While virtual reality is a great tool for entertainment, it’s about more than just games and movies. It has the potential to assist in treatments during therapies in the medical related fields as well. Even now, researchers are beginning to experiment with the ability of VR to treat phobias and anxiety using recently available consumer-level VR hardware.
Second Life is one of the biggest, if not the biggest user-generated virtual world. With tens of thousands of players spending time and money in the world at any given moment, it’s not surprising that there would be demand for a more immersive way to interact with it. This week, the developers behind Second Life officially updated the game with Oculus Rift DK2 support.
Don Rider is the inventor of the Mad Genius motion controller which caught the attention of the VR community when prototypes of the system were first revealed. Rider has taken his creation to Kickstarter to refine and miniaturize the design for proper manufacturing. The VR community had plenty of questions about the system and we went directly to the source to get them answered.
Sword Art Online is a popularly acclaimed modern action-anime based around virtual reality. It’s proven inspiring enough for one fan to create an Oculus Rift and Razer Hydra prototype which allows players to dodge and block bullets while firing a pistol, much like the ‘gameplay’ depicted in the show.
Earlier this week, Recode reported that Google is “set to lead a huge investment in Magic Leap.” The article cites “sources” which say that Google could be leading a $500 million funding round for the company, possibly including capital from Andreessen Horowitz which previously invested in Oculus. Magic Leap has been in stealth mode since its inception and no one seems to have a concrete idea about what their “Cinematic Reality” tech is. We went digging to see what we could uncover.
The gaming world is pivoting towards virtual reality as more and more conferences and festivals begin playing with VR. This momentum was extremely prevalent at this year’s IndieCade in Southern California as about a quarter of the booths contained virtual reality headsets.
IndieCade is an annual gaming festival in Culver City, California which attracts hundreds of game enthusiasts from all over the world. This year, Oculus VR strolled in with a custom chromed-out virtual reality filled trailer that dazzled the attendees throughout the event.
Alien: Isolation is Creative Assembly‘s stab at moving a beloved movie franchise into a compelling interactive experience. Early word on the title was that, unlike the execrable Aliens: Colonial Marines before it, Isolation was something a bit special. What’s more, at GDC earlier this year, Oculus proudly showed the triple-A title in a VR enabled version that terrified all who played it. Alien: Isolation was the virtual reality hit of the show and with good reason.
Buried toward the end of Michael Abrash’s must-watch keynote at Oculus Connect was the announcement of a new research division within Oculus which Abrash says is the “first complete, well funded VR research team in close to 20 years.” He says that their mission is to advance VR and that the research division will publish its findings and also work with university researchers.
Leap Motion is teaming up with IndieCade for a ‘3D Jam’ dev contest which utilizes the company’s motion controller. Leap recently released a ‘VR Mount’ for their motion controller which connects to the front of the Oculus Rift and the company is hoping to see VR-based and desktop submissions from developers pining for $75,000 in prizes.
VRVana, developers of the Totem virtual reality headset, have announced they’ve pulled their Kickstarter campaign in favour of a pre-order system for interested VR enthusiasts.
At E3 2014, Oculus revealed a demo Alien: Isolation with support for their Rift DK2 VR headset, and it was a hit. However, it was officially stated that game would not ship with Rift support. Turns out, the developers left the code in the game to enable VR mode and some smart folks figured out how to turn it on with a simple hack.
Most of you know Eric Greenbaum as the lawyer who’s been on the Rev VR Podcast several times to discuss the legal woes of certain VR companies. In this episode, he’s here to discuss ‘About Face’, his VR comfort and hygiene System, as well as several of his other ventures in the VR industry.
The Final Fantasy series of RPGs is one of the longest running franchises of its kind and certainly one of the most successful, selling millions of copies over multiple decades and gaming platforms. Final Fantasy XIII hits Steam for PC today promising revamped visuals. It may also include support for the Oculus Rift, if an option to opt in to the SteamVR Beta is any indication.
Spurred by the current lack of a Linux SDK for the Oculus Rift DK2, a group of developers sought to dissect the Rift’s optical tracking system by reverse engineering the DK2. The information that was tediously corralled together is quite technical so we’ve have rounded up the critical focal points in an easier to read format to show why this community project is important.
