South Park’s episode last week, Grounded Vindaloop, has zeroed in on the beloved Oculus Rift, along with some longstanding fears surrounding virtual reality. The episode, which dives into a meta virtual reality, also pokes fun at outsourced customer service. If you missed the episode, it’s available in full right here.
DODOcase is probably known by most for their phone and tablet cases, but the San Francisco-based company jumped on an opportunity to get Google Cardboard VR kits into the hands of a VR-hungry public. To date, the company has sold more than 65,000 of the kits and has now launched a Kickstarter campaign to spur what they’re calling a “DIY Virtual Reality Open Source Future,” which includes open software components for VR web development and a newly designed version of Cardboard that has a Leap Motion mount and greater smartphone compatibility.
Take Two Interactive, publishers of the phenomenally successful Grand Theft Auto franchise have gone on record stating that if there is customer demand for virtual reality support in their games, it’s ready to provide it.
The VRLA Meetup is holding its forth event come Saturday December 13th. To be hosted at House of Moves, a well known motion capture firm based in Los Angeles, California, 26 exhibitors will be present at the event, including many big names from the VR scene: CastAR, Sixense, Jaunt, Samsung, Unity, and Epic Games among them.
Sixense, creators of the tracking technology in the Razer Hydra, have been hard at work over the last year developing Hydra’s successor, STEM. The company has also recently announced that STEM will be compatible with Samsung’s Gear VR for both positional tracking and motion input. The company’s latest demo, a ping pong experience, shows off the accuracy and latency of the motion input system.
Oculus has caused a stir in the technology world, a statement riddled with understatement perhaps. The company and it’s founder Palmer Luckey have walked away with countless industry awards since the appearance of it’s Oculus Rift DK1 in late 2012. Now, the company can add one more to it’s trophy cabinet, the World Technology Awards for Entertainment.
At Samsung’s 2014 developer conference last week, Warren Mayoss, Head of Technology Product Development at DreamWorks Animation, took to the stage during the second day keynote to talk VR. Mayoss shared some of the initial work that DreamWorks has done with virtual reality, including five insights for new VR developers.
YEI, the company behind the PrioVR motion capture suit for virtual reality applications, has revealed its latest designs as the company prepares to manufacture and ship to its Kickstarter backers.
Samsung officially showed off 13 Gear VR titles at SDC 2014 last week. The titles, which varied from games to 360 video experiences, were being showcased on the second floor in the Game Zone area of the event. Eight Gear VR units were available, each housing a unique set of demos. After circling through the lines a few times, here are our first impressions.
At this year’s Samsung’s Developer Conference in San Francisco, Samsung finally announced it’s Oculus and Note 4 powered Gear VR headset would be available in early December. A page was launched simultaneously for US enthusiasts to register their interest in the so called ‘Innovator Edition’. It seems there’s also a UK version of this page too.
Jaunt has been busy shooting several made-for-VR experiences which the company says will be released for VR in trailer form “imminently.” Road to VR has the first look at three of Jaunt’s forthcoming cinematic VR experiences.
It’s not the moniker most developers would relish being attached to their work, but in the case of the developers at Shiny Shoe, creators of Desert Bus VR, it’s entirely appropriate.
Virtual Reality is still in it’s infancy, but in the last two years has inspired countless developers to push the boundaries of this fledgling platform. The 2014 Virtual Reality Awards aims to highlight the talent that’s helping to build the future.
In a surprise announcement at SDC, Samsung revealed Project Beyond, a 360 degree 3D camera for filming virtual reality content. We got to take a look at the unit first hand and experience the VR video that it captures.
“This talk will focus on the human component of VR: your perceptual system. Virtual reality systems like the Oculus Rift and Gear VR replace the visual input to your brain in a way technology never has before; for better or worse, this raises unprecedented opportunities and challenges. I will give a brief, high-level overview of some key perceptual system functions, some interesting phenomena that occur in VR, and the importance of understanding them all for building comfortable content.”
Speaker: Richard Yao, Research Scientist, Oculus VR
Ben Lang is on the ground at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco for the Samsung Developer Conference 2014 to liveblog this event. Updates will appear automatically below, no need to refresh your browser.
