Slashdot Mirror
Valve Reveals Gaming Headset, Teases Big Picture
dotarray writes with a bit from Player Attack: "Gaming is big business, says Valve, as the developer takes the time to show off its brand new gaming headset and TV-based Big Picture. Rather than inviting the games media masses who have been clamouring for any details on the Seattle company's 'wearable computing' initiative, Gabe Newell and his team instead went right to the top, with an in-depth interview published in The New York Times."
The New York Times article on which this report is based is worth reading, too: Valve's corporate non-structure sounds hard to believe. It seems Valve is also looking for hardware designers.
Just FYI that clause is in pretty much every contract you have ever signed.
Lease on Apt? Loan? Mortgage? Amazon, EA, Ebay, Newegg, etc...
>It seems Valve is also looking for hardware designers.
WE KNOW ALREADY
Bullshit! None of those have that clause.
It's an extreme waiver that companies are only now starting to realize they can get past idiots like you.
I find it quite amusing that after nearly 3 decades of seeing VR headsets, they still manage to look retarded to this day.
"all you have to do is wear this 30 pound chunk of shit on your face, and you too can look like a moron ... least for the 20 seconds your eyes can actually stand it before your brain tears from the strain"
While it seems tempting to saying "Just work on what you think you should work on", it also seems risky.
The What Ifs. What if you hire somebody and tell him to work on whatever, and he just posts stuff like this to /. all day. Who would he be accountable to?
Or would the management structure suddenly come into being at that time?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I know we're all supposed to get a hardon over everything Valve does, but meh to this. Go work on the next Half-Life installment, which is something people actually want to see.
Given how much you look around in first person games having to move your head would end up very strenuous and would likely result in some sort of RSI. I'd much rather look at a monitor in front of me and move the mouse a few centimetres when I want to look around.
I also wonder how these headsets will work with movement/aim. With standard first person control where you're looking, the direction you're facing and the point you're aiming at are all the same. With a headset it would be ridiculous to set your movement direction/aim by turning your head, so the direction you're travelling/aiming will have to be separate from the direction you're looking. That will lead to a situation you often experience when controlling tanks in games where the turret ends up facing a different direction to where the tank is travelling, so you get confused and have to take a moment to re-align the turret with the tank direction. Having to do that in a fast paced FPS would become annoying, and it would be frustrating to die repeatedly because you were sorting yourself out while getting shot at.
I see these headsets as being like 3D films - a fun novelty that you'd only want to use occasionally.
perhaps this will lead to some decent pc platformers that aren't just shitty ports.
...
I'm all for wearable computing and it's great to see Valve pushing it forward.
But... I kind of miss the days when Valve made games.
I want to believe but I have heard for decades now about VR helmets and every time the product fails/disappears or they are not a viable option for most people.
Valve is one of the few companies that I would walk away from my current employer to join even if the money wasn't any better. Having my code shrinkwrapped into an OS which is rapidly becoming obsolete isn't really doing it for me anymore.
Amazon
Any dispute or claim relating in any way to your use of any Amazon Service, or to any products or services sold or distributed by Amazon or through Amazon.com will be resolved by binding arbitration, rather than in court
EA
YOU UNDERSTAND THAT BY THIS PROVISION, YOU AND EA ARE FOREGOING THE RIGHT TO SUE IN COURT AND HAVE A JURY TRIAL.
Ebay
...Agreement to Arbitrate, which will, with limited exception, require you to submit claims you have against us to binding and final arbitration, unless you opt-out of the Agreement to Arbitrate (see Legal Disputes, Section B ("Agreement to Arbitrate")). Unless you opt-out: (1) you will only be permitted to pursue claims against eBay on an individual basis....
Newegg preferred account.
THIS AGREEMENT REQUIRES THE USE OF ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS TO RESOLVE DISPUTES
On top of all this I have found generic arbitration clauses and a plethora of companies that are too numerous to count.
for real? Could work. Intel's integrated graphics are pushing out something on the order of a Nvidia GT240 if you get the 4000, which is more than acceptable. They've pretty much got to do something, since if Microsoft goes all walled garden on them and it sticks then they're basically done. I wish them luck. I like my Steam games.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
In my opinion, this is the way businesses should be run. Gabe is looking at the 5 to 10 year goal of wearable computing will be powerful enough for virtual reality. I don't know if he is right, virtual reality has been virtually around the corner for nearly decades now. I hope it will be. It pretty much depends on if the processing power of the computer chip continues to follow Moore's Law. And even then, I don't know. Maybe not total virtual reality - more like augmented reality. In any case, we even could see Half Life 3 by then. Now *that* would be cool.
So do we have to guess whether it's EA or activision hiring people to poison this debate?
