1. South African heritage site Liliesleaf has released “Walking in Mandela’s Footsteps,” which takes Oculus Go users on an interactive VR story about Nelson Mandela’s life. “It is our best hope that this experience gives users the chance to better understand the foundations of Nelson Mandela’s life and the struggle for liberation he undertook,” Liliesleaf said. The experience is out now on Oculus Go for $1.99—according to VRScout, “a portion of the proceeds will go directly to Liliesleaf in support of their efforts to immortalize the work of both Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress in spreading peace, justice and equality.” — VRSCOUT

2. Hark, is that the death knell of VR I hear? Eh, who knows, though Digital Trends seems to think so: “...consumers are done with VR. Sales numbers, as tracked by Amazon sales rank data at Thinknum, make that crystal clear.” Added to yesterday’s story, let’s call that flag a faded “coral” red. — DIGITAL TRENDS

3. Amazon has rolled out a new “Part Finder” feature that allows users to point their smartphone camera at an item so Amazon can scan, match, and direct the user to purchase the item from the company’s website. According to TechCrunch, the feature is able to identify “over 100 types of fasteners, which represents thousands, if not millions of parts.” Amazon didn’t announce the launch of the feature, but confirmed to TechCrunch that it had been rolled out to all users a couple weeks ago. — TECHCRUNCH

1. Market intelligence company SuperData reports sales of VR devices have declined since the same time last year, despite high sales of the standalone headset Oculus Go. “Oculus Go is part of an important movement for [extended reality],” said SuperData Research. “Facebook sold more units of the standalone headset in its launch quarter than they did the Oculus Rift in the entire first half of 2017. Its price and convenience are proving to be selling points, but it will be up to them to create compelling content that keeps users engaged over and over again.” Things aren’t too bright for PSVR, with  From Software’s “Déraciné” as the only AAA VR content shown at Sony’s E3 press conference this year (as excited as some of us are about the maker of Dark Souls' first VR outing). — VARIETY

2. Unreal Engine, upon which more and more VR (and non-VR) experiences are based, officially launched its 4.20 update today. The update brings “native mixed reality videocompositing for VR applications (broadly: mixing live video with the virtual world) and an update to a much newer Oculus SDK,” according to Road to VR. The update also adds support for Apple’s ARKit 2.0, Google’s ARCore 1.2 and Magic Leap support. — ROAD TO VR

4. Maya Georgieva writes for EdSurge today about the education possibilities with mixed reality like Magic Leap. “The initial release of Magic Leap One will be a luxury item for many education institutions with little accommodation for people with disabilities or digital equity. Yet in the future, immersive technologies may hold a greater potential to solve these issues compared to our current technology tools,” she writes. “...as Moore’s law drives the technology’s power up and prices down, expect the fidelity and interactivity of these experiences to only get better in the next three years. It is likely that we will see mixed reality glasses at a variety of price points that will eventually replace our phones, screens and desktops.” — EDSURGE

5. Y Combinator graduate Jido Maps is creating what it calls a “save button” for persistent AR spaces. As TechCrunch puts it, “if you are holding a digital banana and you put that on the table, Jido may enable that to remain in that space when you return at a later date or time. That process of relocalizing a device and helping it remember its former position is at the core of this technology.” Jido is hoping to entice developers and studios with its lightweight API and simple multiplayer process. — TECHCRUNCH

6. AR/VR company Humaneyes Technologies has announced its new $400 Vuze XR camera that captures both 2D 360-degree and 3D VR180 videos and photos. The camera also contains livestreaming capability, allowing a user to share to social media in real time. “One camera can now livestream in 360° from a concert, take immersive VR180 pictures of the band, and record your friends singing along to edit and share the full experience later,” said Humaneyes CEO Shahar Bin-Nun. “We’re giving users the freedom to spontaneously shoot content from all angles, or only a few, and we can’t wait to see what’s created with it.” The camera ships later this year. — VENTUREBEAT

