Earlier this month, the FCC issued a new measure aimed at easing some of the burdens on consumers as COVID-19 continues to have an increasingly profound impact on nearly every aspect of life.
Most or all major internet and wireless providers in the U.S. signed up for the pledge, agreeing to take actions like waiving late fees and not terminating service. Now specific plans are starting to emerge from carriers, aimed at helping cash-strapped consumers until this pandemic blows over.
T-Mobile this morning announced the launch of a $15/month Metro plan — at half the cost of its current lowest-price plan. The pricing will be in place for the next 60 days, including unlimited talk and 2GB of data. The company is also tossing in a free eight-inch tablet (with rebate, plus fine print) and will be adjusting other data plans for the next two months.
At the same time, Verizon (TC’s parent company) announced that it will be adding 15GB of 4G data to current consumer and small business plans, in an effort to help customers use their handsets as mobile hotspots as needed. The company will also be taking $20 off select FiOS plans and waving router rental fees for 60 days.
Like the other carriers, AT&T noted in a message to TechCrunch that it will not terminate service over inability to pay. It will also be waiving late fees, along with domestic overcharges for data, voice and text, retroactive to March 13.
Sprint, meanwhile, will provide for 60 days unlimited data to customers with metered plans, starting March 18, along with 20GB of free mobile hotspot data.
Over-the-top live TV streaming service fuboTV announced today it plans to merge with the virtual entertainment technology company, FaceBank Group. The proposed merger would retain the name fuboTV for the combined company, consisting of fuboTV’s direct-to-consumer live TV streaming platform and FaceBank’s technology IP in sports, movies, and live performances.
FaceBank is not a household name, but is a developer of hyper-realistic digital humans — including those of celebrities and consumers — for use in emerging technologies, like VR and AR, as well as in live entertainment, interactive, media, social networking, and A.I.-driven applications,
You may remember the company from its creation the hologram of Michael Jackson as The Billboard Music Awards in 2014, when it was then called Pulse Evolution. It also created a virtual Tupac in 2012, and owns the rights to develop digital representations of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe and others. The company has also worked to create virtual creatures and characters in movies like “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” “Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith,” “Transformers,” “Benjamin Button,” and more, per its website.
According to the proposed merger agreement, the plan is to create a leading digital entertainment company that combines fuboTV with FaceBank’s IP in order to create a content delivery platform for both traditional and “future-form IP.”
That is to say, you’ll be able to stream your live TV and these virtual/digital human performances on one platform, it seems.
FuboTV also says it plans to leverage FaceBank’s IP sharing relationships with leading celebrities and other digital technologies to enhance its sports and entertainment offerings.
“The business combination of FaceBank Group and fuboTV accelerates our ability to build a category-defining company and supports our goal to provide consumers with a technology-driven cable TV replacement service for the whole family,” said fuboTV CEO David Gandler, in a statement. “With our growing businesses in the U.S., and recent beta launches in Canada and Europe, fuboTV is well-positioned to achieve its goal of becoming a world-leading live TV streaming platform for premium sports, news and entertainment content. In the current COVID-19 environment, stay-at-home stocks make perfect sense – we plan to accelerate our timing to uplist to a major exchange as soon as practicable. We look forward to working with John and his team of creative visionaries,” he added.
“As a tech-driven IP company, FaceBank was looking to find the perfect delivery platform for its celebrity and consumer-driven content, with a dynamic user interface that could support the global consumers’ rapidly evolving practices of content consumption,” added FaceBank founders John Textor and Alex Bafer. “David and his team have a clear vision of the future and fuboTV’s technology is second to none among the disruptor class of content delivery – a perfect match for FaceBank Group,” their statement read.
FaceBank is buying FuboTV — or merging, as the legal wording appears to indicate — for preferred stock, the SEC filing reveals. The new shares, dubbed “Series AA Convertible Preferred Stock” will have with 0.8 votes per share, and convert to two shares of common stock. The acquiring entity changed its articles of incorporation to get rid of all prior forms of preferred shares in favor of the new, Series AA shares. It isn’t clear yet how many shares FuboTV shareholders will receive in the deal, but as the total number of Series AA shares created was 35.8 million, we can note that there is a cap.