The headmounted display (HMD) the NYT article leads off with wasn't created by Valve though. It was created by Palmer Luckey. Gabe helped him assemble a tiny little 8 person corporation to commercialize the design (and probably offered private financing to help make sure it gets off the ground in style, though that has never been publically reported). He may not need the financing though. The Oculus Rift Kickstarter ended a little over a week ago and was phenomenally successful. They're calling it one of the top 10 Kickstarters so far. That same HMD has been credited to John Carmack too, so it's not too surprising the NYT got it wrong.
As for the people complaining about how clunky the pictures look, ever heard of prototyping? That's what that was. Check the Kickstarter page for what the Rift 1.0 kits will look like when they ship this December. You can bet the Rift 2.0, likely to be available commercially next year, will look even slicker.
As for the people complaining about getting sick or eyestrain from it, it may come as a shock, but the past 20 years haven't been completely useless in determining what was wrong with '80s VR. Human vision is now so well understood that a layman can explain the basic issues with VR. It doesn't take an optometrist anymore. More to the point, Carmack has done some real science using the Rift prototype he has and determined that the biggest driver for making VR work (or not) is latency, in both headtracking and the display. Get that roundtrip loop down to less than 20 milliseconds, and human vision (and brain) buys it. It looks like looking at a world, after that, and no longer induces vertigo. The hardware is finally at a point where getting under that limit is feasible.
The biggest reason VR can succeed this time is display technology. Smart phones have driven the costs of conveniently small conveniently high resolution LCD panels into the ground. What was once a ridiculously custom built $50,000 piece of gear is now a $300 piece of gear made of off the shelf parts originally intended for phones. Right down to the sensors. Trackers on a chip have also gotten both very sophisticated and astonishingly cheap. It ain't the '80s anymore, kids.
What does all this have to do with Valve? Valve in general and Gabe Newell in particular believes that this time, VR WILL work, and that the platform of choice to get it off the ground is the PC. PCs tolerate new peripherals better than any other platform, especially since many platforms don't tolerate 3rd party peripherals in any form at all. Good luck creating a 3rd party peripheral for the PS3, for instance. Of course, if Microsoft succeeds in killing the PC as we know it with their own app store, then Valve needs their own platform. Hence, the hardware design interest. If their platform includes ready-to-run Virtual Reality that actually lives up to sci fi dreams, so much the better. The results may ultimately become Yet Another Walled Garden (YAWG. Catchy, eh?), but so it goes.
Interesting article, cool that Valve went right to the mainstream traditional media with their announcement. But, it was kinda cute reading the author's descriptions of Portal and TF2. I guess the Times simply doesn't have anyone under 40 working for them. Apparently Team Fortress is a game about an evil company that sells its customers faulty products.
."
Imagine an article covering a sporting event written by someone similarly oblivious to what's going on:
"Members of the Yankees team run to and capture 'bases' as part of an elaborate reenactment focused on battlefield strategies deployed during the Civil War . .
"What happened to 3D Virtual Reality? Do you remember in the mid-90s when virtual reality headsets were going to be the next big thing? Do you wonder why the whole technology just sort of went away? VR pioneer Mark Pesce has spilled the goods. Audioholics was able to contact Mr. Pesce via Twitter where he answered a few questions for us regarding his work with Sega and the mysterious disappearance of its VR project. Over 15 years ago, Mark Pesce worked with Sega on its VR Headset, which was intended to plug into the Sega set-top-box. The headset was going to provide gamers with a virtual reality 3D environment. Of course Sega wasn’t the only one developing a VR headset at the time, and we all expected to be running around in 3D environments when graphics evolved beyond chunky wireframes of the early VR visuals. We thought the technology was just around the corner. With a working VR Headset almost ready for market, Sega had the product tested by a third party lab, the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) at Palo Alto California - the results weren’t pretty. The lab at Stanford came back to Sega with dire warnings about the hazards of prolonged use of this technology. SRI warned Sega: "
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
I won't buy one until I can get it with PyroVision!
Well played, Gaben, well played.
I guess 4chan must be down or something..eh..
... where he goes into more detail of what Areyoukiddingme said.
It's 3.5 hours, but it's really fascinating. Here's a link.
They're still hiring designers and engineers to get this thing off the ground and it's already revealed? Newell criticized MS for copying Apple ("[T]rying to copy Apple will accelerate, not slow, Microsoft's decline.") yet he really should have copied Apple in this instance rather than go the old MS route. The MS route is to show off a product in the early prototype stages. The Apple method is to show off a functional product. Maybe Newell is trying to attract the attention of potential investors. If not, he just made a huge blunder. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft probably already all have working VR prototypes and associated patents. Now they just have to combine that hardware with the 'augmented reality' concept (and two of those companies can take a short-cut by partnering with Google).
