Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 VR kit needs software to make it shine
When Qualcomm announced its new Snapdragon 845 Mobile VR platform earlier this year, it threw around terms like "6 DoF SLAM" and "foveated rendering" as highlights. While it's easy to understand the benefits of these tracking and graphics improvements in theory, seeing them in practice is what could get you excited about upcoming headsets. At its booth in MWC 2018 , the chip maker had a demo on its reference design headset to showcase some of the changes, which we checked out briefly. Frankly the demo was quite limited. I didn't get to check out foveated rendering, as it wasn't live yet, and it's not like I can tell if the battery life is indeed longer from my five to 10-minute trial. Still, I was able to experience the benefits of SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping), which tracks your body with reference to the room you're in. This not only helps the system better integrate obstacles into the virtual environment, but also provides ...