Google Adds Virtual Reality Street View Mode to Google Maps for Android

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google maps virtual reality street view

With the launch of Google’s Cardboard VR smartphone adapter at Google I/O 2014 earlier this week, the company hopes to kickstart VR development for Android. In addition to the Cardboard app, Google has pushed out and updated version of Google Maps which includes a VR mode for Street View.

SVVR Meetup #11 Happens Tonight – Join the Live Stream Online or in Virtual Reality

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svvr white

Road to VR’s Brian Hart will be live streaming the 11th gathering of the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Meetup tonight, starting at 7:00pm PDT. The event will be broadcast online and in virtual reality through Riftmax.

VR Philly to Host Philadelphia’s First Virtual Reality Meetup on July 2nd

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West coasters are a lucky bunch, the growing popularity of virtual reality has brought forth plenty of great community gatherings to choose from—SVVR, VRLA, SFVR, and OCVR—just to name a few. Now, the East Coast is getting into the spirit. VR Philly will hold Philadelphia’s first public VR Meetup next week on July 2nd.

News Bits: Hang Out With Optimus Prime In This New Oculus Rift Demo

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optimus-primeAs we reported yesterday with Benjamin Teitler’s impressive mo-capped Lightsaber demo for the Oculus Rift, re-living your fantasies of youth can be made reality through the power of VR.

Now, developer Tipatat, who was behind the recent Matrix Oculus rift demo, has released an early version of a demo which features Optimus Prime, as he appeared in generation one of the cartoon series. OK, so there’s not much to do except walk around and stare at his magnificence, but it’s an interesting demonstration of how effective the communication of scale is in virtual reality in comparison to traditional, monitor based gaming.

You can download the new demo at Tipatat’s website here.

Now, what childhood TV favourites would you recreate in virtual reality? Let us know in the comments.

‘Walkmouse’ is an Elegant, Untethered, Motorised Omni-Directional Treadmill

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If someone had come to me three years ago and said “Omni-directional treadmills, they’ll be a thing soon” – I’d have laughed in their faces. Three years on and whilst input devices that aim to take natural walking, running input from the human body aren’t quite ten a penny, you can feel industrious souls like Virtuix and Cyberith working towards what they believe is another missing piece in the VR puzzle.

Both treadmill solutions have their strengths and weaknesses, but they share at least one gripe between them – you need to be strapped rather unnaturally into the device – not only for safety but as a fundamental operation requirement for the technology to work.

A few days ago, Olav Sandnes from a company called Walkmouse got in touch to tell us about his company’s device, also handily called Walkmouse, and it approaches the problem of user locomotion in a very different but rather refreshing way.

The device itself is circular, just 65mm tall and a radius of 900mm, weighing around 72kg and is a rather elegant looking device compared with the necessarily ugly excesses of the Omni or the Virtulizer for example. The device houses 100s of motorised spirals which detect traction and respond by spinning under your feet to simulate the ground moving underneath them. At the same time, the unit reads input data from your actions which can be fed into an application or game experience. And, the company is now actively working with the Oculus Rift to combine the two technologies, producing quite a potent package. Walkmouse also comes in walkmouse-cutawaya larger 1.2M radius version, designed for longer stride activity – appropriately entitled ‘RunMouse’.

I know what you’re thinking, “this thing is surely a deathtrap when you’re eyes and ears are covered?!” – I put just this question to Olav; “I think then main reason why we feel comfortable is how the WalkMouse works. You do a 10 min training session without HMD just to get used to how the unit works and to accumulate trust.” he says; “Of course you start with small steps and the you increase the walking speed as you gain experience. You just walk like normal and the unit detects the acceleration and speed which is used to control the counter speed of the spirals to ensure that you will not be able to leave the unit.”

Currently, the device is primarily targeted at military and police training, the data sheet even listing ‘Small Arms, Tactial’ as one of the use cases for training. However, it’s clear that if something as large as the Virtuix Omni can be considered a commercial prospect for Virtual Reality input, then surely Walkmouse is a dead lock for the VR enthusiast market. “Right now I am afraid the batches we produce are too small to justify sensible consumer pricing so right now we are in the professional segment only. I can see a price down the road in the 1000-2000 USD region, so the WalkMouse will not be for everybody.”

Walkmouse is a refreshing new approach to locomotion based input devices and the elegance of it’s motorised design, slim and home friendly form factor really appeal. I still have concerns over potential safety issues, but then again, the unit is so close to the ground that perhaps this is no more a concern than with untethered solution such as Survios’ Prime 3 solution. Other natural actions such as jumping and crouching also clearly will need additional add-on solutions too – but you could imagine one of these fused with a 2nd generation Kinect being a fairly compelling option.

We’ll keep in touch with Walkmouse to follow it’s progress. In the mean time, you can take a look at their website here for more information on the unit.

News Bits: Palmer Luckey Joins Community in VR Chat for Informal 2 Hour Q&A

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VR Chat is the go-to application for socialising in virtual reality and is used extensively by the VR community for doing just that. Cymatic Bruce‘s post Live Stream meetups in VR Chat have by all accounts been a great opportunity for like minded enthusiasts to share their thoughts on the VR world.