Really, Newell dug his own hole. He stayed closely allied with Microsoft from the creation to Valve until the unveiling of Windows 8. He's mad that their new OS might wipe out his business, yet he helped contribute to Microsoft's stranglehold on the PC gaming market. Perhaps if he didn't want to be dependent on another company that has a history of stabbing partners in the back, then he would have ported Half-Life to something other than PS2 (and only after the Dreamcast - Microsoft's console - became an apparent failure). Newell's last minute support of OS X and Linux reeks of desperation. Like the PS2 port, it's an 'oh shit!' moment. Well, he's the one that threw his company's weight behind Windows and XBox. OS X has undergone huge growth since its inception, Linux geeks are the ideal market for Valve products, yet he ignored those markets in favor of laying golden eggs for Microsoft. Maybe he thought being a part of their good 'ole boys network would always pay off.
The only reason I feel somewhat sorry for him is because his company is committed to making quality games. I don't play video games anymore, but I like people who are committed to creating things of high quality. But Newell's quality products were dependent on non-quality products. It's like whatever company that makes the best aftermarket parts for Hondas. Whoever that was, I bet they tanked in the early 2000s when Honda went away from those tiny two-door Civics that were so popular among modders.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
We live in a world where a woman sued and won against spilling hot coffee on herself, because the company didn't put a warning that their hot coffee is hot.
Troll detected. Remainder of comment invalidated.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We live in a world where a woman sued and won against spilling hot coffee on herself
Don't forget the girls who sued and won because fatty foods made them fat.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
The woman sued because the coffee was too hot by state standards. This caused injury above and beyond what she normally would have gotten otherwise. Actually read about the case instead of making crap up. No wonder Slashtards are the laughing stock of the legal world.
We live in a world where a woman sued and won against spilling hot coffee on herself, because the company didn't put a warning that their hot coffee is hot.
Um, no. We live in a world where a company got sued because their coffee was hot enough that it caused third-degree burns, the victim required skin grafts, and the company refused a reasonable request of about $20,000 to cover medical expenses. Furthermore, the company had been sued for similar incidents before and had decided it was cheaper to pay out than to change their practices.
This idea that McDonald's was the victim because people don't understand that coffee is hot needs to die. They were arrogant in their treatment of the victim and they got what they deserved.
Not trying to argue that so much as shed my thoughts on the subject. From a little searching I came across the following for third degree burns. http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_water_burn_scalding_graph.html Here, it basically states that 3rd degree burns can be received after about 2 seconds of contact with 150degF water. Coffee is generally brewed at about 190degF... you know, boiling water over coffee grounds for the standard method. Also, there were and are no state standards for the temperature of coffee. In fact, in that case, the National Coffee Association supported McDs methods of brewing coffee using BOILING WATER and being held at ~180-190degF to maintain 'optimal taste'. McD's could have handles this specific situation better as it wasn't the first time burns had happened, BUT accidents happen and not all are worth a lawsuit. You spill coffee on yourself, if it's fresh, it'll be hot. Lesson learned. So, the last two posts from the AC crowd not willing to give a name to their inaccuracies just go to show that they are, in fact, the 'Slashtards' that are the laughing stock. The severity of the McD's case was an abuse of the legal system in just about every way. The old lady had an accident and spilled HOT coffee on herself. Now, this would have been different if they been using say... thermite to brew their coffee. (Don't bother me with the physics of this!) McDs was within standards for coffee temperature and this lady got fresh brewed coffee. I would have supported them assisting with medical costs as they've done in the past, but they are under no obligation to do so. It would have gone a long way in the name of public PR though.
It's actual not mandatory arbitration, you can still sue on an individual basis. However since Valve will pay lawyer fees win or lose in arbitration as long as you're not asking for more than 10 grand, you're almost certainly better off in arbitration.
you know how they extend the periscope from a uboot? ...
imagine now then a camera on the roof/or/hood/or/... of your (real) car, that
feeds into zem glasses? how's that for a traffic overview
Your info is kind of incomplete. You should watch the documentary "Hot Coffee," which examines this case and places it within the larger scope of a nationwide political attack against the judicial system.
The woman's lawyers were able to demonstrate that McD's knew there was a problem. There was already a long case history in McDonald's own files showing many previous incidents. The internal memos were what really damned them. They knew their coffee temperature, especially combined with their cup design, was a problem, and they decided as long as the cost of lawsuits remained low, they weren't going to replace their aging coffee machines no matter how many people got burned. The jury responded to this the same way they'd respond to some sociopath who owned a vicious dog and told everyone who got mauled that they shouldn't have been walking past his house. At some point it stops being a one-off accident and becomes negligence.
