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It’s a hot summer here in Italy. But this is not stopping me from providing you with my usual roundup of the most important XR news of the week… Top news of the week (Image modified using ChatGPT)...

Updated on July 11, 2026: Added all new units from UPD 4.0 and reworked the entire tier list. The best units in Universal Tower Defense Z depend on five categories which are Hybrid, Hill, Ground,...

Sony surprised the camera community this week with the launch of the new RX10 V, reviving its best-in-class series of bridge cameras. The mark V comes nine years after the now-discontinued Cyber-shot...

While the industry argues about expensive camera-equipped AI glasses and the privacy backlash they created, XREAL quietly put a 147-inch private screen on your face for $299. The affordable display-glasses category is the one part of AR that is genuinely selling, and this launch shows why.

A star in the games business Twitter circuit, investor and analyst Matthew Ball has made waves in the industry over recent years with his "State of Video Gaming" slideshows, which in some corners...

Combat Waffle Studios has announced Ghosts of Tabor: Legacy, a spinoff from the original game locked to the 2024 era, for Meta Quest and PC VR.An inevitability with long-running games is a segment of...

FitXR on Quest now has 'Journey', a personalized recommendation system designed to help you spend less time searching for workouts and more time exercising.The app's July update also brings Profile...

Following Apple’s announcement that VisionOS 27 will support third-party motion controllers for Vision Pro, the company has published a set of technical specifications and requirements for...

Backlash online is changing how (or if) people wear Meta's smart glasses.

If you thought Meta was stepping away from the VR market after seemingly turning away from the Metaverse and closing 3 VR studios earlier this year, think again, buddy. It seems like the plan as of...

TL;DR XREAL has opened sales of its affordable a01 Plus AR glasses in the US. The glasses offer a Micro OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and 1,600 nits of peak brightness, all in a lightweight...

When Qualcomm released its first batch of ARM-based Snapdragon X processors two years ago, they worked well enough, but failed to set the PC gaming world on fire. It's not really what they were meant...

Valve hasn’t mentioned the price or release date for its long-awaited Steam Frame standalone headset, although we seem to be getting suspiciously close. As spotted by hardware analyst Brady Lynch,...

The bill of materials for the iPhone 18 Pro Max is expected to rise by nearly $300 compared to the iPhone 17 Pro Max, according to a new Counterpoint Research analysis. The estimate covers the 1TB...

Rumors continue to go back and forth on whether the iPhone Fold will launch on time, plus there is now a question on if AirPods will get cameras at all. This and more on the AppleInsider...

John Carmack reminded Microsoft that he's “still willing” to put up a $1M guarantee to allow Team Beef to commercialize its VR ports of id Software’s classic games.Carmack first revealed that he made...

AR glasses maker XREAL today announced its ‘X by Xreal’ sub-brand (xbx) is officially bringing its first pair of budget XR glasses outside of China. Xreal today released its xbx a01+ in the US for...

If you've spent any time on Steam from your Steam Deck, there's a good chance you recognise the 'Great on Deck' tag, signifying that games work, well, great on Deck. Well, Steam has just published...

John Carmack, former Oculus CTO and co-founder of id Software, announced he’s still willing to put up $1 million of his personal money to help make VR versions of Id’s most famous retro...

In my AWE preview article, I told you about Prehension AI, a startup developing an SDK to help developers implement hand gestures in their MR/VR applications. At AWE US, I’ve been able to get...

Meta tests always-on AI glasses and a brain-to-text UI, while Even Realities raises $150M and HTC bets on AI glasses. We have these and other items from AI and XR realms through the lens of Charlie...

The whole industry spent the week arguing about cameras on your face, Apple quietly killed the display for a cheaper Vision Pro, and underneath the noise VR gaming and open source had one of their best weeks of the year. Here is what mattered.

Samsung Display is formally terminating G-VR, the glass-substrate micro-OLED panel that would have powered a cheaper Apple headset, by September. Killing a product is reversible. Killing its display program is not.

Lamborghini’s free Apple Vision Pro app brings four of its rare vehicles into living rooms with life-sized immersive showcases.You can admire them, sit inside them, learn about their unique features...