FaceBank also says it took out a secured revolving line of credit of $100 million, the first $10 million of which will be provided to fuboTV on April 1 or the closing date of the merger, whichever is later.
The merger will allow fuboTV to continue its international expansion, by way of FaceBank Group’s Nexway — an e-commerce and payment platform live in 180 countries, the company says.
FuboTV was founded in 2015, first as a soccer streaming service, then later expanded into more sports and entertainment. It competes with YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, AT&T TV Now, and before its shutdown, PlayStation Vue.
The Boards of Directors of both companies and the major stockholders of fuboTV have approved the transaction, which is anticipated to close during the first quarter of 2020, subject to the satisfaction of certain closing conditions, the companies said.
Amid expectations that early stage funding and valuations will decline due to an economic downturn caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak, young startups like the Brazilian dental company SouSmile, which raised in the time before COVID-19, are feeling grateful for secured runway.
SouSmile is a direct to consumer dental company based in São Paulo. SouSmile has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Global Founders Capital, Kaszek Ventures and Canary, bringing the company’s total funding to $11.4 million. The two-year-old startup sells an invisible aligner and whitening gels through five retail stores in shopping malls across São Paulo and Rio.
SouSmile is a new option for Brazilians hoping to get started on orthodontic work. The process consists of an evaluation by a licensed dentist that includes a panoramic X-ray, 3D scan and a clinical exam. Then, the company approves customers for treatment. SouSmile’s follow-up process includes bimonthly appointments, and costs approximately $1,000, which co-founder Michael Ruah says is 60% cheaper than comparable treatments, and can be paid in installments. Treatment is fast, taking between 3 to 9 months.
SouSmile has a five-person cofounding team. The 100 person startup is made up of 50% licensed dentists.
Ruah anticipates that the coronavirus pandemic will have a negative short term revenue impact for the company, as they anticipate less foot traffic in retail stores over the coming weeks, possibly months. He hopes that since the business is still young, macro indicators won’t have a huge impact on the bottom line in the medium-to-long term. Ruah says that the most important thing is that SouSmile employees and customers are safe and healthy at this point.
Why is Brazil a good market for a D2C dental startup?
With 2 million orthodontic cases per year, highly populous Brazil is one of the largest dental markets globally, yet the penetration of invisible aligners is less than 2% due to prohibitive prices. Ruah compares this to the 40% penetration in the U.S. for adults, citing Invisalign’s numbers. There’s still a dent to be made, as SouSmile says it saw over 10,000 bookings last year.
Ruah also cites a cultural reason as to why Brazil is a smart market for a product like this: Brazilians care a lot about both beauty and their oral health. “Brazilians brush their teeth three times a day. They’ll go out for lunch, they’ll come back to the office and brush their teeth. Everybody has their toothbrush and toothpaste with them all the time,” he explains.
SouSmile’s invisible aligner costs around $1,200. Treatment lasts between 3-9 months.
Branding: Cosmetic vs health
SmileDirectClub raised nearly $440 million at a $3.2 billion valuation before going public in 2019. The teeth-straightening company build its brand by leveraging the celebrity beauty angle with Instagram influencer campaigns that marketed the visual results of its product. While SouSmile hopes to see big numbers like its U.S.-based predecessor, it wants to take more of a healthcare-first approach to its branding, rather than cosmetic.
SouSmile is up against some big challenges. Physical retail costs are expensive. Manufacturing is hard, and the company doesn’t appear to be particularly tech-enabled, relying mainly on physical retail presence for customer acquisition.
SouSmile isn’t the only Latin American startup working on an anti-braces dental solution, either. Moons, a Mexican invisible aligner startup that just launched out of Y Combinator, may have a head start. Moons delivers a similar product as SouSmile for around the same cost, and is also using 3D printing to manufacture its aligners. Moons is targeting the Latin America market with $5 million in funding and the Y Combinator stamp of approval. Moons has already opened 18 locations across Mexico and Colombia.
But Brazillian tech can operate like a separate ecosystem apart from adjacent Spanish-speaking Latin America due to country regulations, language barriers and shipping complications. Consumer startups that can deliver products that improve the daily lives of Brazil’s massive middle class are the ones that succeed, and SouSmile now has the capital to shoot its shot.