So, it’s entirely appropriate then that at the most recent VR Chat event, Palmer Luckey turned up unannounced and informally held court whilst other participants quizzed him on all manner of subjects ranging from Celebrity calls to the Oculus offices requesting demos to Oculus’ stance on trademarking their technologies.

VRChat is, as it’s name suggests, a virtual chat application that allows users to connect to and inhabit virtual spaces, embodying virtual avatars and speaking with each other using realtime voice comms.

It’s a great example of Oculus’ and Palmer’s willingness to share and enthusiasm for the VR Community that this even happened. Can you imagine many other company’s willing to spend two hours of their valuable time shooting the breeze with a bunch of enthusiasts?

Catch the entire stream in the video above and for a list of highlights from the event, user /u/SvenViking has compiled his highlights for your easy perusal in the /r/oculus subreddit.

You can check out VR Chat at their website right here.

Oculus VR’s Brendan Iribe: “we’re not going to sell 1 billion pairs of glasses ourselves”

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brendan-iribe
Brendan Iribe, CEO of Oculus VR

In a report from Bloomberg, Oculus VR‘s model for expansion and fulfilling it’s long term objective, to have 1 Billion users in Virtual Reality, it’s choosing to adopt a proven method borne out by the success of Google’s Android platform.

Iribe made it clear that Oculus, even with Facebook’s backing, isn’t big enough to tackle this daunting task by itself. “If we do want to get a billion people on virtual reality, which is our goal, we’re not going to sell 1 billion pairs of glasses ourselves” told Bloomberg. “We are openly talking to any kind of partner that wants to jump into VR, and there’s a lot of interest right now.”

It makes sense that Oculus would follow the predominately open licensing model Android have successfully used to push Android to 900 Million activated devices. Concentrating on getting Virtual Reality right first though is still the company’s critical objective. “We need to get it right before we engage and work with other people” Iribe says.

The journey to get that VR offering right for consumers starts another leg in July, when Oculus plans to ship 20-30,000 Developer Kit 2 (DK2) units to those who pre-ordered from March when the unit was announced. But the details of how Oculus will tackle this expansion model is as yet unclear. It’s unlikely Android’s ability to run on any hardware that chooses to adopt it will work with VR due to the tight constraints required to ensure the hardware delivers the best experience possible. Doubtless we’ll find out once we know more about the consumer release, which up to now Oculus have remained tight lipped over.

News Bits: ADR1FT Developer Receives Early DK2 Unit

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505 Games' DK2 Unit
ThreeOneZero’s DK2 Unit

It’s getting closer. In March, Oculus VR opened pre-orders for their follow-up to their debut VR Headset the DK1. Developer Kit 2 (DK2) ships in July and features positional tracking and an 1080p panel with low persistence of vision technology.

Now, threeonezero – the developer of first person experience ADR1FT, telling the story of an astronaut in peril – have Instagram’ed one of the first DK2 units seen in the wild. Oculus have of course stated that around 100 key developers would be receiving early versions of the DK2, perhaps this is one of those units – perhaps there’s a fresh batch on hand as Oculus nears it’s expected DK2 ship date. Could this be the sight that greets 20-30,000 lucky DK2 pre-order owners in July?

In either case, ADR1FT has already been demonstrated with Oculus Rift support and it looks to be exactly the sort of emergent experience Oculus VR seems keen to encourage as they roll towards their consumer release. You can take a closer look at ADR1FT in the shots below.

‘Hello, Again’ by Director Chris Milk is a Revolutionary Virtual Reality Concert Experience Featuring Beck

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Director Chris Milk was tasked by Lincoln to reimagine the concert experience, and reimagine it he did. Milk’s audacious project, Hello, Again, featuring Beck, is an incredible interactive concert experience that’s best viewed through the Oculus Rift. I recently had a chance to put my head inside Hello, Again to witness a concert like I’ve never never seen before. The result of Milk’s work is revolutionary in more ways than one.

News Bits: DODOcase Offers Everything You Need For Google Cardboard, Only Cheaper

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Slice_1_1024x1024It’s been less than 24 hours since Google announced it’s Google Cardboard initiative at it’s annual I/O conference and it cause quite a stir.

Now, DodoCase.com—a specialist in premium, hand-made cases for electronic devices—have moved fairly swiftly to offer you a pre-cut google cardboard case, bundled with all the required accessories (lenses etc.) for what it reckons is a much lower cost than you could obtain by sourcing the parts yourself. Their Google Cardboard VR Toolkit retails for $19.95 and ships with the following Google Cardboard compliant bits:

  • Pre-cut cardboard
  • Lenses
  • Magnet
  • Velcro
  • Rubberband
  • Upgrade for optional NFC tag (not included in base kit)

The catch? Current estimated shipping time is 4-6 weeks, which for some may not be worth the wait. For others less willing to spend time sourcing parts from around the web.

News Bits: Impressive VR Lightsaber Video Uses the Oculus Rift and a Serious Mo-Cap Rig

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Let’s face it, there’s a large proportion of people reading this post that hold a secret (or not so secret) desire to kick Imperial ass using nothing but the Force and a Lightsaber.

