INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The promises of VR are heavily focused on the idea that users can grow more enveloped in the digital environments they explore, but also
central to the experience is that they become more connected with their virtual representations.
BinaryVR central focus has been on a system
of computer vision face-tracking particularly focused on the mouth that can translate a user facial input to a virtual reality avatar.
The
startup has just closed a $4.5 million Series A with investment fromAtinum Investment, KT Investment, Pearl Abyss and Kakao Ventures
BinaryVR has now raised about $5.8 million to date.
The goal is all around making avatars less creepy and more representative of their
Some existing social VR titles use microphone input to kind of move the mouth open and closed, which is better than not trying at all, but
Another approach lies in inferring emotions based on muscle movement measured in a VR headset face pad, an approach that both Samsung and
MindMaze have experimented with, but the technology only measures certain emotions and is far from a live feed of a user facial
expressions.
BinaryVR vision is going to rely heavily on the rest of the virtual reality market maturing a bit; their work kind of assumes
that headset manufacturers are going to start integrating eye-tracking controls sooner rather than later.
Being a VR peripheral company in
VR platform makers like Facebook, Google and HTC are more focused on making their systems easy to use rather than integrating far-flung
HTC has made some efforts to build integrations with startup producing their own hardware, but for the most part these add-ons have only
proven how difficult it is to market a specialized product that sits beyond the estuary of mainstream VR content.
The company released its
$349 developer kit in early 2017.
BinaryVR has seen some early success with partners looking further down the road
High Fidelity, an SF-based social VR startup, which has raised $72 million, has been working with BinaryVR to let its users go as deep down
the VR rabbit hole as they would like
Everything is still a bit odd-looking because today GPUs can only deliver so much at VR scale, but these are all technologies that will
probably find integrations into headsets at some point — it a question of scaling today market when the benefits aren&t as apparent that
is the company big challenge.
Fortunately, there are obviously more approachable verticals for the company to tackle in the meantime
BinaryVR has been working to bring facial-tracking to smartphones with built-in sensors
Their &HyprFace& tracking tech seems to be pretty capable and the Animoji-like demos they&ve shown off are impressive
There are certainly plenty of players in the consumer mobile space; BinaryVR is also exploring what integrations would be possible inside
vehicles, though the logical use cases perhaps aren&t as readily apparent there.
The Bay Area-based startup certainly has some interesting
challenges as it navigates a space filled with tech giants shifting their weight and creating waves of potential as a result, but as users
aim to drag themselves further into the digital worlds that VR game studios are creating, it becoming clear that new sensors are necessary
