TPCAST, the leader in wireless virtual reality (VR) technology, announced today that it is working on a wireless adapter for the Oculus Rift headset. TPCAST is the first to introduce a commercial Wireless Adapter for Virtual Reality, which preserves the video quality and application performance. The TPCAST solution has been shipping in production and demonstrating high video quality and low latency.

The current high-end VR HMDs are driven by a cable transmitting the video, voice, data, and power utilizing HDMI, USB, and power connectors. The heavy-duty cord limits the VR experience by tying the user to a server and restricting the freedom of movement. With the TPCAST wireless solution, Rift users will gain an enhanced experience, as they roam around freely and play games, while preserving the same high quality as a standard wired connection.

Pimax is a little-known company based of Shangai and Silicon valley, but it's looking to disrupt the VR HMD Market with its Pimax 8K headset. Let's get this straight right off the bat - we aren't in the presence of a real 8K panel on the Pimax. Instead, each eye is offered a low-persistence, 4K panel angled at 45º - which is more than enough, by anecdotal, subjective evidence, to rid this headset from the dreaded "screen door" effect. Due to the panels' resolution and their angling, Pimax is promising a 200º FOV, which apparently makes it so that your peripheral vision now fully works as if your were headset-less - and is around double the FOV of other headsets such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

There will be three different models in the next generation of Pimax HMDs (the company has already delivered a product in the form of the Pimax 4K HMD, and sold 30,000 units of that headset, if you're wondering). The Pimax 5K, Pimax 8K, and the Pimax 8K X have all the same features and functionality save for their display and input resolutions. The Pimax 5K has a pair of 2560x1440 panels, and comes cheapest $399 - it's comparable to the Oculus Rift at that price-point. The Pimax 8K has the full-resolution 3840x2160 per-eye displays running at the full 90 Hz refresh rate, but it relies on pixel-doubling to make driving the system easier. Finally, the Pimax 8K X is fundamentally the same headset as the 8K, and its $699 Kickstater price offers (or offered) improved signal processing hardware to allow it to take a full-resolution dual-4K input signal.

Developed by Archiact in Vancouver BC, Evasion is an intense VR Bullet Hell game, designed to immerse players in high intensity co-op multiplayer combat. Gamers will experience the next generation in VR locomotion, designed from the ground up for an authentic FPS action game. Featuring multiple hero classes suitable for all play styles, gamers can join up to three friends or go it alone in an extinction-level battle for survival.

Explosive VR Combat
Evasion will deliver cinematic destructible environments and intense bullet hell action. Players will team up and fight their way through laser-fueled maelstroms and overwhelming odds. Their 'Swarm A.I' enemy behaviour system adds a new level of tension, making tactical movement and teamwork critical to your squad's survival. Experience the charge of heroism as you and your team run and gun to complete vital objectives, rescue one another and overcome explosive ambushes.

Thermaltake has expanded the Toughpower iRGB PLUS family with Toughpower iRGB PLUS Platinum Series Power Supply Unit- TT Premium Edition, which includes three models with capacities ranging from 850W to 1200W. In addition to the great build quality, the Platinum-certified series packs the patented ultra-silent, 16.8 million-color Riing 14 RGB fan and 12 controllable single LEDs with seven lighting modes (Full lighted, Flow, RGB Spectrum, Ripple, Blink, Pulse and Wave), plus the support for three of Thermaltake's intelligent platforms - New DPS G PC APP 3.0, DPS G Smart Power Management (SPM) Cloud 1.0, and DPS G Mobile APP 1.0 - to help users monitor smart power supply units, save energy and stay green.

The fully modular members offer excellent ripple suppression and steady voltage output, thanks to the new circuit design with PFC & LLC digital controllers; the application of Smart Zero Fan and 100% high quality Japanese brand capacitors has given the new series amazing reliability, stability and very silent operation. The 850/1050W unit even features a compact depth of 160 mm to allow users for high compatibility with more room for cable routing, cooling and more. Backed up by a hefty 10-year warranty, the Toughpower iRGB PLUS Platinum Series Power Supply Unit permits a captivating way to make users systems match their intended color scheme and gives best-in-class, mute operation for all kinds of chassis.