Meta's CTO reaffirmed that the company is still working on "multiple next-generation headsets", and perhaps hinted at a reveal at Connect in September.During an "ask me anything" session on his...

I don't need to tell you that Stardew Valley is not a 3D game, and if I do, your understanding of dimensions is unsettling to me. However, where there's a will, there's a way, as a modder has done...

Meta is still internally debating how to handle the privacy LED on its upcoming glasses with always-on AI, The Financial Times reports.The Information first reported on Meta's plans to launch smart...

CONNECTOME: A Game Of Points is an immersive art experience on Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro that utilizes hand tracking on both platforms and eye tracking on Vision Pro. Developer Grant Hinkson...

Squingle Arcade, a free-to-play spatial puzzler with mixed reality support, is out today on Meta Quest. We first learned about Squingle Arcade, a faster-paced evolution of the original Squingle, at...

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac Daily is available on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Stitcher, TuneIn, Google Play, or through our dedicated RSS feed for...

Emerging smart glasses player Even Realities has raised $150 million in pre-Series B funding led by Meituan and previous-investor Tencent. The funding round confers a post-money valuation of $1...

In a case of hilarious timing – you know, in a dystopian kind of way – a new report details Meta’s forthcoming “super sensing” smart glasses that would have microphones and cameras that are...

Of the many sizes and shapes the best gaming monitors come in, the 34-inch ultra-wide 21:9 screen strikes a good balance between size and player immersion. It’s wider than the 32-inch 16:9 format but...

A report surfaced that the now defunct Vertigo Games Amsterdam was working on a new VR game based on the Tomb Raider series. We dug into this, and here's what we found out.An article from yesterday...

As reported by MP1st, a sizable leak from Vertigo Games reveals its now-defunct Amsterdam satellite studio was working on an official Tomb Raider VR title before the project was cancelled earlier...

Apple recently increased the prices of most of its products, from the Apple TV and HomePods through iPads and Macs to the Vision Pro. iPhones have so far escaped the increases, but that will likely...

What’s the story? RP1 has launched Artemis, a native metaverse browser powered by the open-source Sneeze engine and designed to access spatial experiences without separate app installs. Why it...

What’s the story? Basemark has signed an MoU with Ignite by FORVIA HELLA to integrate its Rocksolid platform into Ignite’s automotive AR offering for automotive OEMs. Why it matters The ... continue...

What’s the story? Even Realities has become a smart glasses unicorn after securing a reported $150 million pre-Series B round led by Meituan and Tencent for its next phase. Why ... continue reading...

Code found inside a recent Spotify build reveals a deep Gemini integration built specifically for Android XR smart glasses, including music chosen from what the camera sees. The features are interesting. The architecture underneath them is the real story.

Meta shipped a mandatory update that bricks the camera if the capture LED is tampered with, then the Financial Times reported its prototype always-on glasses would not light the LED at all. New York banned smart glasses from all 1,240 of its courthouses the same week.

A leaked archive reveals Vertigo Games spent over a year building a Tomb Raider VR title for Quest 3, PSVR2, and PC before it was cancelled in January. It reportedly passed its vertical slice. That is the part that hurts.

Meta says it's improving the ability of its smart glasses to detect if the privacy LED has been tampered with and disable the camera, via a mandatory firmware update.All of Meta's smart glasses...

According to The Elec, Samsung Display has fully scrapped the development project of a component tied to the rumored lower-cost Apple Vision Pro. Here are the details.

A peculiar report claims that work on a key component of a lower-cost version of the Apple Vision Pro is winding down, and that it's because Apple is more interested in AI.Apple's current Apple...

Veteran VR studio Cloudhead Games, developer behind hit rhythm shooter Pistol Whip (2019), is ostensibly deep in development of their next title, which according to a recent job listing could be a...

Yesterday on X, I saw a video about Boz teasing some VR announcements at Connect. This made many people excited, but honestly, I think we shouldn’t expect too much from this piece of news. Meta...

Spatial computing continues to be an opportune north star, though it's taking longer than expected to materialize. Meanwhile, there continues to be a gap between imagination and reality, often seen...

