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.

Comments

Slashdot Hate Machine

[MildlyTangy]

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.

Re:Slashdot Hate Machine

[BringsApples]

Yup. There was a guy here the other day talking about how much he hates slashvertizement, and asked if anyone had a recommendation for another site. Sadly the people that make up the world today are what sucks, it's not just these websites that allow for such talks. It seems that there's a newer generation of folks that are here to stay, and their main understanding of the world is derived from arguing. If you watch TV these days at all of the reality shows, that's all that they really do, argue intensely.

One thing that you didn't point out about how weird it is at slashdot lately is the mods. Man, what the shit? People get mod points and just seem to go silly-willy. I suspect that some folks just get on their hate-wagon, and seek out certain people's comments, and regardless of what they say, they mod them down, purely based on the screen name. The result is that a lot of AC posts make it to the top (maybe there are folks that mod their own AC post up, dunno). Either way, it's a sad truth - slashdot isn't as informative as it used to be. I kind of wish they'd do away with AC, or only allow moderation privileges to certain folks. But both of those are shitty ideas.

Re:Slashdot Hate Machine

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm posting as AC because I like my responses to be moderated based on their content and not based on my posting history. I intentionally log out to post.

Regarding using mod points to mod things down, I stick to the 80/20 rule - 80% of my moderation points are for modding up good stuff and 20% if modding down Trolls/Flamebait/Offtopic and I try to use them all in a single thread that is of particular interest to me. It's somewhat self-serving, but I think I can say that I have modded things as Insightful that I disagreed with - my agreement with the post has nothing to do with it's value to the discussion, which is the purpose of the mod system as I see it. Please feel free to respond if you feel differently - I'm always interested in the views of others. Except trolls. People who live under bridges might as well live under rocks.

captcha: resolve

Re:Slashdot Hate Machine

[Mr Thinly Sliced]

FYI - Since everyone started twatting and facebooking the newsgroups have come back to life.

The Eternal September has more or less ended - the newbies that can work out how to install a newsreader can't deal with the patience needed waiting for a reply.

I've moved my technical discussions over there and use reddit and other sites as news feeds.

I mean, why didn't slashdot have any news items on the Mill CPU architecture?

Re:Slashdot Hate Machine

[Osgeld]

no technology except the 20 years of old technology

VR has not gotten smaller or more responsive in 20 years, inf act its gotten larger and heavier than it was in the late 90's and the only improvement is resolution and source material

when a new, exciting technology is stagnated so long to the point its MOVING BACKWARDS, then there is a fundamental problem with the technology that is not worth getting all happy pants about, in fact its a 100% target of hate

why did a pair of I glasses in 1998 weigh half as much as current tech, have the same response time and COST less using state of the art screen tech for the time, and why do you expect me to be excited that the current tech weighs MORE, and cost more than both the set I had in the late 90's but also the set I had in the EARLY 90's

great we went from 480P tft lcd's to 1080P tft lcd's but it cost more and is heavier than what was available at EB games 25 years ago!

Re:Slashdot Hate Machine

[david.given]

I rather like the StackOverflow moderation system, where it costs _you_ karma to downvote someone else.

In general, I don't think Slashdot's moderation system is effective at promoting interesting discussion. I think the bulk of the problems are the moderation cap at 5, which means there's a very limited dynamic range of interestingness; and there's no visible karma score, which means there's no point in taking the long view --- StackOverflow's system of gamifying karma so that people deliberately try to post good stuff so as to improve their score is total genius.

Plus, of course, the now-ingrained culture of ultra conservatism and whiny hate which permeates the comments section, but that's largely an artifact of the above. Sheesh, even Youtube comments can be better.

I, too, miss the old Slashdot. [sad face]

Re:Slashdot Hate Machine

[Pseudonym Authority]

Wrong. Also, they would just make new accounts, like the GNAA did. I realize that you and GP have invested a large portion of your heart into the names `DrinkyPoo' and `BringsApples', but most people don't give nearly as many shits about fake internet names and online reputation on an irrelevant site as you do.

Re:Slashdot Hate Machine

[LordWabbit2]

I only mod up, when I think it's justified. Most time my points expire. And I still think /. is informative et al. Maybe it doesn't have the same tone as a couple years ago but things change, so...

Avegant Glyph

[tricorn]

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.

A really impressive demonstration of VR...

[Michael Woodhams]

... 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.

Re:A really impressive demonstration of VR...

[sexconker]

... 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.

So, your ideal VR headset is blank glasses frame with no lenses?
Works for me - VR is trash.

cardboard

[globaljustin]

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.

Re:cardboard

[ColaMan]

And there are certainly a lot of gushing reviews and no shortage of hype.

The crotchety old man in me wonders precisely what we're going to use it for again? Apart from teh awesome!1! games.......

And with regards to old-school slashdot, need we bring up CmdrTaco's review of the iPod? There's been plenty of hatin' round these parts going on for decades now.

Re:Microphone?

[Osgeld]

microphones are the devil, nothing says game immersion better than a foul mouth 10 year old having a spaz atack

I have never in my life had a microphone connected to my computer, doubt I ever will

Re:Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster 11 March 201

[ColdWetDog]

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.