In addition to slashing the price of Oculus Rift HMD Set down to USD $399, Oculus VR announced a new standalone VR headset for the masses, the Oculus Go, which at USD $199, is significantly cheaper than the Oculus Rift, while not being that much costlier than the $129 Samsung Gear VR. Oculus Go lacks the fully-tracked motion sensors or inside-out tracking of the Oculus Rift, which helps keep its price down. It retains the essentials, including a 2560 x 1440 pixels display resolution, new lenses, and 3D spatial audio built into the headset. Oculus VR plans to put Go in the hands of developers by November 2017, with mass-production expected to begin shortly after, and retail availability some time in 2018.

Oculus VR announced that its pioneering Oculus Rift VR HMD has finally emerged from its early-adopter pricing, and will be sold at USD $399 a piece, going forward. The company had been facing increased competition in HMDs from the likes of the HTC Vive, and tech majors Microsoft announcing their VR/AR standards. Each $399 Rift bundle comes with Touch controllers, sensors, and six free apps that give you hours of entertainment including Epic's arcade shooter, Robo Recall, and our creative tools, Medium and Quill. Oculus VR, throughout its press-release, emphasized that the $399 price isn't a limited-period offer, and that the pricing is "permanent."

MSI has recently added a new member to their Vortex family of gaming solutions with the minuscule Vortex G25. Unlike its predecessor, the Vortex G65, the G25 has abandoned the cylinder shape in favor of a sleek console design. The specifications are nothing short of impressive for a system crammed into a 2.5-liter enclosure weighing in at just 2.5 kilograms. Based on Intel's latest Z370 platform, the Vortex G25 is powered by a 8th Generation Core i7-8700 processor with six cores, 12 threads, and a boost clock up to 4.3 GHz. MSI's Cooler Boost Titan solution, consisting of eight heatpipes and dual Whirlwind Blade fans, provides adequate cooling for the Coffee Lake processor and Pascal graphics card.

According to the manufacturer, the Vortex G25 was designed with focus on expandability. It's equipped with four DDR4 SO-DIMM slots to house DDR4 2400 MHz modules and support up to 64 GB of memory. In terms of storage, two PCIe 3.0 M.2 slots are available for creating high-speed RAID arrays with NVMe drives. Another 2.5" slot is present to provide additional storage if need be. Performing upgrades to the Vortex G25 is a walk in the park thanks to a rapid disassembly design that employs slotted screws.

Lenovo's take on the Windows Mixed Reality platform, which we covered a few days ago as featuring Steam VR support and a still-in-its-infancy Halo VR experience, has just been named. The Explorer MR will set you back $349 for just the headset, or $449 for the headset plus a pair of 6-DoF (Degrees of Freedom) controllers.

Lenovo didn't say how much the Explorer HMD weighs, but the usual "comfortable and lightweight," and "finely tuned for perfect balance" have been mentioned. A flip-flop visor allows you to quickly remove the dual 1440x1440 displays from your face, should you need an emergency look at the real world around you. The Lenovo Explorer features inside-out spatial tracking, just like the other Windows MR devices, with two front-mounted cameras handling environment tracking. Trackable space on the Explorer should be around 3.5 x 3.5 meters, likely constrained by the fact that the HMD is tethered via USB and HDMI (tethering that is par-of-the-course for this VR generation.) Specs still haven't been finalized, but pricing is, so we shouldn't look to any substantial differences between the announced and final specifications.

HTC Vive today announced a $200 price reduction for Vive, making the best VR system more accessible to the mass market, across the globe. Starting today, Vive will be available for $599. All Vive purchases come with a free trial to Viveport Subscription, where consumers can choose up to 5 titles per month to experience, and copies of many of the most popular pieces of VR content today, including Google's Tilt Brush, Everest VR, and Richie's Plank Experience.

