Oculus Hiring Programmers, Hardware Engineers, and More For VR Research Division

An anonymous reader writes Buried toward the end of the must-watch keynote by Oculus VR's Chief Scientist, Michael Abrash, was the announcement of a new research division within Oculus which Abrash says is the "first complete, well funded VR research team in close to 20 years." He says that their mission is to advance VR and that the research division will publish its findings and also work with university researchers. The company is now hiring "first-rate programmers, hardware engineers, and researchers of many sorts, including optics, displays, computer vision and tracking, user experience, audio, haptics, and perceptual psychology," to be part of Oculus Research.

Comments

Non-bitly URL

[beakerMeep]

Fuck your tracking URLs subby (probably Oculus PR).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

( via http://longurl.org/ )

Re: Non-bitly URL

[tandavanadesan]

I think you're moving up Oculas rift and the Rift Valley

mission creep?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see oculus just make the really low latency, high resolution amoLED head display, and call it a day. Now, oculus wants to hire even more people. Are Carmack, and Abrash getting into the empire building game? ..... On the other hand, this is Facebook, so the more money diverted, the better.

oh great

[Anonymous Coward]

Research divisions work on unfeasible stuff that never makes it into product. Look at all the stuff microsoft research did that never made it to product.

Re:oh great

[smaddox]

Yeah, another good example Bell Labs. What ever came out of there? /sarcasm

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[Anonymous Coward]

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Re:STOP THE VIDEO ADS SLASHDOT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Install Adblock Plus.

and the crowd starts chanting: HAPTIC SUITS!

[Anonymous Coward]

oh yes, Ready Player One made real. fuck yeah!

Occulus?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, Facebook.

Myth of Tech Innovation

[rolfwind]

The research team seeks to actively defeat what Abrash calls âoethe myth of technological innovation,â the idea that just because a technology is possible, it will eventually exist without a concerted effort to develop it.

This rings within my experience of experiencing some projects firsthand just die on the vine because of corporate politics or just typical upper management being risk adverse to something long-term.

There's a common perception of tech being like a river, with it's bends and turns varying but still getting there (out to some utopian ocean destination) but I visualize it flowing the other way, from a ocean of talent to rivers and creeks, etc. Some advances are unavoidable rivers, but there are a lot of unexplored tributaries and creeks along the way that could provide a unique benefit.

This is especially true as society often demands solutions to problems previous tech created, making a unique trajectory through history on research based on a series of reactions rather than intrinsic need. (Think of the history of the rocket and space race).

Re:Myth of Tech Innovation

[UnknownSoldier]

I don't buy Abrash's "Myth of technological innovation". Counter-Proof: Multiple Discovery

Newton and Leibniz simultaneously invented Calculus. There have been many other simultaneous tech inventions.

If you are not first, there are always a few other people very, very close.

have to apply using Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to apply using Facebook which is a deal breaker for me. My personal and professional life are two separate entities.

Translucent OLED, stereo cams, tracking, etc

[otis wildflower]

Seems to me that the ideal headset:
* has dual high-res cams located above the eyes, or quad cams above and below, which can 'average' out to eye level
* Is translucent/transparent with an electrochromic backplate
* has pupil sensors on the inside
* is wireless, perhaps with a battery 'pendant' that incorporates some UWB connection to the host computer
* integrated mic on the bottom of the goggle frame as well as noise-cancelling mic on top
* face cams can recognize fingertips, physical cues (like a laser mouse) to handle fine head orientation
* possibly incorporate hardware neural net coprocessors for support features as well as image/pattern recognition

Awhile back, hopefully suitable for 600+dpi displays:
http://www.oled-info.com/trans...

And a consumer level version of this might be cool:
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us...

Re:Translucent OLED, stereo cams, tracking, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

The ultimate goal in VR is THZ imaging and Ultrasonic neural stimulation. then you can get full input and output into the brain and get a full dive environment. then the sky is the limit.