Well a hacker named Benjamin Teitler just uploaded a video of him living out that fantasy courtesy of some a custom Oculus Rift based setup and what looks to be a slightly disturbing looking motion capture dungeon.

The video features Benjamin donning a DK1 fed by a wireless HDMI feed, a super long USB cable for head tracking and a customised motion captured lightsaber stand-in. Although the video shows only a glimpse of the in-Rift results of Benjamin’s saber-twirling, it looks extremely responsive. The below video below however does show a closeup view of what looks like a custom application featuring a training drone, much like the one seen in the original Star Wars movie.  Motion capture duties are provided by 12 Optitrack Flex 13 Cameras, a serious set up and no mistake. We can’t help feel a little jealous.

We’ll see if we can find out more on the project and report back.

Oculus VR Responds to ZeniMax Allegations with 32 Page Court Filing

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zenimax-vs-oculus

As part of the ongoing lawsuit against Oculus VR on behalf of ZeniMax, Oculus has today responded to ZeniMax’s official court filing with their own comprehensive 32 page document. The response presents what appears to be a strong case for Oculus, largely revolving around John Carmack’s explicit public comments that the Oculus Rift was Palmer Luckey’s invention.

Google Reveals ‘Cardboard’, a low-cost VR Smartphone Adapter and VR Toolkit SDK at IO 2014—Breaking

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google cardboard io 2014

At this week’s Google IO 2014, the company’s annual developer conference, the search giant is handing out ‘Cardboard’, a low-cost VR headset adapter for smartphones. The company is also making freely available an open ‘VR Toolkit’ and SDK to enable developers to build consistent virtual reality experiences for Android.

Horizon VR Close Website, “At the request of the VR community”

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The Horizon VR Mockup

HorizonWeb_med4-longIt’s been a turbulent 48 hours in VR – in particular for the company that claimed to have the world’s first 4k, UHD VR Headset in development.

We broke the story that a new website had popped up, purportedly by a new company on the VR scene, Horizon VR. The website confidently claimed that they had developed and was to imminently ship a dual 4k, fresnel lense HMD with an impressive 210 degrees field of view. The website offered pre-orders for the HMD starting at $399 as a deposit, due to ship in January 2015 via Paypal and Bitcoin.

However, the company had chosen to use a concept render lifted directly from InfinitEye and their facts seemed inconsistent plus their target ship date enormously optimistic.

Road to VR got in touch with CEO Kevin Geiger who claimed that the website had gone live by mistake, the result of an over enthusiastic relative of the owner, and had been inundated with order, claiming up to 500 as of yesterday.

After the story broke, the VR community were in uproar and at the advice of Road to VR, Kevin Geiger posted an apologetic post on the subreddit /r/oculus attempting to quell the anger. Unfortunately, it made things worse and when pre-order functionality was not taken down at our suggestion suspicion grew. After a flurry of information dug up by the VR Community by Tuesday’s close, Horizon VR were the target of even more distrust.

It now looks as if Horizon has finally done the sensible thing and taken their website offline, hopefully to resolve questions and issues with the information within. The website reads, at the time of writing, simply:

At the request of the VR community, all advertising and pre-orders for the V have been stopped until further notice. Horizon VR

So, what now? What happens to the 500 reported pre-orders Kevin Geiger claimed they’d received? Is Horizon VR the real deal, simply suffering a catastrophic series of admin and PR errors? At this point we simply don’t know.

There’s no doubt that Horizon VR have made an appalling first impression, if indeed they are a legitimate operation. However, for what it’s worth we really hope that Horizon VR turn out to be the read deal. Seeing such a fantastically specified HMD on the market and in the person would have been quite something.

We’ll try to find Horizon VR’s current position and their future plans, including that pressing question of potential refunds for current pre-order owners.

News Bits: DARPA Uses the Oculus Rift to Visualise Cyber Terrorism

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So here’s a story that brings the use of virtual reality that bit closer to the Hollywood fantasies of l33t computer hackers. DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) have apparently been working for the last 2 years on a user interface to visualise the complexities of modern data networks to help humans detect, investigate and react to cyber terrorism threats.

At a recent DARPA Demo day (how can I get an invite to that!?), they demo’d the system to WIRED magazine which uses the Oculus Rift and the Razer Hydra to enable the processing and navigation of this data more intuitive for operatives tasked with fighting these threats. The interface is just one part of a software platform codenamed ‘PlanX’ (yes, really).

Visually, the interface bear a passing resemblance to 2013’s VR Jam Winner and soon to be full game Ciess. The demo (as seen in the above video) was structured much like a video game, requiring you to select missions, carry out network scans and so on with your target networks represented as a sphere of nodes, navigated using the Hydras.

It’s interesting to see such ‘left at the traffic lights’ thinking from a government body, but then I guess that’s precisely DARPA’s remit. Just how useful the system might be in reality is another question. A UI is one thing, but ultimately actions on a network require low level navigation through switches, routers and firewalls—requiring a serious amount of homogeneous thinking from network sysadmins to bring to life.

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