"Our goal at Vive has always been to offer the best and most advanced VR system and drive mass market adoption for VR across the globe," said Cher Wang, Chairwoman, HTC. "We're continuing to deliver on that commitment with this new price for Vive, making VR more accessible to a broader audience and driving the entire VR industry forward. Vive's game-changing technology, best-in-class content and unmatched global partners are fulfilling the promise of VR like never before. With highly anticipated titles, and the upcoming launch of Vive Tracker, there has never been a better time to embrace Vive, and enjoy the most immersive VR experience available."

GIGABYTE today introduced the Aorus AC300W, an ATX mid-tower chassis designed for gaming PC builds, which lets you take advantage of the VR-Link feature of some of the recent Aorus-branded graphics cards. The case features a front-panel HDMI 2.0 port, which internally plugs into the VR-Link HDMI port of your Aorus graphics card. The front-panel also features a type-C USB 3.1 port, and two other USB 3.1 type-A ports; besides HDA front-panel audio jacks. The AC300W is made mostly of steel and ABS plastic, with a brushed aluminium-finish front panel, and an acrylic side-panel window. It is studded with RGB LEDs along two front-panel design accents, an Aorus logo, and a second Aorus logo on the bottom compartment cover, visible through the window. These LEDs plug in directly to the RGB LED headers of your motherboard, and can be controlled using GIGABYTE RGB Fusion software.

Under the hood, the AC300W has a horizontal dual-compartment layout which is all the rage, these days. The top compartment holds a standard ATX motherboard with add-on cards as long as 400 mm, and CPU coolers as tall as 170 mm. The bottom compartment holds a PSU up to 180 mm in length, and two 3.5-inch/2.5-inch drive bays. Three additional 2.5-inch drives can be mounted behind the motherboard tray. While the case has 7 expansion slot bays, two additional slots are designed such that you can mount your graphics card vertically, using a PCIe riser (not included). You can mount either three 120 mm or two 140 mm fans along the front panel, two 140 mm fans along the top panel, and a 140 mm fan along the rear panel. The front fan mounts include a detachable dust filter. The company didn't mention pricing.

There are two kinds of desktop CPU platforms. The mainstream tier runs from two cores up to eight, and it's great for gaming and general use. Its high-end sibling takes everything up a level with more cores, more memory channels, and more bandwidth for graphics and storage. A considerable upgrade in every regard, this high-end desktop platform appeals to power users, content creators, and prosumers who want to blur the line between desktop and workstation. AMD's Threadripper CPU is the latest addition to the desktop's heavyweight division, and it walks into the ring with an entourage of SocketTR4 motherboards in tow. This guide explains the ASUS and ROG family to help you pick the best X399 motherboard for your high-end desktop or gaming PC.

All of our X399 boards share core DNA that includes one-touch overclocking, refined cooling control, and improved RGB lighting. Yet they each have their own distinct flavor as well. The ROG Zenith Extreme brings Threadripper into the world of premium dream PCs with provisions for custom liquid cooling and 10G networking. With the Strix X399-E Gaming, hardcore gamers can build stylish rigs with power to spare for high-quality streaming. And then there's the Prime X399-A and its well-rounded foundation channeling the professional side of the platform's prodigious power. Which X399 motherboard should you buy for your build? Let's find out.

The first custom AIB partner graphics card that we have a chance to look at is none other than ASUS' ROG Strix. AS usual, everything about this particular offering from ASUS screams customization - from the purpose-built PCB and power delivery, to the oversized, triple-slot cooling design with three fans, and premium backplate design for better heat dissipation; all of these should greatly improve temps over Vega's reference design with better acoustics, at the same time. As with almost all AIB partner offerings, there will be two offerings based on this model, differing only in regards to out-of-box clock speeds.

