HTC VIVE Debuts New Viverse Experience at Mobile World Congress

From the beginning, at HTC, our VIVE Reality vision has been to merge technology with humanity to unleash the imagination. We recognized, even then, that VIVE Reality would herald new ways of working and living.  

Our vision is a world where technology fades to the background and experiences come to the forefront. Where we can push the boundaries of our creativity, collaborate, play, learn and dream. We call this VIVERSE, which is our world within the metaverse; an immersive, boundless universe of fantastic new experiences, and a seamless gateway to other universes in collaboration with our partners from the time you wake up in the morning until the time you go to sleep at night. 

Viverse is about how we empower creativity, collaboration, connection, share experiences and more.  VIVE is our brand, which means ‘life’, and Verse represents the chapters of life. So, VIVERSE enables us to create many great memories, and encourages us to truly cherish our lives. 

HTC VIVE debuted a live demo of its latest additions to VIVERSE, that connects people from all walks of life to new worlds and experiences, at Mobile World Congress 2022. 

Attendees entered Viverse via a browser using multitude of devices such as tablets, PCs, smartphones, and using the VIVE Flow, HTC VIVE’s new immersive glasses. We showed just how easy it is to dive into new worlds and experiences as part of everyday life, across a wide range of devices. We also showed how people can seamlessly move between different venues in VIVE Sync and Engage. The latest Viverse demos illustrated how easy it is to travel between different worlds while maintaining identity, security, and privacy.  

“VIVERSE is the next chapter of our VIVE Reality vision. VIVE is our brand and means ‘life’, and Verse refers to the chapters of life. Viverse provides seamless experiences, reachable on any device, anywhere, and is enabled by the virtual and augmented reality, high-speed connectivity, AI, and blockchain technologies that HTC has invested in for several years. We invite partners to join us on his fantastic journey to the internet of presence.” said Cher Wang, Co-Founder and Chairwoman at HTC. 

Viverse is an open ecosystem to create new memories, and enjoy new experiences. HTC works with hundreds of partners and developers to make it an open ecosystem, including:  

• Beatday, the world’s first interactive holographic music platform across PC, VR and mobile devices  
• Engage, a virtual communication platform that provides immersive, collaborative environments for live events, meetings, and trainings 
• VRChat, a collection of social VR experiences to interact with friends, create lasting relationships and build community 
• VIVE Sync, the all-in-one meeting and collaboration solution for VR 
• Museum of Other Realities, a growing collection of interactive art and experimentation to connect, share, and experience virtual reality art with others. 

Viverse also has features that make it easier to personalize and manage your experience.  

Enter Viverse through VIVE Connect, the cross-platform space that allows you to enter other worlds, apps, games, content and more in Viverse. We believe the metaverse should be open and that people should be able to move freely between worlds. We’ve built Viverse around open standards like WebXR to ensure there’s interoperability. And you can surf the web in XR using VIVE Browser, the first XR browser to support Web3 login, WebXR and WebAssembly, and it’s compatible with many XR devices.  

VIVE Flow is the first VR device to support a cryptowallet, and you can store and manage NFT and digital assets securely using WalletConnect. Open the Viverse companion app on your smartphone and use your walletconnect login to access all of your assets to customize your avatar and digital spaces in Viverse.  

VIVE Guardian 

As the metaverse continues to expand, it’s important that the XR industry looks at ways to keep people safe. To secure the young people’s privacy and security in the metaverse, we introduced Vive Guardian, parental controls to help protect children from inappropriate behaviors and contents in the virtual world. 

There are two modes – Free Mode, and Broadcast. In Free Mode, parents can grant access to specific apps or pieces of content and then the user is free to explore within those apps. In Broadcast mode, a single experience – app or piece of content – is launched from the parent’s companion app and broadcast to the headset, so it’s easy for the kids to be watching a TV show or film on VIVE Flow, streamed directly from an Android tablet or smartphone.*  

And adults can remotely see what content is being used on the child’s VR device, through the parent’s companion app on their  Android smartphone – built using similar technology to our VIVE Business Training app. Children also must request permission to make purchases, download new content and more so there is greater transparency for kids and parents.   

No matter what age your children are, they shouldn’t be using VR without parental guidance. VIVE Guardian is designed to keep parents and children safe. It is important for parents and children to discuss the privacy and security risks that come with using any VR device. 

To enable VIVE Guardian on VIVE Focus, Focus Plus or VIVE FLOW, simply go to the Google Play store and Viveport to download the VIVE Guardian companion app for your Android device and headset, follow the prompts and VIVE Guardian will be automatically connected. 

HTC also plans to launch VIVE Create, a browser-based, code-free VR content creation platform that makes it easy to create customized VR content for families, as well as educational and training purposes. 

Access Viverse today worldwide on Android tablets and smartphones, and select VIVE headsets. Simply go to viverse.com to get started. 

Learn more about our announcements at Mobile World Congress next week. 

*Available on Android 6.0 Marshmallow or higher.