“By far the dominant theme at GDC 2016 has been virtual reality,” Ryan Smith reports for AnandTech. “If you’re not a hardware vendor directly creating VR products, then you’re explaining how your products are a good match for VR or make for a better VR experience.”
“This brings us to today’s article, my hands-on session with the final, retail version of the Oculus Rift,” Smith reports. “As part of their GDC festivities, Oculus held a lengthy press demo to give us a chance to try out the retail hardware with a number of games being prepared for the headset, to demonstrate not only the hardware but the games and experiences that it will be driving. A full review of the Rift will be coming later, but for today I wanted to discuss my impressions of the retail hardware and the various titles I had a chance to try.”
“Overall the hardware is not perfect: pixel density is plenty workable, but clearly there is room for improvement,” Smith reports. “However perhaps more importantly, in my hands-on time with the Rift I feel that Oculus has nailed the head tracking and latency aspects. There’s no disconnect that I could feel between my motions and what was rendered, and that makes the entire experience very convincing and enjoyable, not to mention motion sickness-free.”
Tons more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Interested?
SEE ALSO:
Why Apple should hold off on entering Virtual Reality – February 1, 2016
Apple seriously ramps up their secret Virtual Reality project – January 30, 2016
Apple acquires Flyby Media; assembles large team of virtual and augmented reality experts – January 29, 2016
Apple hires leading virtual reality researcher – January 22, 2016
Apple TV can now play 360-degree video content – December 23, 2015
Apple is building a virtual reality supply chain with disruptive potential, new research shows – November 19, 2015
Analyst: Apple team exploring virtual reality/augmented reality – August 31, 2015
Apple exploring a new reality with purchase of Metaio – June 3, 2015
Apple patents perforated augmented reality display that you can see and hear through – May 29, 2015
Apple acquires augmented reality company Metaio – May 28, 2015
New Apple haptics patent application reveals diamond-layered trackpad that simulates wood, other textures – April 23, 2015
Apple granted U.S. patent for hybrid VR head-mounted display – February 18, 2015
Apple is working on VR user interfaces and gaming; looking for Oculus and Leap experts – February 10, 2015
Apple granted patent for display-based speakers for iOS devices – January 13, 2015
Apple granted a patent for devices with a transparent display – November 18, 2014
Apple’s new iPhones, iPads could feature haptic displays – June 30, 2014
Apple patent application reveals personal display headset invention – May 8, 2014
Apple patent application reveals wildly intelligent multi-tiered haptics system – May 3, 2012
Apple continues to tweak Apple TV video headset accessory – April 10, 2014
Apple patent application reveals sapphire flexible transparent display devices created with Liquidmetal – December 19, 2013
Apple granted knockout patent for head-mounted personal display – December 10, 2013
iGlasses: Apple granted patent for head-mounted augmented reality displays – July 5, 2012
Apple files patent application for haptic feedback touch-based user interface – March 22, 2012
Apple, come on.. Tease us a bit with what you got!?
Oculus Rift is a fun device, but man, if your graphics card lags at all, you’ll be fighting vertigo.
Or if you’re female with a speedy graphics card but the wrong genes — see below
In my opinion, VR is a waste of valuable time. I wonder how many people will be killed walking into traffic wearing these. It will happen.
Yes, but those are the kind that need to be weeded out of the gene pool.
Why is it that when an iPhone does not have a feature or functionality it is always worthless?
Read my first sentence again; I didn’t say anything about “worthless.”
“VR is a waste of valuable time” my comment still applies
Mmmh…
Zero? Because Oculus needs to be connected to a (very powerful) pc?
Maybe you are thinking about AR, not VR…
If Gurgle Glass looks stupid, then Oculus is stupid to the nth power!
👍👍👍👍👍
Last week I went to a VR zombie invasion that used Oculus Rifts and prop guns. One of the best gaming experiences I’ve played. It’s the future of laser skirmish.
Just using one’s imagination, the non-gaming applications of virtual reality are astounding:
1) industrial robotics
2) athletic training — no more stupid CNN on the treadmill
3) educational travel without the horrible airport experience
4) medical uses like surgical navigation
5) interactive museum and art displays
6) military training
7) aerospace simulation and control — instead of sending man to Mars
7) boxing with silverhawk
You need to get out more and see the real world. I would never box someone because I fight to win, no matter what it takes. Bring a gun to a knife fight sort of mentality. Well I did, but I’m older now.
I have always been fascinated with games, but the sexes respond to 3D, virtual reality, and computer simulations differently because they are systems designed to substitute electronic signals for the body’s normal processing of visual and other signals from the natural environment. Those natural signals are mediated by hormones, which differ between the sexes. In other words, men and women perceive the world slightly differently.
To assert that VR has untold benefits may be true, for males. In their enthusiasm for the next big thing, people pushing the program haven’t cared to listen to the minority report from the distaff side. Research has established a sex bias. Now, instead of knee-jerk dismissiveness, the algorithms need to be improved, no matter how much of a coding challenge for the guys.
There’s a girl out there right now that dreams of being the first astronaut to land on Mars. She won’t make it if the simulation protocols contain the same behavioural bias.
What people need to get through their thick skulls is that women are required for the species to reproduce, offworld. You’ll need women on Mars. Does any reasonable person think NASA hasn’t sanctioned ad hoc sexual experiments by its astronauts? They’ve merely kept it quiet, in order to dodge media sensationalism. The Russians have done the same. If you poke round the internet you can find out about these things. Meanwhile, private enterprise is developing new technologies to train spacefaring men and women. The technologies embedded in Oculist Rift and other VR tech need to be further developed before they’re of any real use to NASA, or to the equivalent programs run by Russia and India, or to any corporate space exploration effort. Unlike the medieval Islamic World, we want to include all of our young people in the ark of interstellar expansion, not just alpha males privileged by a dogmatic reading of a religious text. Whether it be the Koran or the Holy Bible.
http://fortune.com/2015/09/15/women-virtual-reality/
Will their be safe spaces in Virtual Reality for Zheople like Herself? Maybe “Bernie Sanders winning the election” simulations over and over again. “They came to look for Olympus Mons”. If you will be on Mars using VR running a Black Lives Matter sit-in simulation, who will be there to make sure no one is tying your dreadlocks to your chair in boring-old realspace? Joan Carter: Social Justice Martian Warrior. I’ve seen the future and it is boring as fsck.
You missed one of the top 2…………
VR foreplay with lean, doe doe eyed incredibly endowed women. The porn industry is salivating over this.