Slashdot Mirror
Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Headset Blows Past Kickstarter Goal
Virtual reality headsets have historically been very disappointing. While the concept has been fun and interesting, the technological realities never quite lived up to expectations, and hardware developers largely gave up on research into this kind of device. However, it's been long enough that display technology has caught up to our ambitions. So, where are our VR headsets? Well, hobbyist Palmer Luckey asked that same question, and when he couldn't find a good answer, he decided to build one himself. He and his team have built a prototype, and they just launched a Kickstarter campaign to distribute developer kits. The campaign blew past its $250,000 goal in hours. What's interesting about this particular campaign is that Palmer took the Oculus Rift to various development studios and managed to get enthusiastic endorsements from some big names, including Cliff Bleszinski, Gabe Newell, and John Carmack.
when I see it. Too many times we've been promised the world with super cool VR goggles and helmets and appendages. Also, if I have to go buy a console first, no sale.
Who else isn't surprised that demand for a more effective reality-attenuator remains robust?
Carmack is deeply involved with Oculus. He posts on their forums with his ideas and Oculus runs Doom 3. The guys from the verge got to play with a prototype:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/30/3052191/doom-3-bfg-edition-announced-for-the-fall-we-try-it-with-john
This could be a game changer. VR headsets done right.
VR goggles have been promised to be the future of computers since the 90s. Since before the internet was a household term, even. And yet time and time again they fail to work. The reason is that our technology just isn't as sophisticated as our eyes. We have hundred megapixel vision, realtime depth perception, motion sensing, and they scan at around 200 frames per second. The amount of information our visual cortex processes and compresses for other parts of our brain make most supercomputers look stupid by comparison.
It took millions of years to develop Human Eyeball v1.0. It's pretty arrogant to assume we'll just write a business proposal and KAZAM! (-_-) But hey, keep trying guys. In another 50 years or so, they might have evolved to the point where people don't get headaches using them.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Seriously, do we need a Slashdot story about every piece of Kickstarter vaporware that meets its funding goal? Here's an idea, how about we start running Slashdot stories when something from Kickstarter goes from rendering to shipping actual products. That will cut down stories like these tenfold. Cool ideas are dime a dozen, and it's nice to see these guys met their goal, but going from vision to prototype to product is something Kickstarters have proven to be problematic, especially for people who have no experience in business, product development, sales, and manufacturing.
Back in 1995, VR gaming had a brief surge.
I had a pair of Virtual i-o I-glasses that had a head tracker and resolution of 640x480 per eye, and cost less than $500 new.
What does Occulus bring to the table that wasnt already tried and failed back then? (in a much neater/lighter glasses-like package too I might add).
No gamer will take Occulus seriously with a resolution of only 640x800 per eye.
Even 17 years ago, my I-glasses with their similarly low res 640x480 seemed too crappy to use seriously, compared to the my monitor with its res of 1280x1024.
These days people are completely used to full HD 1920x1080. its become the defacto bare minimum spec for any kind of gaming display these days.
17 years later from I-glasses, still the best that can be done is 640x800 per eye? If so Occulus is dead in the water. To appeal to hardcore gamers, as a minimum it needs to be up around 1920x1080, if not better.
I'm not in any way associated with this auction but if you just wanna see what I-glasses look like:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VIRTUAL-I-OS-IGLASSES-THESE-ARE-THE-ORIGINAL-1995-GLASSES-USED-ONLY-TWICE-/200799140740?pt=US_Video_Glasses&hash=item2ec08fbb84#ht_1314wt_1139
Carmack is active in the development thread at the vr forum... The kickstater was just a means so he could give money anonymously and also motivate the guy.
Carmack covered this, the latency on the HMZ-T1 is extraordinarily high. For movie playback and typical 3d gaming (the controls and results are so disconnected, we don't have such a strong physiological expectation of view moving with our controller input), no big deal. Problematic, however, for head tracking where our systems *really* expect the view and head movements to correlate closely and the lag is noticable.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I'd say it's more likely to blow past the $1 million mark sometime tomorrow morning.
There is a war going on for your mind.
As a nerd who was heavily into consumer VR headsets and has been disappointed in the offerings available since the 90s, this excites me. Now consider that:
1. People here are highly interested in tech stuff (you know, stuff that matters)
2. Putting something here, to the attention of the 100s of thousands of Slashdot users increases the chances that a project such as this will reach its funding goal and you know, we get the story about it successfully shipping in the next year.
3. They already have a working prototype (must have missed the duct tape) and working software.
4. The developer units (you know if you pledge $300) ship in December.
5. Not all of us are cynical assholes and are willing to chip into other fellow geeks/techies/engineer's dreams.
So excuse us while we get excited over new tech and chip in any way we can to make it happen instead of bitching and moaning about it on a forum.
Now go check to see what things have been made possible via Kickstarter . Even things for all to enjoy .
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.