The Sony HMZ-T2 head mounted display / VR headset is now available for purchase in Canada. Back in October we caught the HMZ-T2 HMD available in a number of countries for some other outrageous prices. Sony Canada brings the price down a bit, but it’s still even more expensive than original HMZ-T1. Additionally, Sony U.S. has yet to roll out the HMZ-T2 and it’s possible that they never will.
Despite all of the company’s success with the Oculus Rift at CES 2013, Oculus Inc. is still a young startup. The company has had open spots for several senior positions for a few months now (see their Careers page). The latest name to join the Oculus team is Laird Malamed who takes the position of Chief Operating Officer (COO). Malamed was formerly the Senior Vice President of publisher Activision. Here’s his official description from Oculus:
Laird is a 20-year veteran of the entertainment industry. Malamed was Sr. Vice President and head of development at Activision Blizzard overseeing software, hardware and manufacturing for products such as Guitar Hero, Call of Duty and Skylanders. Malamed earned a joint BS degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering and Film & Media Studies. He attended the Graduate School of Cinematic Arts at USC where he is currently an adjunct professor in the Interactive Media Division.
The last time we heard from Innovega was back in April. They demonstrated their iOptik contact lens which allows users to focus their view on images that are extremely close to the eye. At CES 2013 last week, Innovega showed off it’s latest prototypes of the iOptik augmented reality system which combines contact lens with a low-profile head mounted display. The setup allows the creation of an AR display system which is compact but still retains a wide field of view.
Google has sent out invites to a developer-focused event for Google Glass, the company’s upcoming wearable head mounted display. They’re calling it ‘Glass Foundry’ and it will be a two day ‘hackathon’ held in two locations: San Francisco and New York City. The invite is supposedly going out to those who pre-ordered the $1500 Google Glass ‘Explorer Edition’ at last year’s Google I/O conference. High profile developers are likely on the invite list as well. At the event developers will have access to Google Glass prototypes and begin learning how to build applications for the device.
Ibex is virtual reality desktop environment (let’s call it a VRDE) which allows you to float desktops of arbitrary number and dimensions around you in a virtual space. Combined with a head mounted display, Ibex creates a 360 degree virtual world where you can do your computing. The sole developer behind the project, Hesham Wahba, continues to work on the Ibex VRDE in preparation for the Oculus Rift VR headset / head mounted display. Wahba has now launched a beta of Ibex for Mac which users can test even without an HMD.
Valve, the famous developer who has demonstrated a particular interest in virtual reality, has ported the ever-popular Team Fortress 2 for use with VR headsets. This confirmation comes from the Game Developers Conference (GDC) website which has announced two keynotes to be given by Valve employees; one of which will talk explicitly about a “virtual reality version of TF2.”
Here’s another interview from CES 2013 with details on the Oculus Rift head mounted display / VR headset. Again, we’ve heard most of it already, but if you’re like me you’re soaking up every scrap of info you can. In this interview Palmer Luckey, the creator of the Oculus Rift, talks to his long-time virtual friend Neil Schneider for the first time in person.
Update (1/14/13, 1:15pm): The video has been removed from YouTube by the user. It is not clear why; Oculus may have asked them to. I’ll see if I can track down another video.
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Last week Oculus Inc. demoed their Oculus Rift head mounted display (HMD) / VR headset alongside thousands of other companies present at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The annual show is one of the largest technology conferences in the world. As I pointed out a few days ago, the press raved about it at the show. Now you can take a reporter’s-side seat and see the behind-closed-doors Oculus Rift press demo as it was given at CES 2013.
A Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) is a virtual reality system that immerses the user in a virtual space using a small room with blank walls, projectors, and head tracking. Recently we talked about what it looks like to be inside of a CAVE and saw one used in a music video. The director of said music video pointed me to a series of videos, which are worth watching, wherein Sony uses a CAVE to create cool live virtual imagery.
At CES 2013, Xsens is demonstrating a camera-less full body motion tracking system which could be used for virtual reality gaming and other applications. The company, which provides professional motion capture systems for film and industrial uses, is now hoping to provide affordable full body motion capture for consumer experiences.
Oculus Inc is that CES 2013 this year and the Oculus Rift is getting plenty of attention. The company isn’t making any new announcements, though they are giving demos of the VR headset to press at CES. In this post I’ll be pointing you’ll find fresh interviews and hands-on demos that are coming out of CES 2013 this week.
At CES this week, Microsoft has revealed a research project called IllumiRoom. The system combines a Kinect with a projector to scan your TV room and show content that extends beyond your TV. The goal is to create a more immersive gaming experience by adding peripheral information. The IllumiRoom appears very similar to a patent application recently filed by Microsoft.
Here’s a neat video that the folks from Project Holodeck pointed out on their blog. Cara Santa Maria of the Huffington Post took a trip to the MxR (Mixed Reality) Lab at USC. Mark Bolas, the associate director for mixed reality research and development at ICT, walks Maria down a gravel path in virtual reality which seems to go on forever, even though they’ve only got a 20×20 foot space. How do they do it? Take a look:
Vuzix announced the M100 Smart Glasses back in November. The company is now shipping developer kits along with the SDK which was offered for $999 when the unit was first announced. Engadget also has a brand new hands-on video with the M100 at the CES 2013 exhibition which is happening right now!
Back in November I highlighted a cool music video for the song Sweater by Belgium-based band Willow. The video used a CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) and a treadmill to allow the singer to stroll through live virtual environments as the video was being shot (more about CAVEs here). I thought this was a really neat merger of virtual reality technology and art, so I contact the director of the music video, Filip Sterckx, to learn more about his choice to use a CAVE.