ASUS' latest DirectCU III cooling system makes an appearance, combining Super Alloy Power II components and their Auto Extreme manufacturing technology. Max contact GPU technology makes its way here, as does FanConnect II, which provides hybrid-controlled fan headers and a comprehensive set of tuning options with GPU Tweak II to optimize system cooling and performance even further. As with most ASUS ROG products nowadays, the ROG Strix Vega 64 graphics card will feature support for ASUS AURA RGB LED. Display outputs include 2x HDMI (for VR systems), 2x DisplayPort and 1x DVI. No pricing was announced at time of writing, though you should count on this offering being near the top pricing bracket between AIB cards.

One of the hottest pieces of tech in the last few years, Oculus' Rift and Touch VR add-on, have entered a sale of sorts, which bring the pricing on these pieces of kit down to more humane, tenable values. If you are living over in the Great Britain side of the pond, you can grab your Rift+ Oculus Touch VR kit for a reasonable (for the tech) £399, for a limited time only. Scan.uk has you covered. On the other side of the pond (that means you, US), you can grab the same kit for an even more reasonable $399 (Newegg pricing at time of writing.)

These deals are being touted as limited to supply, and of a short duration. So if you think the hardware is at a point you're comfortable with, and that the platform and software ecosystem have matured enough for you to take the plunge, now might be the best time in a while to do so.

GIGABYTE, which had two variants of its flagship GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card, the air-cooled Aorus GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme Edition, and the WaterForce WB Xtreme Edition, that comes with a factory-fitted full-coverage water-block; introduced a third variant, the WaterForce Xtreme Edition. Unlike the WaterForce WB Xtreme Edition, which you plumb to your own water-cooling loop, this card comes with a self-contained AIO liquid-cooling loop. The cooling solution consists of an pump-block base which makes contact with the GPU and a base-plate that draws heat from the VRM and memory; and a 120 mm radiator with an included 120 mm fan. The cooler-shroud features some groovy acrylic windows, and RGB LED lighting controlled by GIGABYTE RGB Fusion software.

The card is based on the same exact PCB as its two other siblings, with the same clock speeds of 1607 MHz core, 1721 MHz GPU Boost, and 11.2 GHz (GDDR5X-effective) memory out of the box, against NVIDIA-reference clocks of 1480 MHz core, 1582 MHz GPU Boost, and 11.00 GHz memory. The software-enabled "OC mode" runs the card at 1632 MHz core, 1746 MHz GPU Boost, and 11.44 GHz memory. The card draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Display outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4, three HDMI ports (two on the rear panel, one internal HDMI port for VR headsets); and a dual-link DVI connector. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Even though current VR controllers already do a competent job of tracking our movements in the 3D world, there is always room to improve (and VR has much, much room to improve.) AS such, valve is looking to improve the way we can interact with the VR worlds we are offered. And one of those ways is by improving gesture and hand recognition in these worlds. If ever something seemed to be designed to allow you to taunt your opponent, Valve's "Knuckles" controller is it.

Through the use of a new "CapSense" tech, which basically adds capacitive fields to the grip of the wand controller, games will be able to know whether you're fully gripping the controller or not. These sensors, which for now need to be calibrated on a per-user basis, can "detect the state of the user's hands", meaning, they're able to track the degree to which your fingers are curled or sticking out. Valve has used a technologically impressive solution for those cases where you might drop your controller for eagerness of showing your fingers to your enemies: an adjustable strap on both controllers that tightens around your hands. Valve has started to ship the Knuckles controllers out to developers, but there's no word yet on when consumer versions of the device might be available.After the break: bonus taunts.

IN a bid to increase attractiveness in the VR ecosystem (particularly its own VR ecosystem), HTC is seemingly working on expanding its VR headset lineup beyond just the Vive headset, with other options spaced out at different price points. Lower price points are all but guaranteed, since HTC sees - and expects to continue seeing - the Vive as the top of the line VR headset in the market. Marc Metis, Global Head of Vive X at HTC Vive, told TechRadar that the company will "(...) also always try to address other market segments as well [beyond the high end] (...) Expect new offerings from us over time. We're an entrepreneurial company. Don't view us as static. We'll only enter a segment when we can offer the most immersive and considered experience. "

