HTC to retail Vive VR headset at $799; pre-orders begin February 29

HTC Vive virtual reality system is to retail at an introductory price of $799, more than the Oculus Rift's $599, as expected.

The five-piece virtual reality kit, comprising a high spec HD visor, two location-sensing cubes, and a pair of controllers, is set for an April launch, with pre-orders opening February 29 at 10am EST (3pm UTC).

Designed and manufactured in partnership with PC gaming giant Valve Corporation ("Dota 2," "Portal," "Half-Life" and the Steam store), the hardware company also unveiled another trick for its piece of premium VR kit.

A Vive Phone Service will allow users to make and take calls, compose text messages, and check up on calendar appointments all while within the Vive's virtual world.

Hardware requirements are more or less on a par with the $599 Oculus Rift: computers powering a Vive will need an Nvidia GTX970 or AMD R9 290 graphics card, and an Intel i5 or AMD FX 8350 CPU chip, but a minimum 4GB of RAM compared to the Rift's 8GB.

HTC is encouraging pre-orders with a "limited time" offer of two additional games, "Job Simulator" and "Fantastic Contraption."

With the Rift starting to ship initial orders of its consumer edition in late March and the Vive now set for an early April bow, attention turns to PlayStation, whose PlayStation VR is also expected to debut this year.

Virtual reality set to transform filmmaking

Chris Milk stepped onto a TED Conference stage and took the audience on an awe-inducing trip into the future of movies. While much of the early attention on virtual reality has focused on use of the immersive technology in video games, Milk and his US startup Vrse are using it to transform storytelling and filmgoing. "We have just started to scratch the surface of the true power of virtual reality," Milk said. "It's not a video game peripheral. It connects humans to other humans in a profound way... I think virtual reality has the potential to actually change the world." He had everyone in the Vancouver audience at TED , which ended Friday, hold Google Cardboard viewers to their eyes for what was billed as the world's collective virtual reality experience. Google Cardboard gear is literally that -- cardboard

Explained: Camera Improvements in the New HTC 10

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Freedom 251: 30,000 Units Sold, Components for Up to 2.5 Million Will Be Imported

Ringing Bells, the makers of the Rs. 251 smartphone - the Freedom 251 - confirmed to Gadgets 360 on Tuesday that it has still only accepted payments for 30,000 units of the phone. It also added that the components for these phones will be imported, and only assembled in India, not made here. Ringing Bells stopped accepting orders on February 19, and claims to have received over 70 million registrations. The company President and Director both repeatedly stated that the price of the phone would be made possible through economies of scale, and making the phone in India to cut out import costs. Economies of scale? However, in a discussion with Gadgets 360 the company revealed that it had only sold 30,000 units of the phone on day one. The company has now confirmed that it has not sent out the payment emails to anyone else who registered - "we were working out details of cash on delivery, which we are announcing now, so we will be sending emails to the first 2.5...

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