The BBC has launched a new department that commissions virtual reality experiences called the VR Hub. The network announced the new studio today. The first experience is called Home — A VR Spacewalk and it allows users to take a spacewalk, perform a repair on the International Space Station, and face an emergency situation. Home is based on NASA and European Space Agency training programs and has been shown previously at film festivals. The BBC has experimented before with VR with projects like  We Wait, The Turning Forest, and Trafficked. — TECH RADAR

The Finnish company Varjo Technologies has received more funding and will begin shipping prototypes of its new VR headsets next month. The company announced at Slush 2017 that Tekes, a Finnish business development group, invested $6.7 million. Varjo netted $8.2 million in a Series A funding round in September. The Varjo headsets are intended for the high-end, professional market with a "human eye" resolution and stereo eye-tracking for foveated rendering, which reduces the image quality in the periphery of a user's vision to improve rendering speeds and remove the screen-door effect of VR. — ANANDTECH

The HTC Vive C Accelerator program has invested in 26 new AR/VR startups. The $100 million program has supported several projects since its inception in 2016, and this latest round comes as the program expands into Tel Aviv, its fifth location. The new inductees join the existing 80 companies receiving support, and are based in San Francisco, Shenzhen, Beijing, Taipei, and Tel Aviv. Included in this round is Neurable, a company working on BCI (brain computer interface). — VRSCOUT

The European Union has established an ad metric for VR based on the user's attention. The EUVR is the nonprofit group working to promote virtual and augmented reality technology in Europe, and last week it officially backed the Gaze-At-Ratio (GAR) standardized ad tracking system. The GAR algorithm factors the relative distance, duration, and depth of a user's orientation to a product in an immersive setting, and the system was introduced last month. The GAR metric will be presented at an event in Brussels next month. — VENTUREBEAT

Google's new Daydream Impact project is a philanthropic program to provide nonprofits and advocates with VR resources. The project enables the groups to use VR to help generate an interest in their cause, with an online training course in how to create VR content, and a loaner program for equipment. Several organizations have already piloted the program and created 360-degree videos on YouTube: The Rising Seas Project which documents changes to coastlines, the anti-bullying initiative Harmony Labs, Springbok Cares which provides VR for cancer patients, and the Eastern Congo Initiative to help raise awareness about the struggles of people in the region. — ROADTOVR

The SyFy channel has created an AR app to promote its new show, "Happy!" which premieres Dec. 6. The show is about a cynical hit man who constantly sees a unicorn named Happy, and the app follows the same premise, with the unicorn appearing in the user's actual environment. Happy features the voice of Patton Oswalt and answers questions and does tricks. The app was released on iOS and Android Wednesday. — VARIETY