This sounds like a simple question, but it is one that I’ve been meaning to discuss. Without a foundation, everything we talk about on this site is more or less floating somewhere in abstract space. To ground the subject, and to truly understand it, we must ask and define: what is virtual reality?
In the world of technology reporting, it’s rare to have a good excuse to stare at beautiful women. Let’s indulge while we have the opportunity — as I noted earlier, Google Glass walked the runway in September during New York Fashion Week at the DvF Spring 2013 collection showing. Not all of the models wore the Google glasses but I’ve compiled a gallery of photos from the show of those models that did. Here we see many colors of Google’s lightweight HMD that haven’t been previously revealed. Google has previously shown off glasses and sunglasses versions as well.
This one slipped under my radar but I think it’s worth a mention. Back in September, Spencer Ante of the Wall Street Journal spoke with Google co-founder Sergey Brin and got a brief exclusive preview of Google Glass (sometimes mistakenly refered to as Google Glasses!). During his time wearing the Google Glass display, Sergey showed Spencer a panoramic viewing mode — a capability not previously revealed. Glass also had a debut on the runway at New York Fashion week.
Not the best news for backers of the Oculus Rift Kickstarter this morning — Oculus Inc. has announced that shipment of the Oculus Rift developer kit has been delayed until March. The company also says that they’re moving up to a larger 7″ screen with better performance. They’ve released new photos of the latest Oculus Rift prototype and it’s definitely looking good!
TIME Magazine has named Google Glass as one of the ‘Best Inventions of 2012’ which is interesting because they also mention that the product isn’t expected on the market until 2014….
Vuzix has just introduced the M100 Smart Glasses. The M100 is an unobtrusive head mounted display, much like Google Glass, which Vuzix hopes will be used as a hands-free smartphone display and for augmented reality applications. In addition to being able to pair wirelessly with Android and iOS devices, the Vuzix M100 HMD is a standalone Android device capable of downloading and running applications of its own. The company plans to release the M100 in 2013.
After talking about Cave Augmented Virtual Environments the other day, reader Yossi pointed out that the Belgium band Willow recently utilized a CAVE in a music video for their song Sweater. The band put together a very neat sequence using the VR platform and incorporated a treadmill to allow the star of the video ‘walk’ through the virtual reality scene.
While inexpensive head mounted displays and virtual reality locomotion platforms promise to bring VR to the mainstream in the near future, you might be surprised to find that extremely immersive and interactive virtual reality environments already exist today. We talked about VIRTSIM the other week, and now we’d like to show you the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment, also known as a CAVE.
Once again it’s time for an update on the latest Oculus Rift news. First of all, Oculus LLC is now Oculus Inc., according to the company’s official website. This morning they’ve dropped an update to Kickstarter backers which includes photo of both an early model of the Oculus Rift housing and the head tracker that the company has been developing. The company is also teasing that they’re working on squeezing in some unnamed “key features” prior to shipping the first batch of developer kits.
Today Carl Zeiss is announcing that the Cinemizer head mounted display is available in the US and Canada for $749. The Carl Zeiss Cinemizer has technically been available for a few months, though it would seem that the company is ramping up production slowly as the initial batch quickly sold out. Previously you couldn’t find the Cinemizer HMD anywhere but Europe. Now Total 3D Solutions has been named as the distributor of the Cinemizer in the US and Canada.
Montas is an upcoming indie horror game with support for the Oculus Rift. We heard about Montas a few months back and now the creators, Organic Humans, have begun a crowd-funding campaign to help them raise money to get the game to market. “Montas is a first person survival horror adventure game focused on exploration, immersion, atmosphere, story and interactivity,” according to the creators. A copy of the game for be yours for $10 through the crowd-funding campaign which is hosted on Indiegogo.
VIRTSIM is a highly immersive virtual reality system which can pit squads of players against each other in a realistic virtual reality combat environment. The system utilizes full-motion body capture, VR headsets, gun props, and even shock-feedback. Unfortunately, the rather amazing-looking experience is not available in any sort of consumer capacity. Instead, VIRTSIM is relegated to non-entertainment purposes like military and emergency personnel training. Why can’t those that want to play virtual reality games get in on the fun?
Augmented reality (AR) seems an inevitable part of our future. The possibilities are easy to see but realizing the necessary technology is incredibly complex. Researchers, experimenters, and tech folk are slowly advancing what can be done with augmented reality. And yet it is a magician that can show you the future of augmented reality, today.
Sony quietly announced the HMZ-T2 head mounted display / VR headset back at the end of August. The unit is now available in several regions (though notably still not in the US). In the UK you can buy the HMZ-T2 for a rather absurdly expensive £999 (~$1610 USD). Elsewhere the HMZ-T2 can be found cheaper but not by much.
Palmer Luckey, the creator of the Oculus Rift, has confirmed that Oculus LLC is dropping the Hillcrest tracker that was originally being used as the Oculus Rift headtracker. Now it seems the Rift will use the Adjacent Reality tracker, developed by a former Apple software engineer, which has much enhanced capabilities. Oculus LLC plans to make the Adjacent Reality tracker available to developers separately for those who need a high fidelity wireless tracker for other projects.