Meta is rolling out an update to its line of smart glasses that will disable the camera if the device’s capture LED has been tampered with or destroyed. Since the rollout of Meta’s second-gen Ray-Ban...

Smart glasses with a camera are inherently a privacy nightmare, but Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses (and now its self-branded ones) have a privacy light to indicate when that camera is active. To thwart those...

Every company launching new gaming hardware faces the same brutal problem: an empty library on day one. Valve solved it years ago with an open-source compatibility layer, and that decision is quietly the most durable competitive advantage in the business.

Godot 4.7 ships production-ready support for Valve's Steam Frame and Android XR, subsampled foveated rendering that finally saves memory, simplified action maps, and a stable Android build environment. The free engine's XR story just got hard to ignore.

The 18Birdies and Arccos apps, now integrated in Meta AI on smart glasses in the US & Canada, can act as your personal AI golf caddy.18Birdies is a popular assistant app for golf. On your phone, they...

Italian carmaker Lamborghini released an Apple Vision Pro app today, offering an immersive look at its latest models inside and out. Here are the details.

Our series Inside XR Design examines specific examples of great XR design. Today we’re looking at the game Synapse and exploring the concept of embodiment and what makes it important to VR games....

What’s the story? XPANCEO and JBD have entered the next phase of their collaboration to build a custom micro-display for future AR-enabled smart contact lenses. Why it matters The work ... continue...

HTC has been attempting a second act as an XR and AI hardware company for a few years now with mixed results. And while the once-dominant smartphone company is still the midst of a protracted revenue...

Dubai-based smart contact lenses startup XPANCEO announced it’s expanding a partnership with China’s JBD to co-develop a new micro-display designed specifically for smart contact lenses. Previously,...

Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades hit its 1.0 release over the weekend, a full decade after entering Early Access. As someone who has watched this game grow the entire time, I need to talk about what it represents.

XPANCEO and JBD have moved to the next phase of co-developing a microLED display small enough to sit inside a smart contact lens. The specs are borderline absurd, and the real story is that they are now focused on manufacturing it.

While Meta sells millions of camera-equipped smart glasses and absorbs the privacy backlash, a startup founded by ex-Apple engineers just raised $150 million at a $1 billion valuation for glasses that deliberately have no camera at all. That is a real signal about where part of this market is going.

Samsung has confirmed July 22 in London for Galaxy Unpacked, and the Galaxy Glasses reveal is the moment Android XR stops being a headset story and becomes a wearable one. Here is what to actually watch for on the SDK side.

Mixed reality's best trick, turning your real room into the game, has always been a solo experience. VirtualGo is building a system that lets remote friends join your scanned space as VR players, and the idea is bigger than the horror game it started in.

It is the Fourth of July, the family is over, and there is a VR headset in the house. Here is how to turn that into the highlight of the gathering, with the games that work when you have one headset and a room full of people who have never tried VR.

The first week of the year's second half brought a cheaper path into AR glasses, a long-awaited app finally arriving on Quest, another Apple spatial departure, and a controversial new subscription. Here is what mattered.

Thales Australia signed an MOU with Operator XR, an ASX-listed VR training startup already in service with more than 100 military and law enforcement agencies. The document is non-binding, but the structure of the deal is exactly what enterprise XR has been waiting for.

Paul Meade, the Apple VP in charge of Vision Pro and the company's smart glasses hardware, is leaving to join OpenAI's device unit. It is another blow to Apple's spatial ambitions and a loud signal about how serious OpenAI is getting about hardware.

After years of clunky workarounds, Discord released an official native app for Meta Quest today, free on the Horizon Store. The headline feature is not voice or video. It is the ability to pin a Discord call in your playspace while you play anything else.

A-Frame 1.8.0 caught up to Three.js r184, retired the Oculus branding, dropped the last of WebVR, and quietly fixed a bug that was blocking WebXR Layers requests. It is a boring changelog, and that is exactly why it matters.

The first half of 2026 is officially in the books, and it was a genuinely strong six months to own a headset. From a PCVR survival masterpiece to two puzzle legends reborn on PSVR2, here are the VR games that earned my time, and yours.