HP has announced a unified approach and commercial solutions for virtual reality (VR), positioning itself as the partner of choice for businesses looking to reduce concept to production cycle times, improve training procedures and deliver fully immersive customer experiences. As part of this strategy, the company is unveiling the world’s first professional wearable VR PC – the new HP Z VR Backpack.
“Virtual reality is changing the way people learn, communicate and create,” said Gwen Coble, director, Workstations, Thin Clients, Retail Solutions and Immersive Computing, EMEA, HP Inc. “Making the most of this technology requires a collaborative relationship between customers and partners. As a leader in technology, HP is uniting powerful commercial VR solutions including new products like the HP Z VR Backpack, with customer needs to empower VR experiences our customers can use today to reinvent the future.”
The opportunities for commercial VR are limitless for businesses in product design, architecture, healthcare, first responder training, automotive and entertainment. Emerging technologies like VR create breakthrough experiences for customers – from reinventing the buying experience in automotive showrooms to changing the way hospitals train their staff.
The HP Z VR Backpack solution provides the freedom to move and maintain total immersion with high-octane visual performance and docking capabilities that transform it into a manageable, powerful desktop PC experience. The HP Z VR Backpack is a catalyst for more powerful VR experiences across many enterprises and businesses including the following use case examples:
- Businesses can use VR to deliver safe and effective simulated training in dangerous environments, in medical training or for heavy/large equipment operations. In all these environments costly mistakes can be avoided with effective VR training solutions using the HP Z VR Backpack.
- In architectural building development, virtual walkthroughs at scale for client reviews can help quickly close the deal.
- In product development where product concepts are reviewed, executive agreement and sign off for new product styling can be done in virtual product showrooms.
- In commercial entertainment, new location-based entertainment centers featuring exhilarating virtual reality experiences can now be realised with the HP Z VR Backpack.
With the workstation-class HP Z VR Backpack, the full potential of VR is brought to-life. HP’s fully immersive and untethered VR Backpack is light with an ergonomic backpack design and hot swappable batteries to provide unrestricted freedom within an immersive experience. It has high-end processing power and the latest high-fidelity graphic solution to help prevent disruptive dropped frames so users can work in VR for as long as needed. The Intel Core i7 vPro processor provides the power to process applications quickly and includes the vPro chipset. The HP Z VR Backpack is the first wearable VR PC in the market with the NVIDIA Quadro P5200 with a huge 16GB video memory. Finally, its docking solution lets digital creators quickly transition back and forth between high powered desktop for content design and wearable VR PC to validate creations. The HTC Vive Business Edition HMD (sold separately) is part of the HP VR portfolio. HP Z VR Backpack is scheduled to be available in EMEA in September starting at €3,000 excluding VAT.
HP also announced HP Mars Home Planet, a project in partnership with NVIDIA, Technicolor, Fusion, Autodesk®, Unreal, Launch Forth and Vive. The collaboration will create a global online co-creation community to reinvent life on Mars for one million humans, in virtual reality.