Mr. Metis also said that there are always innovations being applied to the current Vive inside their labs, as they try to keep up with technological advancement for what their Vive successor might be, saying that HTC will " (...) continue to evolve the current Vive with innovations." Certainly an improved Vive VR headset is great news, as technology progresses and matures, allowing for higher specs in the same power envelope. However, better than improving image resolution further, perhaps the focus should be on usability and the untethering of the VR experience, which seems to be one of the more immersion breaking faults in current-gen VR. The addition of different products at different price-points is also a result of technological development and manufacturing improvements. Perhaps before seeing new, lower performing products hitting the market, we'll see a new Vive 2 headset, displacing the current Vive to a lower price-point. That certainly would make more sense (in theory) than developing a whole new VR headset.

At Bethesda's E3 press conference, the company revealed a slew of new games that it had kept relatively well hidden until now. First up (and you'll forgive me for the not so random order of coverage for these), there's the upcoming Dishonored stand-alone expansion (it's been a while since we've seen one of those, uh?). Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, whose title should send your mind reeling if you know something about Dishonored lore, will follow Billie Lurk (which you might recognize from Dishonored 2) as she attempts to bring death to the Outsider on Daud's behest. She now has what seems like bionic implements in the shape of an arm and an eye, and interestingly, what would be the Outsiders' powers seem to have been substituted by a tech-based approach. Dishonored: Death of the Outsider drops on September 15th this year.

Another game showcased by the company is Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, which once again follows B.J. Blazkowicz; this time, after the events in Wolfenstein: The New Order. Take the fight back to the Nazi regime once again, with Wolfenstein's signature graphics language and gameplay. The games' graphics have been (naturally) upgraded, and in particular the particle effects seem to have been pumped up significantly. The game drops on October 27th this year. You might even encounter another grammar Nazi in the game. Who knows...

Apple today previewed macOS High Sierra, the latest version of the world's most advanced desktop operating system, delivering new core storage, video and graphics technologies that pave the way for future innovation on the Mac. macOS High Sierra offers an all-new file system, support for High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) and an update to Metal, Apple's advanced graphics technology that powers everything from machine learning to virtual reality content creation. macOS High Sierra also includes a number of refinements to the apps Mac users enjoy every day, including Photos, Safari and Mail.

"macOS High Sierra delivers important forward-looking technologies and new opportunities for developers wanting to tap into the power of machine learning and create immersive VR content on the Mac," said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "The core technology innovations in macOS High Sierra, combined with our advances in hardware, will continue to push the Mac forward in exciting new ways."

AMD unveiled the high-performance, power-efficient Radeon Pro 500 series graphics, fueling beyond-UHD creativity in All-In-One computing. Available in the updated 21.5- and 27-inch iMac, Radeon Pro 500 series graphics enable extraordinary computing experiences, including stunning gaming, immersive VR on select models, and fluid content creation with exceptional performance and support for GPU acceleration across a range of creative applications on the Mac platform, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop and the Foundry Nuke, Mari and Modo. Moreover, Radeon Pro 500 series provides accelerated performance for the Radeon ProRender photorealistic ray-tracing rendering technology which is enabled for Autodesk Maya, and Maxon's Cinema 4D.

Radeon Pro 500 series graphics harness up to 5.5 TFLOPS of performance, unleashing the creativity of artists, designers, photographers, filmmakers, visualizers and engineers, and aspiring creative types across high-resolution canvases in the most popular creative applications, powering through the most demanding games, and bringing fantastic worlds to life in VR. The Radeon Pro 500 series makes use of the critically-acclaimed "Polaris" GPU architecture, delivering the perfect balance of performance and operating efficiency that makes them ideal for All-In-Ones.

Improbable, which was founded five years ago by Herman Narula and Rob Whitehead, has achieved a Softbank (the company that purchased ARM backing in a funding round that values the business at more than $1bn. >Despite this cash injection, it looks like Improbable will stay independent to work on their purported aim: to build large-scale virtual worlds and simulations. These could be leveraged by games developers, or some other, non-gaming investments and applications, such as transport systems modelling, virtual couch-travelling, and military applications.

