The SVVR Meetup in Mountain View, CA is getting an early gift this year: Oculus is bringing their latest ‘Crescent Bay’ Rift prototype to the organization’s Holiday Party on December 11th, one of the first opportunities for the public to try the unit. The Holiday Party event also features a lineup of presentations, including the delivery of the first production-ready STEM system which will be given by Sixense to SVVR.
If you live in the Silicon Valley region and haven’t yet attended an SVVR Meetup, there’s never been a better time to do so. The organization has played host to 15 such gatherings to date, and is seen as a model for virtual reality community gatherings around the world. And now, the SVVR Holiday Party event will provide an opportunity to see Oculus’ latest ‘Crescent Bay’ prototype on December 11th. SVVR was also one of the first places that the public could see Sony’s Morpheus VR headset.
Oculus revealed the Crescent Bay prototype at their inaugural ‘Connect’ developer event in September. The unit has an improved display, optics, and ergonomics, as well as 360 degree positional tracking and integrated headphones. Echoed by others who have had a chance to try the new prototype, our own experience with Crescent Bay left us thoroughly impressed.
See Also: First Hands-on – Oculus Rift Crescent Bay is Incredible
“This has been such a special year for our community and for the VR ecosystem as a whole, so SVVR is going big for our final event of 2014,” SVVR founder Karl Krantz told me.
The organization’s Holiday Party event will also feature four presentations, including the handoff of the very first production-ready STEM motion controller unit from creator Sixense to SVVR. STEM has been in development since the company ran a successful crowdfunding campaign last year.
The presentation lineup follow:
Ethereon – Tony Davidson (Innervision)
Ethereon is a highly immersive virtual adventure filled with novel, puzzle-based interactions that are designed to take full advantage of the upcoming VR revolution. Now on Kickstarter.SEEBRIGHT – John Murray (CTO) & Simon Solotko (CMO)
Augmented reality is set to evolve. Coming soon to Kickstarter, Seebright has developed wide field of view display technology for mobile virtual and augmented reality. Seebright is located in Santa Cruz and Palo Alto, California.VR Chat – Jesse Joudrey & Graham Gaylor
Jesse & Graham will be explore some of how users are using VRChat to build the experiences they want, as well as give a preview of what our 2.0 SDK will be able to do when it’s released early next year.Sixense – Amir Rubin
Sixense is very pleased to take the opportunity of SVVR’s 2014 Holiday Party to provide everyone with an update on their production schedule and upcoming release dates, their current status and plans for mobile support, and, most importantly, to commemorate the release of the STEM System by presenting unit #001/100 to SVVR.
A series of virtual reality demos will also be available. If you’ve got something cool to show, SVVR’s Open Demo Policy encourages you to bring it along:
If you have an interesting VR hardware or software project to show off, bring it along for the open demo portion of the event. We provide tables & power. You are welcome to show off your own projects, or to share your favorite demos or applications.
The SVVR Holiday Party event will be held from 6:30 PM to 10 PM on December 11th at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. Tickets cost $10 and refreshments will be served.
SVVR is made possible thanks to Gold Sponsors Seebright, Sixense, AltspaceVR, and Technical Illusions (Cast AR), and Silver Sponsors Looksery, Jaunt VR , and Nimble VR.