If you heard the collective grieving shriek of a thousand Instagram influencers, YouTubers, and their followers, it’s because VidCon has been canceled.
It’s the latest mega-event to fall prey to the social distancing measures put in place to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
In a statement, the conference organizers said:
VidCon is dedicated to delivering premium entertainment experiences across the globe. Our first priority is the safety and health of our attendees, sponsors, speakers, creators, and staff. Due to the continued uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 and the precautions being taken by authorities worldwide to manage this pandemic, we have come to the difficult decision to cancel the 11th annual VidCon in Anaheim this June. All tickets and pre-ordered merch that have been purchased for the June 17 – 20, 2020 event will be refunded in full by April 15, 2020. This will include all fees for previously canceled tickets.
VidCon is one of the most important events for the massive entertainment industry that’s grown up around the streaming platforms. Those platforms — specifically YouTube and Instagram — raked in a bit over $35 billion in spending in 2019, or roughly half of the ad haul that television advertising pulled in for the same year.
More than just a chance for entertainers to promote themselves and their products, the event is a critical window into where social media is heading.
In its own way, the event is as important to the streaming community as upfronts are to traditional media, or newfronts are to online media.
The (entirely appropriate) response to the COVID-19 outbreak is one that’s been echoed in industries as disparate as entertainment, technology, and auto manufacturing. Most of the big auto shows have been canceled this year, along with the major developer events from Alphabet subsidiary Google and Facebook. Other events are going remote or turning to virtual only — like Apple’s big developer and product event later this year.
Working from home is having a moment amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but some startups are having an easier time of it than others.
Collage, an e-commerce site for custom gifts, has been all-remote since its inception; co-founders and co-CEOs Joe Golden and Kevin Borders started the company while Golden lived in Seattle and Borders was in Washington, D.C.
“Our team was remote from the start and we quickly realized we could make remote work work and turn it into an advantage for us,” Golden tells TechCrunch.
Those advantages touch many aspects of the business, from hiring the best people — no matter where they’re located — to saving money on office space. As with all things, there are disadvantages and challenges along the way. But Collage has found a way to make it work for them.
“You have to be more deliberate with your communication than you do in an office setting,” Golden says. “But over time we’ve realized that this makes us a stronger company regardless. Lots of the processes we’ve developed to make remote work work, such as clearly explaining our thinking and assumptions in writing, and clearly documenting all of our business practices, would likely improve many companies, but they are critical for remote organizations.”
Microsoft says attackers are exploiting a previously undisclosed security vulnerability found in all supported versions of Windows, including Windows 10.
But the software giant said there is currently no patch for the vulnerability.
The security flaw, which Microsoft deems “critical” — its highest severity rating — is found in how Windows handles and renders fonts, according to the advisory posted Monday. The bug can be exploited by tricking a victim into opening a malicious document. Once the document is opened — or viewed in Windows Preview — an attacker can remotely run malware, such as ransomware, on a vulnerable device.
The advisory said that Microsoft was aware of hackers launching “limited, targeted attacks,” but did not say who was launching the attacks or at what scale.
Microsoft said it was working on a fix but that the advisory should serve as a warning until a patch is released. In the meantime, the advisory offered a temporary workaround for affected Windows users to mitigate the flaw until a fix is available.
The software giant typically releases its security fixes on the second Tuesday of each month, but occasionally issues out-of-band patches in severe cases.
A spokesperson for Microsoft did not immediately comment on the timing of a patch.
In an interview with USA Today, International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound confirmed suggestions that the 2020 Summer Olympic Games will be delayed. The IOC committee veteran didn’t lay out specifics, but suggested that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic could delay the games until 2021.
“We will postpone this and begin to deal with all the ramifications of moving this, which are immense,” Pound told the paper, adding that specific decisions would “come in stages.” Details on the decision (along with official confirmation) are likely to emerge at some point in the next month. “The parameters going forward have not been determined,” he added, “but the games are not going to start on July 24, that much I know.”
