on “the unannounced version of the Android operating system meant specifically to power devices such as wearable displays.”
With the exception of Qualcomm, which not only produces XR-specific chipsets but also regularly shows of its own XR headset references, both Samsung and Google’s commitment to the project are kind of a long-awaited homecoming.
Samsung was one of the first truly massive tech companies to develop VR hardware. Starting in 2014, the company partnered with Meta (then Oculus) on the Samsung Gear VR platform, which paired the Galaxy Note 4 phone with a headset shell sporting an optimized intertidal Measurment unit (IMU). Samsung Gear VR was essentially the first high-quality 3DOF mobile VR experience offered to consumers, marking a stark departure from the sort VR experiences you could find on Google’s more open, but decidedly lower-quality Cardboard platform.
Notably, Samsung hasn’t released a VR product since the launch of the PC VR headset Odyssey+. Like seemingly all big tech firms these days, it appears to be working on AR glasses.
Smasung Odyssey+ | Image courtesy Samsung
Google, although reportedly also working on AR device, similarly shelved its VR ambitions when it discontinued its standalone Daydream platform in 2019, something which at the time was essentially the nail in the company’s Android VR coffin. Google previously worked with Lenovo in 2018 to produce its first and only standalone Daydream VR headset, the Lenovo Mirage Solo, which offered 6DOF room-scale tracking while providing only a single 3DOF clicker-style controller.
Since then, Google has only really been vocal about its experimental system for immersive video chatting, Project Starline, which lets people engage in face-to-face video chats without needing an AR or VR headset.
Typically, we’d say Mobile World Congress 2023 would be the next logical place to share more info about the XR hardware partnership. Samsung, Qualcomm and Google will all be present, so we may just learn more there when the week-long event kicks off in Barcelona, Spain on February 27th.
