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New "Crescent Bay" VR Headset Revealed and Demo'd At Oculus Connect
Oculus Rift revealed today its new 'Crescent Bay' prototype wearable display, at its inaugural Oculus Connect conference. (You can find more in the company's blog too.) From Gamasutra's coverage: The new headset has 360 degree tracking and integrated audio, as well as improved performance that allows better presence, says Iribe. It has higher resolution and a better refresh rate than even its recent DK2 headset. It's also much lighter than earlier prototypes.
The company has also licensed technology from RealSpace 3-D for improved 3D audio on Oculus moving forward. Audio is becoming a priority for the company, [CEO Brendan] ]Iribe said.
Road to VR has a gushing hands-on review: One of the stand-out demos put me in front of an alien on some sort of Moon-like world. The alien was looking at me and speaking in an unfamiliar tongue. When I moved my head, its gaze followed me. Its big and detailed eyes, combined with reaction to me as I moved, imbued it with a sense of living that was really cool. Spaceships flew over head and drew my gaze behind me, leading me to look at some incredibly detailed scenery.
Virtual Fairy Tales!
I tried the old and relatively crappy DK1 Rift, and for all its instantly perceivable limitations, and as a VR first timer, it was still an exercise in pants-wetting, literally jaw-dropping awe. No technology has ever come close to it in the levels of amazement and excitement for the future. ( seeing my first 3D video card render from the days of software rendering is the closest, but not that close)
But im pretty disappointed at the typical new-Slashdot reaction to what is truly an exciting and literally awesome technology. The Slashdot Hate Machine is inexplicable and relentless, and nothing is spared from the stomp of its soul crushing boots. It seems, no matter what technology is created, the hate and adolescent invective knows no bounds.
I want the old Slashdot back. It was very informative, genuinely funny at times (dont tell me a shark-laser joke is genuinely worth the now-guaranteed +5 Funny), and was the only place on the 'net that I could find and share in that level of expertise and genuine interest and excitement in Science and Technology. The last few years have been a sad and disturbing decline in the quality of commenters in Slashdot.
I miss Old Slashdot :(
OK, downmodders and trolls, come at me.
We have replaced you with an improved digg/reddit user base. Loser's remorse. Get over it. This is our webpage now.
captcha: armpits
I'm really looking forward to seeing how the Rift and the Glyph compare. They both seem to be converging from different sides to be very similar, but with the delivery tech being quite different. I'm excited about the form factor of the Glyph and the emphasis on audio. The video doesn't have the resolution of the Rift yet, but it sounds like it is still very good.
It would be really interesting to see innovations from both put together. I really like the idea of using micro-mirror arrays to create the virtual image, and I really like that the Glyph can be used without corrective lenses.
If the two companies could have merged and joined the best of both, that would have been really excellent.
That looks nice and all, but without a microphone the headphones are useless (for multiplayer games).
... would be if you walked into the company's hospitality suite at a conference, put on the VR headset, looked around you ... and couldn't tell the difference.
An alien landscape is very cool and photogenic, but might be hiding flaws because we don't know what it is supposed to look like. It is a fair demonstration of immersive game worlds, which will be one of the big initial uses of VR, so the demonstration is not invalidated by this.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
I had a chance to play with the Rift but could only do so for a few second before motion sickness kicked in big time. I can't do first person shooters without the same thing happening. I'm wondering what will happen as we move more and more toward these types of immersive HCI's and how folks like me will be affected. As some point will these devices become ubiquitous and this type of reaction be considered a "handicap" because it will require special accommodations in the workplace?
Bark less. Wag more.
According to my original research, that event more or less, to the day marks the decline of the internet, from something smart and exciting to the schlock you are experiencing now. Server sales, websites sales, PC sales, it all starts going downhill just about exactly on that date.
I don't think the disaster had anything to do with the internet comments going to crap, but the decline sure shows up in the graphs run against server logs, google trends and news items.
Then we got the Eric Snowden in June 2013. Things got serious.
Commenting with wit, snark and the very occasional bit of insight went from a light whimsical passtime, to a grave risk of the men in black showing up and disappearing me.
To restate the last bit, commenting on slashdot went from a fun passtime (one of many, many passtimes) to a grave risk against personal safety.
I am a nerd, not a revolutionary.