The news comes after both Canada and Australia noted over the weekend that they would not be sending athletes to the games this year. Earlier today, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe suggested that the events could be delayed, while adding that canceling them outright was “not an option.” In addition to prestige, the games are a source of major economic windfall for the host country.
A spokesperson for the IOC only went so far as re-confirming its earlier statement that it will be exploring all options. While it’s impossible to know precisely what the COVID-19 situation will look like come summer, the impact of the virus has had such a profound impact on every aspect of life, it has seemed increasingly unlikely that the Olympics would be able to proceed as scheduled.
There are some hard limits to the vaccine development process that mean we are not going to see any preventative immune therapies to fight the new coronavirus for at least a year to 18 months. But Moderna, which is behind the first potential vaccine to enter human clinical trials in the U.S., provided new info on Monday that indicates it will seek to provide access to the vaccine by as early as this fall, to a limited group likely consisting of healthcare workers.
The company will look at possibly doing so under an emergency use authorization from eh Food and Drug Administration, which is similar to how certain testing procedures are being granted approval for use now, bypassing the typical process under which such diagnostic tools are given the go-ahead. Moderna’s solution which was developed in partnership with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is already the fastest potential vaccine to enter the human clinical trial phase.
Their proposed vaccine makes use of messenger RNA, rather than relying on either a small or inactive sample of the COVID-19 virus itself – the source of most existing effective vaccines. The mRNA method means that there is no actual virus introduced to subjects who receive it, which in turn means that they are not at risk of actually contracting the virus form the vaccine itself, which can be an issue in the testing and development phase of any traditional virus-based immune therapy.
Last Monday, Moderna began providing the vaccine to volunteer participants in the first phase of its human clinical trial in Washington state. Despite the speed with which it entered human testing, and the unconventional bypass of the animal testing phase, commercial availability is still at least a year away. But select, limited use for healthcare professionals at an accelerated timetable could help provide additional protection for frontline workers who are risking greater exposure to curtail the pandemic’s spread – provided Moderna’s vaccine is effective, and proves safe in its current human testing.
Moderna’s solution works by convincing the body to generate proteins that resemble the virus but that are harmless, and provoke antibodies that is effective both in fighting off the protein and the actual virus itself. There are other RNA-based vaccines in development, as well as other types of immune treatments, but only Moderna’s has reached the clinical trial phase thus far. The Boston-based company has been working on mRNA-based treatments for cancer cells, and went public in December 2018.
The European Parliament will temporarily allow electronic voting by email as MEPs are forced to work remotely during the coronavirus crisis.
A spokeswoman for the parliament confirmed today that an “alternative electronic voting procedure” has been agree for the plenary session that will take place on March 26.
“This voting procedure is temporary and valid until 31 July,” she added.
Earlier this month the parliament moved the majority of its staff to teleworking. MEPs have since switch to full remote work as confirmed cases of COVID-19 have continued to step up across Europe. Though how to handle voting remotely has generated some debate in and of itself.
Working in Brussels, without being in Brussels. European Parliament goes digital for #IMCO coordinators, @RenewEurope presidency & #EPbureau meetings. Next week voting remotely. Stay and work safe! pic.twitter.com/0weG9O7vow
“Based on public health grounds, the President decided to have a temporary derogation to enable the vote to take place by an alternative electronic voting procedure, with adequate safeguards to ensure that Members’ votes are individual, personal and free, in line with the provisions of the Electoral act and the Members’ Statute,” the EU parliament spokeswoman said today, when we asked for the latest on its process for voting during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The current precautionary measures adopted by the European Parliament to contain the spread of COVID-19 don’t affect legislative priorities. Core activities are reduced, but maintained precisely to ensure legislative, budgetary, scrutiny functions,” she added.
The spokeswoman confirmed votes will take place via email — explaining the process as follows: “Members would receive electronically, via email to their official email address, a ballot form, which would be returned, completed, from their email address to the relevant Parliament’s functional mailbox.”
“The results of all votes conducted under this temporary derogation would be recorded in the minutes of the sitting concerned,” she further noted.
Last week, ahead of the parliament confirming the alternative voting process, German Pirate Party MEP, Patrick Breyer, raised concerns about the security of e-voting — arguing that what was then just a proposal for MEPs to fill and sign a voting list, scan it and send it via email to the administration risked votes being vulnerable to manipulation and hacking.