The woman in question asked for some help with her medical bills and nothing more; it was the outraged jury who decided on a high punitive settlement -- yet after the case McD's simply refused to pay, telling the woman if she wanted more than a small pittance, they'd see her right back in court.
Be fair, it's probably just someone who repeats every bit of nonsense they run across with no critical thought applied, rather than a troll.
Do you think Michelle Bachmann is trolling congress?
That's part of the problem right there. There IS and WAS no problem with the McD's machines. They made coffee hot, very hot. Well, water can only get so hot before it isn't really 'water' anymore. You could steam the coffee and let it recondense, but not sure that would be very time effective. Coffee is hot. The heat range of the McD's coffee was normal, and the consumer is the biggest flaw in the cup design. Admittedly, McD's could have used a more stiff composition for its cups to make them flex less so the lid wouldn't pop off, but even then it was a minority issue. There were previous occasions of burns, but the same could be said for the clumsy consumer spilling coffee on themselves at home. I know my personal coffee maker would probably scald me just as quickly. Making it fireside, while camping, with boiling water in a pot has the same dangers and effect to produce coffee. Hot tea can also carry the same dangers. It's all about just being careful. If you are getting a hot beverage and plan on driving while trying to drive or hold it, that is just foolish. Drink it at a red light, pour it into a 2nd more stable cup in the parking lot... save it until you get to your location. McDs deciding not to change the design so long as costs remain low, sounds bad at first thought, but really is common practice and reasonable when doing business. You look at the failure rate and reasons, cost to change the design, and possible benefits of changing the design (among many other points), and then make your decision. A cup is a cup, you can only do so much with the design McD and most other places work with. Cheap styrofoam would be the only weakness in the design. I still feel this whole thing was overblown, and the zealous jury just wanted to try and make an example out of McD. The lady got her money, McD got mocked for a few years like it was going out of style (which it did...), and not its a common reference and argument piece on society and the flaws in our legal system. More often than not, this case is cited as a failure of the legal system, where common sense can be litigated.
Sorry for my lack of paragraphs... my screen is playing tricks on me and I see a line break where none shows up after I submit... Oh well.
I like how you start off claiming you aren't going to argue, and then proceed to an argument. I'm not sure how I should take the rest of your response given that you can't go a couple of sentences without changing your mind.
As for the facts of the case, I am well aware of the arguments on both sides. My biggest problem with this case is the way it became the poster child for anyone advocating for tort reform when the facts of the case don't support it. The plaintiff did not immediately sue McDs or even ask for an unreasonable sum of money. She asked for just enough to cover expected medical expenses and they decided to nickel and dime her even though they had paid out on those kinds of complaints in the past. This never would have ended up in court at all if McDs had just followed their own policy.
Finally, your assertion that this was an abuse of the system is just wrong. This is exactly why the system exists, to allow people to seek redress for their injuries. McDs had just as much chance to present its case as the old woman and they lost. You may disagree with that ruling but the system worked the way that it was supposed to.
Oh, and FWIW the jury didn't absolve the plaintiff of responsibility. They decided that both parties were responsible (she did spill the coffee on herself) but that McDs bore enough responsibility that they should pay up. Doesn't seem like an unreasonable verdict to me.
Maybe that headset looks tiny on Gabe, but for a normal sized human that is a monstrosity.
Big Picture looks cool, but the future of gaming is not just a fancy HD interface to an app store.
So far Valve is getting a failing grade on efforts to create a "new" gaming platform.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Drink it at a red light, pour it into a 2nd more stable cup in the parking lot... save it until you get to your location.
And this is where your total failure of logic becomes clear. The coffee is being sold in a cup clearly intended for use in mobile consumption, yet which is simultaneously unfit for that purpose. McDonalds could have done any of a) used a better cup, b) sold the coffee cooler, or of course c) not sold coffee, we always forget this remedy but if someone can't do something right then they shouldn't do it at all.
Cheap styrofoam would be the only weakness in the design.
An engineer would make allowances for cheap polystyrene foam in the cup design, as opposed to a designer who would make a cup that can easily collapse when used for its design purpose. McDonalds should have known enough to hire the proper one. They do after all sell engineered food.
More often than not, this case is cited as a failure of the legal system, where common sense can be litigated.
Well, if McDonalds had used some common sense, then I guess they wouldn't have been dragged into court. You don't hear about this happening to other companies, probably because they're content to use a standard cup instead of designing their own to save a quarter of a cent per cup of coffee.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah, and then there's the part about how the car was parked and the woman was in the passenger seat. (Her son was driving.) And McDonald's own internal memos said the coffee was too hot, the cups were dangerous, and listed a long string of severe injuries. An accident is when it happens once in a while. If it keeps happening, over and over, and you don't do anything, then it starts to look a lot like negligence. Which is what happened in this case.