Beijing, China / Taipei, Taiwan - December 18, 2015 – HTC today holds its first HTC VIVE UNBOUND Developer Summit in Beijing, China. This event gathers top executives from the world’s leading gaming and virtual reality companies together with several hundred virtual reality (VR) developers, engineers and startup entrepreneurs, with a focus on exploring cutting-edge VR technologies and latest market trends. The conference also features demonstrations of the award-winning HTC Vive system for attendees.
“Virtual reality will transform the way we interact with the world. We see enormous business opportunities arising from this disruptive innovation, and I am very confident that everyone here today will help lead this technology transformation,” said Cher Wang, Chairman and CEO of HTC. “I am very proud that HTC has become a leader in the VR industry in such a short time, and has pushed the technology to the next level through our commitment to design and innovation excellence – HTC Vive’s unique totally immersive experience is widely recognized as the best in the world. Developers around the world are invited to join our growing HTC Vive ecosystem; together, we can drive the new paradigm of Vive Reality.”
HTC Vive has been developed through a strategic partnership with Valve, a global leading game development company. Widely acclaimed as the world’s leading VR system, featuring breakthrough tracking technology, wireless controllers for real-time interaction, and a fully immersive, room-scale experience with 360 degree movement that puts you at the heart of the experience, Vive provides a complete immersive experience. HTC Vive instantly transports users to new worlds, allowing them to explore virtual environments in a compelling new way.
HTC Vive has earned multiple awards around the world, including Popular Science Magazine’s ‘Best of What’s New’ Grand Award, Stuff Magazine’s ‘Innovation of the Year’ Gadget Award, , numerous gaming and consumer electronics event ‘Best in Show’ awards such as at MWC, Gamescom and Paris Games Week, and many other editorial, industry and consumer awards.The HTC Vive Developer Edition isis available forto content developers and ecosystem partners across the world, and the Consumer Edition is set for release in April 2016.
HTC has been working with many partners to extend the Vive experience to broader commercial areas, including entertainment, healthcare, education, exhibitions, real estate, and travel, and there are already several exciting applications in use today, including the neurological surgery simulator from Surgical Theater, which enhances surgery outcomes and reassures patients. Applications that can positively impact people’s everyday lives.
Valve’s game designer Chet Faliszek said, “The most noticeable difference between HTC Vive [and others] is room scale tracking; that means a user’s movement can be tracked from spaces large and small. Inside of that space, you have total freedom of movement. With the two base stations you have full 360 degrees of tracking of both the headset and pair of controllers.”
Eric Darnell, Chief Creative Officer of Baobab Studios Inc. and director of the move ‘Madagascar’, said “Speaking of hardware, the HTC Vive one amazing head set. It’s comfortable to wear. The hand controllers are intuitive. The resolution is fantastic. But perhaps most importantly, it gives you the ability to explore a space -- to move around on a “stage” so to speak.”
AMD and HP provided IT infrastructure support for VIVE UNBOUND. "Virtual reality is the future for immersive gaming experiences and HTC is a leader in delivering VR technology," said Kevin Frost, vice president and general manager, consumer personal systems, HP Inc. "HP is excited to be joining HTC at their VIVE UNBOUND Developer Summit to be at the forefront and delivery of purpose built PCs that offer quality, performance and computing power to enable virtual experiences that amaze." Based on an AMD Radeon graphics card and LiquidVR™ SDK, AMD aims to solve latency from motion to photon problems in the VR development stage. Developers can dramatically reduce latency of rendering to improve the VR immersive experience via AMD’s unique asynchronous compute technique (Async Compute Engine) and LiquidVR™ APIs.
On December 19th and 20th , HTC will set up Vive demo booths at Beijing Weisheng Mansion for the public to experience the most immersive and enjoyable virtual reality platform.
About HTC
HTC Corporation aims to bring brilliance to life. As a global innovator in smart mobile devices and technology, HTC has produced award-winning products and industry firsts since its inception in 1997, including the critically acclaimed HTC One and HTC Desire lines of smartphones. The pursuit of brilliance is at the heart of everything we do, inspiring best-in-class design and game-changing mobile and virtual reality experiences for consumers around the world. HTC is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE: 2498). www.htc.com
About the Popular Science Magazine “Best of What’s New” Award
Every year, Popular Science honors 100 innovations that are brilliant, revolutionary, and bound to shape the future—these are the Best of What’s New. Popular Science categorizes their awards into achievements in Automotive, Aviation & Space, Computing, Engineering, Gadgets, Green Tech, Home Entertainment, Home Tech, Health, Recreation and Security.