“Such a manipulation-prone procedure risks undermining public trust in the integrity of Parliament votes that can have serious consequences,” he wrote. “The procedure comes with a risk of manipulation by hackers. Usually MEPs can send emails using several devices, and their staff can access their mailbox, too. Also it is easy to come by a MEP’s signature and scan it… This procedure also comes with the risk that personally elected and highly paid MEPs could knowingly allow others to vote on their behalf.”
“eVoting via the public Internet is inherently unsafe and prone to hacking, thus risks to erode public trust in European democracy,” he added. “I am sure powerful groups such as the Russian intelligence agency have a great interest in manipulating tight votes. eVoting makes manipulation at a large scale possible.”
Breyer suggested a number of alternatives — such as parallel postal voting, to have a paper back-up of MEPs’ e-votes; presence voting in EP offices in Member States (though clearly that would require parliamentarians to risk exposing themselves and others to the virus by traveling to offices in person); and a system such as “Video Ident”, which he noted is already used in Germany, where the MEP face identify in front of a webcam in a live video stream and then show their voting sheets to the camera.
He also suggested MEPs might not notice manipulations even if voting results were published — as looks to be the case with the parliament’s agreed procedure.
It’s not clear whether the parliament is applying a further back-up step — such as requiring a paper ballot to be mailed in parallel to an email vote. The parliament spokeswoman declined to comment in any detail when we asked. “All measures have been put in place to ensure the vote runs smoothly,” she said, adding: “We never comment on security measures.”
Reached for his response, Breyer told us: “My concerns definitely stand.”
However security expert J. Alex Halderman, a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan — who testified before the US Senate hearing into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Election — said e-voting where the results are public is relatively low risk provided MEPs check their votes have been recorded properly.
“Voting isn’t such a hard problem when it’s not a secret ballot, and I take it that how each MEP votes is normally public. As long as that’s the case, I don’t think this is a major security issue,” he told TechCrunch. “MEPs should be encouraged to check that their votes are correctly recorded in the minutes and to raise alarms if there’s any discrepancy, but that’s probably enough of a safeguard during these challenging times.”
“All of this is in stark contrast to election for public office, which are conducted with a secret ballot and in which there’s normally no possibility for voters to verify that their votes are correctly recorded,” he added.
NationBuilder probe closed
In further news related to the EU parliament the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) announced today that it’s closed an investigation into the former’s user of the US-based political campaign group, NationBuilder last year.
Back in November the EU’s lead data regulator revealed it had issued its first ever sanction of an EU institution by taking enforcement action over the parliament’s contract with NationBuilder for a public engagement campaign to promote voting in the spring election.
During the campaign the website collected personal data from more than 329,000 people, which was processed on behalf of the Parliament by NationBuilder. The EDPS found the parliament had contravened regulations governing how EU institutions can use personal data related to the selection and approval of sub-processors used by NationBuilder.
The contract has been described as coming to “a natural end” in July 2019, and the EDPS said today that all data collected has been transferred to the European Parliament’s servers’.
No further sanctions have been implemented, though the regulator said it will continue to monitor the parliament’s activities closely.
“Data protection plays a fundamental role in ensuring electoral integrity and must therefore be treated as a priority in the planning of any election campaign,” said EDPS, Wojciech Wiewiórowski, in a statement today. “With this in mind, the EDPS will continue to monitor the Parliament’s activities closely, in particular those relating to the 2024 EU parliamentary elections. Nevertheless, I am confident that the improved cooperation and understanding that now exists between the EDPS and the Parliament will help the Parliament to learn from its mistakes and make more informed decisions on data protection in the future, ensuring that the interests of all those living in the EU are adequately protected when their personal data is processed.”
At the time of writing the parliament had not responded to a request for comment.
If you weren’t playing games when Half-Life came out, it’s hard to drive home just how shocking a departure it was from what had come before. Though some familiar mechanics served as a base to build off of, the injection of elaborate scripted sequences that put you into the action, mature humor and genuinely engaging set-piece driven plot put Half-Life into its own special section of the stratosphere.
It’s not often that you can say that a product changes everything in its category from that moment on. Half-Life did that.
