1. Samsung’s new Odyssey+ VR headset should be available for purchase later today, boasting double the “user-perceived resolution” of its predecessor. The Odyssey+ achieves this by applying a light diffuser to the grid often visible between pixels in VR headsets (called the “screen door effect”), making the lines “near impossible to see,” according to the company. As VentureBeat points out, this technique potentially improve visual fidelity without increasing GPU load. The headset uses inside-out tracking and uses two 6DOF controllers and is available through Samsung and the Microsoft Store. -- VENTUREBEAT

2. Fraunhofer has unveiled a new prototype headset that uses four OLED microdisplays that give each eye a theoretical maximum resolution of 4,800 x 1,920 pixels at up to 120 Hz. This technique requires a powerful machine, but provide a “seamless view...boasts around a 100-degree horizontal field of view, and 75-degree vertical FOV…[and] is reportedly a quarter of the weight of consumer headsets,” according to Road to VR. Tobias Kammann of German VR site “VRODO” calls the headset “outstandingly sharp: individual pixels are barely recognizable. If you focus on the center of the image, the image impression is clean, detailed and better than, for example, Vive Pro or Oculus Go.” -- ROAD TO VR

1. Telepresence is one of the several promising applications for VR and AR industry folk, but vulnerabilities could stymie that application. Five new vulnerabilities have been found in telepresence robots from Vecna Technologies. These gaps in security allow a hacker to gain full control of the robot, “giving an intruder the capability to alter firmware, steal chat logs, pictures, or even access live video streams,” according to ZDNET. Vecna has reportedly patched two of the five vulnerabilities and its addressing the other three now.  -- ZDNET

2. Vuzix’s Blade Edge AR smart glasses were originally to be released in 2017, but will now ship next month, with the Blade General due in January. The Blade glasses are significant in part because they are “the closest thing yet to a standard pair of sunglasses,” according to VentureBeat. But despite the small form factor, the glasses pair with a smartphone to overlay map directions, weather and patient data, restaurant menus, notifications and more to the right eye field of vision. -- VENTUREBEAT

3. Haptic company Teslasuit has confirmed it will demo its full body haptic suit later this week at the annual VR and AR event VR Days Europe in Amsterdam. The Teslasuit provides haptic feedback, motion capture, heat control and biometric systems for VR and AR, and is aimed more toward the enterprise sector. The company will discuss ways to gamify enterprise training at a summit during this week’s event, turning “monotonous training and education into realistic, engaging activity that motivates trainees and increases the performance of novices and experts alike.” -- VRFOCUS

4. HTC has announced it is working on adding hand and finger tracking to its Vive Pro headset. The company announced these features today at the World Conference on VR Industry in China. According to Road to VR, this new functionality seems to come from the Vive Pro’s front-facing cameras, which enables hand-tracking without the previous need for tracked controllers. HTC said tools for hand- and finger-tracking will be available soon to registered Viveport developers. -- ROAD TO VR

9. 360 video from the American Museum of Natural History: Space Volcanoes - Shelf Life 360

"Here on Earth, volcanic eruptions are dramatic manifestations of our dynamic planet. Elsewhere in our solar system, awe-inspiring extraterrestrial volcanoes—both active and extinct—provide clues to planetary formation and hints of how life may have formed. Join us for a 360° virtual expedition to Mars’s massive shield volcano Olympus Mons, the violent surface of Jupiter’s moon Io, and the icy jets of Saturn’s moon Enceladus." -- YOUTUBE (ht VRFOCUS)

10. Makes sense Sony would be the one...

"Sony Patents New System For Local Multiplayer VR http://bit.ly/2ODSzRa  #VirtualReality #VR #tech" - @formfeur (Great in future technics. Formfeuer is a platform to share future trends with you.)

3. The Weather Channel is back again with another VR/AR-like animation that puts one of their on-air personalities directly into virtual danger. As The Verge puts it, these Weather Channel animation go viral in part because they’re “existentially frightening” in ways that normal newscasts aren’t, since the animation brings the view “inside the danger.” If it convinces Californians to not ignore very real wildfire evacuation warnings, then it’s tech put to good use. -- THE VERGE

4. I’m sure we’ll understand this better eventually, but researchers at Cornell University have found that VR makes cheese taste better. Seriously. One caveat though: the experiment was less about whether VR makes food taste better, and rather whether VR could be used to simulate different environments for food testing at a lower cost than physically relocating the test subject. -- TECHCRUNCH

About 50 panelists who used virtual reality headsets as they ate were given three identical samples of blue cheese. The study participants were virtually placed in a standard sensory booth, a pleasant park bench and the Cornell cow barn to see custom-recorded 360-degree videos. The panelists were unaware that the cheese samples were identical, and rated the pungency of the blue cheese significantly higher in the cow barn setting than in the sensory booth or the virtual park bench.

9. 360 video from National Geographic: Free Solo 360

"Immerse yourself in the experience of free solo climbing Yosemite’s famous El Capitan alongside Alex Honnold in this breathtaking 360 video. ➡ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/NatGeoSubscribe" -- YOUTUBE (ht VRFOCUS)

10. Exciting things happening at JESSDubai, so excited to see what Bambury does next...

"Ok folks I have some pretty big news to share... After 11 years at @JESSDubai, the time has come for me to take the next step in my career and thus I'll be leaving the school at the end of the academic year to move full time into the #VR industry..." - @steve_bambury (ADE, MIEE, Top 100 #VR Influencers 2017, #GESSAwards + #BETTAwards Winner, @edtechdigest Trendsetter 2018, #CPDinVR host, @JESSdigitalUAE@Virtualiteach

1. Steam has launched a new frame smoothing method via its Beta channel that helps VR applications on the platform run at a higher FPS rate. The system is called “Motion Smoothing.” While similar to Oculus’ “Asynchronous Spacewarp (ASW),” it’s different in some important ways, according to Valve’s Alex Vlachos: “We feed the last two frames from the application to the GPU’s video encode chip to generate motion vectors (which are very rough), then [Valve and Oculus each have their own] methods for filtering those vector fields and applying them to the most recent application frame to generate a new frame.” This new method applies to Vive and Vive Pro headsets, which don't have access to Oculus and WMR's methods. -- ROAD TO VR

2. Microsoft has received a patent for a new VR text input system that uses a radial design and predictive text to improve the much bemoaned experience. According to Digital Trends, the new system is similar to the Surface Dial, and is laid out for 10 finger inputs, making it ideal for any controller-based text entry, whether that’s in VR, AR or on a screen. The patent was filed in March, and Digital Trends points out that as a potential software fix, it wouldn’t take much to add this technique to existing devices and platforms. -- DIGITAL TRENDS

3. Ludenso’s $99 AR headset Kickstarter campaign has been fully funded in a day. The “MagiMask” is an evolution of the company’s work on predecessors, according to the company’s founders: “Having spent almost two years developing MagiMask and its tracking system, we are now at the manufacturing stage and to ensure an on-time delivery we using our previous manufacturing partners...We have done all the developmental and technological hard work and are now just getting ready to manufacture.” It seems the market is ready as well. -- VRFOCUS