Founder Herman Narula said that Improbable's vision "is to create completely new realities, massive virtual worlds that can change the way we live and work and can impact the way we understand some of the hardest problems." The company believes it has developed revolutionary technology with its Spatial OS operating system, which it has recently opened up to other developers. A Google partnership to put its system on the search giant's cloud, thus allowing small developers to create massive simulations without much infrastructure of their own, means real business for this company, and the backing of one of tech's giants lends credence to their ambitions. Let's see where this leads, but it seems that tales of VR's death were greatly exaggerated. You can discuss these finding here, on our very own TPU Virtual Reality Club.

Microsoft has been slowly building up its mixed reality endeavor, by baking in support for the platform in its latest Windows 10 updates, as well as the recent announcements of actual HMDs from hardware partners like HP and Acer. Acer's solution, their Mixed Reality HMD, will ship to developers and customers with a $400 price-tag for both the headset and a pair of 6 DoF controllers, which easily remind users of HTC's Vive and Oculus's Rift controllers. Microsoft's implementation, however, makes away with the Rift's and Vive's ouside-in trackers, only needing to be within "sight" of the sensors on the front of the HMD to which they're connected, thus making them truly world-scale (if at the expense of some sweet swordplay moves, but I digress.)

Pixvana, makers of the cloud-based 360 video creation studio SPIN, today announced a partnership with Valve to integrate their software services into the greater Steam platform. A beta version of the SPIN software will now let users directly publish 360 video content directly to the Steam Store, which will allow Steam VR enabled headset users to browse a new huge library of high quality (up to 12k according to Pixvana) 360-degree video content.

At GTC (GPU Technology Conference) today, NVIDIA has gone on to show how much VR is in the company's cards for future expansion. After giving us a ray-tracing solution for gaming audio with their VRWorks Audio SDK, and a VR stitching solution via their 360 Video SDK, NVIDIA has now showcased a system capable of running what could be defined as a "local VR party". I would like to point out, however, that such a system may find itself of much more use to businesses, education, and the military segments than local LAN parties, though I wouldn't mind embracing the skin of a VR-driven Darth Vader.

NVIDIA's proof-of-concept system can drive four different VR headsets. It makes use of four of the company's Quadro P6000 GPUs running four virtual machines on a PC server, which are paired with four HTC Vive Business Edition headsets and HTC's Lightroom tracking system. The system appears to be tiny for such a powerful configuration, though having a system powered by four video-cards shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone at this point in time - even if such an approach is now bordering on virtual impracticality for most consumers. NVIDIA is offering a look at the design guide technical document for such a system, though, which can prove an interesting read, right here.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) has recently announced plans to form a special working group within its ecosystem, whose mission will be to develop standards for XR (eXtended Reality) products and development. XR envelops both VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality), and VESA has apparently had enough of differing vendor implementations. According to VESA, "the lack of standardization is causing compatibility issues between products from different vendors, as well as increasing the complexity and cost of development, ownership and replacement. Lack of compatibility can also create confusion for end users and impede broader acceptance of AR/VR products."

Considering the XR market's value is expected to hit roughly $162 billion dollars by 2020, we can certainly see how "compatibility issues" and "lower acceptance of AR/VR products" could affect what is looking to be an extremely lucrative market. Let's just gloss over the fact (slightly paradoxical, actually) that we're now looking at two different XR standards groups, VESA's newly-announced initiative, and Khrono's OpenXR.

VR is one of the most important buzzwords in tech, not only for current development, but also for what studios and tech insiders deem to be our entertainment future. Oculus, which paved the way for VR with its Rift headset concept (before being snagged by Facebook), is one of the biggest, most recognizable players in this space. Now, after a series of hurdles such as the Oculus-ZeniMax sonata, which saw the former facing payments of $500 million, and Oculus' founder Palmer Luckey abandoning the company, a house of cards is crumbling. Namely, Oculus' VR-driven Story Studio.