And then when Half-Life 2 debuted, it did it again with its method of delivery, incredible building tools and yes, inventive-as-hell gameplay.
Half-Life: Alyx does that again for VR, making such a direct impact that this will be a demarcation line forever in the way we craft immersive virtual experiences.
Alyx begins in the period of time between Half-Life and Half-Life 2, taking place mostly just before the action in the latter. The world is familiar, as are most of the cast of characters (along with some bespoke new additions). Given their high-fidelity look and carefully stepped variety, even newbies to the Half-Life universe should be kept entertained as they encounter new threats.
Those of you returning will find a large part of the new experience in inhabiting the same virtually physical space as headcrabs, barnacles and combine forces. Let me tell you, seeing the underbelly mouth of a ‘crab flying towards your face in VR versus on your monitor definitely hits different.
That sense of presence that is so pivotal to VR is something Valve leaned into hard with Alyx. You are rewarded for treating environments and encounters as a place to pretend to be rather than progressing through. There are a variety of tricks that Alyx uses to make you comfortable existing in this world, not the least of which is the presence of a voice in your ear in the form of an engineer named Russell.
Played hilariously by Rhys Darby, Russell’s voice serves to mitigate issues that many VR aficionados may recognize. One of VR’s primary powers is that of embodiment — making the experience of being there so convincing that you generate real memories of presence. Along with that, though, comes isolation. Long VR sessions can make you feel cut off from reality, and horror experiences, especially, can become overwhelming. Having Russell there offering humanity and humor to punctuate the darkness of this supremely dystopian environment is a fantastic choice. You’re a solo operator, but you’re not alone.
The environmental intensity of Alyx is well paced, too. An intermix of heart pounding horror with moments of harsh beauty and humor can often be a difficult cocktail.
“There’s a lot of different things that we give you the opportunity to do that give, I would argue, different types of players, different things to go deep on,” says Half-Life:Alyx character animator Christine Phelan. “With intentionality, we definitely spent a bunch of time trying to figure out what is that line?”
Phelan notes that when there are horror elements, VR is well known to be an intense experience, and modulating that was key to not alienating players. Rather than a relentless onslaught, you are brought up and down.
I checked my Apple Watch heart rate data over the past week that I’ve been playing Alyx and, sure enough, there were the spikes in rate during my play sessions to prove the impact of those choices. Some of the more intense segments play like the best horror action movies you’ve seen — Aliens comes to mind, as well as more recent fare like A Quiet Place.
Keeping you engaged in that environment, of course, means that control schemes are incredibly critical. Valve’s choices on Alyx reflect a desire to make sure that the widest array of people can experience the game. They offer all of the accepted travel modes including teleporting, a continuous travel mode like walking and my favorite, shift — a sort of zooming snap that keeps a sense of context to your movement.
Personally, I am unable to walk continuously in VR without wanting to toss my cookies, and Alyx is no different here. In fact, the game takes a lot of pains to make sure it moves the character involuntarily as little as possible, even offering a ‘toggle barnacle lift’ setting to avoid the motion sickness some people may feel being virtually hoisted in the air. A wise choice as there’s a lot going on in Alyx already, with some encounters forcing you to move rapidly through the environment to combat enemies or solve puzzles.
The sheer accessibility of Alyx’s options speaks to the desire by the team to make sure it accommodated as many people as possible. Standing, seated, either hand, choice of dominant eye, room-scale or not — if there’s a way to play a VR game, Valve has you covered.
One of the biggest effective bits is the presence of Alyx’s hands in the game world. Because most people interact with the world via their hands (though not all), Phelan notes that you get a lot ‘for free’ when you make those the primary interaction method. People already know what to expect when they do things with their hands and at that point your job just becomes to make them act exactly as you’d expect in as many situations as possible.
And they do. Your hands realistically grasp, tap, push and poke the environment (and there is a lot of environment with the most interactive objects I’ve ever seen in a VR game).
The hands even adapt to the contours of things, curving or turning corners as you slide them across objects. The fingers are used to tell you that you really can’t interact with this, but you can feel it — this is not an action point for you. But then, when there is an action point, the hand naturally curves around something, and you get the message “Oh, yeah, I can grab this.”
