HTC's smartphone making arm may not be doing so well
recently, but the Taiwanese company's Vive division is still one of the
pioneers of the VR headset space. Today at CES it took the wraps off two new
products: the Vive Pro Eye and the Vive Cosmos.
The Vive Pro Eye natively integrates eye tracking,
featuring gaze-tracking menu navigation and removes the need for controllers.
HTC says it's "an evolution in the enterprise VR space" which tells
you who it's aimed at. The point is that it should allow businesses to make
better training simulations.
The Pro Eye has "foveated rendering" which
will supposedly give you a better visual quality inside the headset. It means
that the images 'follow' you wherever you look instead of being locked to the
center of the screen. So no matter where you look you're always getting a sharp
image. No more turning your head and keeping your eyes always forward - now you
can simply adjust your gaze and maybe not move your head so much.
The Vive Cosmos on the other hand has inside-out
tracking from four cameras and a flip-up display, requiring absolutely no
external tracking. The company created this as a headset that can be used
anywhere. The Cosmos should apparently work with more than just high-end gaming
PCs, but no more details were shared about that.
The motion controllers have been redesigned and now
resemble the Oculus Touch more than the previous generation Vive wands. With
them you get a tracking ring and a joystick, as well as some funky light
effects.
The Vive Cosmos will run the Vive Reality System, a
redesign of the Vive software that will make moving between VR experiences more
seamless than before. Finally in HTC news for now, the Viveport Infinity is a new monthly
subscription that will give you access to over 500 games and apps. This will
become available on April 5.