Your post seems fishy...your UID is in the 3.4 millions but you reference the 'old slashdot'...and your whole "hate machine" thing, it seems like you expected to get comments that disagreed so you pre-emptively call anyone who disagrees a troll. Also, you should know that people on /. do not like fake users who break out elaborate rhetoric with no substance other than to hype a product.
Slashdot old & new hates hype. Wild-eyed, fanboi hype is fine of course, but you can't call us trolls for disagreeing and making our opinion known.
Occulus never deserved its hype.
When people "ooh and ahh" about Occulus, they're really reacting to the *novelty* of the technology...technology Occulus cannot claim to originate in any way.
Google did a good job of subverting Occulus's hype machine with Cardboard
https://cardboard.withgoogle.c...
It's a cheap cardboard version of Occulus...I wouldn't buy it but it's hilarious in how it critiques Occulus without actually saying a word.
Thank you Dave Raggett
This is fairly interesting news, but did we need SIX links to the same information on six different websites in the FIRST sentence of the summary? What that all about?
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
I'll believe it when I can buy it, put it on, download a game, and play in 3D. Until then, it's just more vaporware. We've been hearing about the Oculus for years now, and everyone keeps claiming that it's "almost ready", but it's still not available yet. Their insistence that it'll be ready "when it's ready" is less than comforting.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
At 45 degrees the FoV of the Glyph isn't even competing with Oculus, they're competing with Sony's HMZ line.
VR headset with open headphones...? :/ I hope it's just the prototype, or they can be easily removed (it would seem so from the photo)... Any outside noise could be very immersion-breaking :/ And it doesn't help not bumping into stuffs anyway, beside people...
Although, if you're in a very quiet room, an open design sure could give a slightly more realistic environmental audio (well, if you're in an open area at least), and could be a bit more confortable for long uses (if the pads are good...). But I would suppose there could be a small risk of hearing reverberations from your real room if the headphones are noisy, and the mind trying to interpret them, possibly increasing the risk of nausea, because the virtual space you are in has a very different shape...?
Finally, there is the problem of headphone quality... Particularly if you think about listening to music or watching movies, in a virtual space... (which is easily imaginable even in games...). Average quality headphones could break immersion (even subconsciously...).
After so much time, so many press releases and so much hype Oculus have made it really hard to care.
Consumer version is still coming 'soon'...... 2015? ...... 2016?
All I can find is that the resolution is "higher" than the DK2, and the screen door effect is gone, or nearly so.
Can anyone confirm that they've gone to 4K?
Go back to your bubble watching Fox News, Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, Rush and all the other scumbag tin-foil-hat-wearing opportunists. Your ranting is a sad sight to behold.
Things got serious.
Commenting with wit, snark and the very occasional bit of insight went from a light whimsical passtime, to a grave risk of the men in black showing up and disappearing me.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is why bath salts are bad for you.
Get off of it. NSA and friends cares not one flying fuck what goes on around here. You aren't dangerous. A group of overweight, Cheetos flavored clowns locked in basement isn't a threat to anyone.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I'll simply point out that several decades ago we gear-heads/propeller-heads/geeks/nerds/etc could freely get together to discuss technical stuff in person, or online, without having politics involved.
That's different. We were all democrats back then.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Sadly, none of the Oculus headsets out so far will work for me, as my IPD is too narrow (52 mm). Most devices go from 57 or 58 mm to wider. I guess I'll have to wait for the technology to be ubiquitous enough that they start making children's headsets. If this ever happens, I'd love to check it out. I've always wanted this sort of immersive 3D.
I own a DK2, but even if it's superior to anything else that was/is on the market for under $1000, it still needs a lot of work. Having seen the new prototype, it sure looks ugly like hell, also the headphones really look like the crap you get on a plane.. Compare that to the full headset you got on the forte VFX-1 (which IMHO is still one of the most comfortable HMD's ever, especially with it's flipup visor).. Also with the DK2 there really isn't any good calibration, which it certainly needs to try and get rid of motion sickness, as a wrong IPD can induce it.. Most headsets I've used had much better adjustments as the DK2 (you could adjust left right eye independantly on the X, Y and Z axe).. But one thing as a DK2 owner is ofcourse their unveiling of the new prototype so soon after the release of the DK2.. But I don't think there will be a DK3 before the release of the CV1, well at least not until a few weeks before the release of CV1, because if they are going to release DK3 this year, I'll be very pissed..