A lot has been said about the Knuckles controllers that come with the Valve Index headset, and they’re great. But the marquee feature for me is the soft hand strap that keeps them attached to you. This frees you up to make grabbing and grasping motions with your whole hand, as you would normally.
I have the Vive controllers, the Oculus controllers, and the Knuckles. Certainly, the Knuckles, with the individual finger control, absolutely locks it in, I think, for people on the hand interaction. If every company doesn’t dupe the work that Valve has done with these, they’re dumb.
“I think the Knuckles and the Index broadly is essentially Valve’s attempt to say, “This is pointing towards a heightened VR experience. This is what we think of as a really great direction for this hardware to go,” says Valve’s Chris Remo, who also added that they did a lot of work to make sure all the compatible VR hardware turned out a great play experience. “It was obviously pretty important that this wasn’t a Valve Index game. It’s a VR game. We genuinely tried our best to support those features, [including] all the finger tracking the Index does on the Knuckles controllers and everything else.”
A lot of the work on interactions mirrors what other creatives have done in VR, but polishes it up a level. And a lot of that work is hidden unless you look very hard for it. Doors open in the direction of your hand’s travel, for instance. Magically outwardly opening doors that open inward is a perfect affordance. Most people will never notice. The people that care will, and that’s fine, but most people will just have a better time of going through this way versus that way without fussing too much.
The gravity gloves shown off prominently in the gameplay trailers are another such affordance. They neatly avoid the VR problem of people constantly inching out or down and ramming into things outside of their play area while trying to grab objects on the ground or inside containers. They also give the player the ability to quickly utilize the environment to fend off enemies or distract them with a speed and agility that you’d never be able to realize otherwise.
Call it fate or design that Half-Life 2’s gravity gun offered the perfect in-world explanation, but it works incredibly here. Grabbing a gas mask off the ground and attaching it to your face, fending off a headcrab with a trash can lid, throwing a brick to stagger a zombie, it’s all possible with the Russells.
“You can move through a space just as quickly physically, but people do end up taking longer, because you’re naturally invited to do so,” says Remo. “You can look around something in a physical way that just, there’s no equivalent to that in a non VR game. It also meant that you can get up close to props in a way that isn’t really possible or feasible as much in a non VR game, which meant that all that stuff has to actually hold up and be worthwhile.”
I can vouch for the time put in. At one point I grabbed a random half-crushed water bottle laying in a corner and looked inside the mouth to find the interior dimples of the bottom lovingly rendered. One person’s trash, etc.
There’s so many other things that I could talk about here. The use of spatial audio anchored in what seem to be gaussian spheres that attach sound and (incredible) music to environments, with nested encounter scores inside. The dynamic loot system that keeps the balance of the resources you have available to you tuned so that the game remains fun. The encounters that take those early scripted scenes in Half-Life and plus them to create a symphony that taxes and rewards the player for creative and thoughtful gameplay.
It’s not so much that Valve has executed One Weird Trick for making VR good. Many of these major ideas has been tried by one team or another over the past few years. But the execution has never been more precise and thoughtful. One after another the good choices keep coming — and the whole adds up to something truly special and bar-setting.
Inventive, clever and completely engaging, Half-Life: Alyx is the first masterwork of VR gaming.
But that could actually be understating its eventual impact on VR, if that’s possible. Though the template for what a truly A-list title looks like has now been truly sketched, it has always been Valve’s willingness to share its tools that has made the most impact on the gaming scene at large.
That’s why I’m looking forward to an eventual SDK. Hammer 2 is easily one of the best game building tools ever created. Valve is already going to ship Source 2 tools for building new VR levels in Alyx, but as fans of history will remember, the level building scene really took off once the deeper tools to craft a game became available. The ripple effect on the industry will be felt long after people have dissected every sliver of what makes this game so fun. You can trace a major portion of the $1B e-sports industry directly back to mods enabled by Valve being generous with their internal tools.
Imagine what that kind of impact looks like for VR, a field that has been experimenting like mad but has no real coda of best practices for building. It could be massive and though members of the team have said that they’re not currently planning to release an SDK, my hopes are high.