7. Medgadget spoke with the Johnson & Johnson Institute about the company’s new VR training program, which is designed to “prepare orthopedic surgeons and nurses for a couple common procedures.” “With VR, surgeons, nurses and residents can practice at their own pace and as often as they want until they master a procedure. This is especially critical for residents, given the few training hours they typically have because of their heavy workloads and work hour restrictions,” said David Badri, Virtual Reality and WW Professional Education at Johnson & Johnson. — MEDGADGET

8. Do click through to see the impressive video...

"Amazon’s Jack Ryan VR Park Takes Over Comic-Con via @Jonathan360 @PrimeVideo #SDCC" - @VRScout

9. "Creepy" and "campy" caught my attention...

"Delusion: Lies Within mixes movies and immersive theater to create a creepy, campy VR adventure" - @verge

10. Any space geeks subscribed?

"Explore the entire #Apollo11 Command Module in 3-D, interior and exterior! http://s.si.edu/2a0r4Mh  #ar #ve #Apollo11Landing #space #nasa #FlashbackFriday"

3. The “David Bowie Is” exhibit will be available as a VR experience sometime this year, according to VRScout. The exhibit comes to VR thanks to a collaboration between Sony Music, the David Bowie Archive, Planeta, and London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. The experience will reportedly release for all platforms, though more specifics about the experience are as of yet being kept close to the vest, in true David Bowie fashion. — VRSCOUT

4. Samsung has developed a “four-dimensional virtual reality experience to simulate a moon-like environment” to celebrate Apollo 11’s 50th anniversary. The system uses a Gear VR headset, a Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, and a rig similar to NASA’s Active Response Gravity Offload System that allows astronauts to train while experiencing low-gravity environments. According to Samsung, this experience is partly about “reigniting” public discussion around space exploration, but also because the moon is expected to play an integral part in future Mars missions: “...this is an opportunity to excite the astronauts of tomorrow around the mission. For us, on the one hand it was democratizing an experience that only 12 men have done before, and we think that should be something for everybody...But it’s also a way of exciting youth and adults alike in science and math and engineering, and of course, technology.” — DIGITAL TRENDS

5. ZDNet recently pulled together the 11 most promising upcoming AR trends the site believes will redefine technology. These include education apps that allow students to explore 3D models of objects on a table, for instance. Home buying, heads-up displays, AR mirrors and more all round out the list. — ZDNET

6. Aspyr Media, known for porting PC gaming franchises to Mac platforms, will release VR sci-fi puzzler “Torn” next month on PSVR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Road to VR compares “Torn” to Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone in the experience’s puzzle-filled, experimental dimension-hopping gameplay. As always, check out the trailer for a better idea of what to expect. — ROAD TO VR

7. Haven’t heard from George Takei lately, though it looks like that may have been because he’s been busy with “House of Cats.” VentureBeat asked Takei why he thought an AR, Trump-faced talking cat was an effective way to criticize the president: “Throughout history, mockery, satire, and lampoons have been a powerful weapon to not only criticize but, in some cases, bring down powerful people...That’s what we are going to be doing — using his words in the mouth of Trumpy Cat to show how ridiculous he is. We are going to lampoon him out of office.” The app is available for iOS and Android for $0.99, and 1 percent of net profits will be donated to Refugees International. — VENTUREBEAT

8. New horizons...

"Joshua is a paraplegic but through VR is experiencing the joys of walking https://buff.ly/2L6LQOa  #VR #VirtualReality #AugmentedReality #MixedReality #DisabilitySummit #Disability #disabilities #DisabilityRights #computer_science #COMPUTERENGINEERING #technology #tech" - @TheMuseStand

9. Hands-on impressions forthcoming...

"Justin Roiland's 'Dr. Splorchy' to Release on Daydream Next Week, Launch Trailer Here http://ow.ly/VTwH30l1Ttd  @squanchgames @JustinRoiland" - @RtoVR