💡 Inside XR Weekly Roundup: The Top Seven Stories You Need To Know:

• Mozilla will invest in its Hubs VR chatroom following a restructuring.
• Pre-orders are now open for Nreal’s Light XR glasses, which will debut in South Korea on Aug. 21.
• HTC will shift its focus from consumers to museum and educational uses for the Vive Cosmos Play.
• Tournaments for the upcoming VR Fitness Summit will take place Sept. 3 through 12, with a total prize pool of $25k.
• A Pokémon virtual theme park is now running online through Aug. 31.
• Varjo, a Finnish developer of VR and XR technologies, has raised $54m to develop more hardware and software and accelerate its global expansion
• A Kickstarter campaign has launched for Anouschka, an XR experience that aims to empower Black girls.

VR startup Glostation USA Inc., doing business as Sandbox VR, has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The VR installation company raised money from investors such as Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, and Will Smith before seeing its revenues plummet during the pandemic.

More:

• Sandbox VR offers location-based VR centers for people to come together and try out VR headsets and games in retail spaces.
• The startup has gone from healthy to zero revenue in the pandemic as people stay away from public spaces, Sandbox founder/CEO Steve Zhao told Protocol. Sandbox VR laid off 80% of its staff and is trying to survive, he said.
• Protocol notes that many VR centers and arcade businesses, including Dreamscape, The Void, and Zero Latency, have shuttered during the pandemic and face major challenges to try and stay afloat.

"The Drive" VR film series, which re-enacts a police stop from the perspective of a Black student, his mother, and a police officer, will release to the public at 8 p.m. ET tonight on YouTube. The viewing event includes a 7:30 p.m. ET pre-show and a live Q&A with filmmakers right after the film.

More:

• The three-part series comes from YouMatter Studios, a media production company that aims to empower marginalized voices.
• YouMatter founder Jewel Ifeguni based the series on real-life experiences and the Sandra Bland police stop. The production team began creating the film as students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where they worked with university police officers to capture their viewpoints.
• The crowdfunded movie won awards and recognition at Cincinnati's Indie Film Night, France’s 360 Film Festival, and other festivals. The goal is for viewers to feel empathy for all the characters, Ifeguni said.
• To get the full experience, the team recommends using a VR viewer platform, though it's not necessary.

Related:

• Columbia associate professor Courtney D. Cogburn and her team developed a VR experience that allows users to experience the viewpoints of a Black man who faces racism during three life stages: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

A Japanese airline is selling a virtual flight experience that includes 360-degree journeys through passengers' chosen destinations. First Airlines mimics an actual flight experience with the recreation of a first-class cabin, flight attendants, meals, and immersive tours viewed through VR goggles.

More:

• "Travelers" board through a fake check-in gate and take seats aboard a cabin of a mock-up A310.
• Flight attendants do preflight safety demonstrations and serve meals based on each traveler's destination. (France is smoked salmon and foie gras, Italy is roast pork and tiramisu, etc.)
• Through visual and audio effects, passengers experience a "takeoff" and see clouds pass by virtual windows. Upon "arrival," passengers wear VR headsets to tour sights in their city of choice.
• The cost is $60 for a two-hour experience.

Related:

• South Korean carrier Jin Air plans to launch a VR entertainment service on its international flights by the end of this year.
• The service, a partnership with KT Corp. and Hanjin Information Systems & Telecommunications, would see passengers don VR headsets to watch movies and TV shows.

Apple filed a patent for an in-car VR system to help passengers with motion sickness. The system would project a completely virtual view of the outside environment onto a car's window or through a VR headset. It would add small changes to the real-world view, like speeding up or slowing down external visual cues, to combat motion sickness.

More:

• The patent builds on the work of another VR patent by former NASA engineer Mark Rober, who has since left Apple's special projects group.
• Apple's latest patent, titled "Immersive Virtual Display," describes the VR system for vehicles as having multiple uses. For example, VR users could choose simulated routes that are different from the real route they're taking. The system would compare the curves and turns of each route and try to synchronize them.

Related:

• Apple also filed a patent for a system that would alert VR headset users before they bump into physical objects in their environment.
• Apple Glass wearers could be able to control the future AR glasses with their eyes, according to another new patent application. The AR glasses, which could arrive in 2023 at the earliest, would be controlled by the user's stares, blinks, and other eye movements.

YouTubers Cas and Chary VR ranked their top 10 favorite mods for "Half-Life: Alyx." They explore each mod in an 11-minute YouTube video, available here.

Here are the mods:

1. ‘GoldenEye Alyx 007’, ‘Dam‘ & ‘Facility‘ by Eagle One, Jacob Hertz Da Deer, & Taek
2. ‘Alyx Plays Minecraft’ by Exe
3. ‘Crash Course’ by SadlyItsBradley
4. ‘Mine Break (Chapter 1)’ by SadlyItsBradley
5. ‘Overrun’ by paradoxlol
6. ‘Sandbox’ by КотЭ
7. ‘Glorious Gloves’ by Epic
8. ‘Victory Mine: Map Labs One Room’ by photino1
9. ‘Minigolf’ by MarioWalrus & Kaesar
10. ‘Northern Star Bowling’ by Ice52

QUICK HITS

• Survios' VR zombie game "The Walking Dead Onslaught" is coming to PS VR on Sept. 29.
• Joy Way is seeking participants for a closed beta of its parkour VR experience "Stride," which is coming to Early Access later this month.
• Developer Wolfgang Tschauko successfully reached his Kickstarter goal for co-op game "VR Giants," achieving the first stretch goal of a winter level with ice/snow puzzles.
• The fittest athletes in the world swear by CBD. See what they're using here.*

*This is a sponsored post.

Tweet of the Day: Virtual home Alcove launches on Oculus Quest next Thursday, Aug. 20.