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Ars: Samsung Gear VR Is Today's Best Virtual Reality
An anonymous reader writes: Samsung took a distinctly different tack from Oculus VR in developing virtual reality tech. Whereas Oculus has a dedicated device, Samsung simply has a high-tech piece of headgear that you strap a Galaxy Note 4 phone into. A review popped up at Ars Technica after a month using the device, and they say it works surprisingly well. Quoting: "Though the weight of the two units is comparable, the Gear VR benefits from a strap system that distributes that weight on the upper forehead and the back of the skull rather than through an elastic death grip around the eye area."
They still say a purchase is hard to justify, simply because the content selection is lacking. But as that improves, the price tag will become worth it. "Simple, minimally interactive virtual reality experiences like The Deep, BluVR, and Titans of Space have become go-to apps when passing the Gear VR around a party for friends to check out. It's incredible just sitting in place and following along with your gaze as sea life or entire planets fly by in sharp, well-rendered, 360-degree glory."
They still say a purchase is hard to justify, simply because the content selection is lacking. But as that improves, the price tag will become worth it. "Simple, minimally interactive virtual reality experiences like The Deep, BluVR, and Titans of Space have become go-to apps when passing the Gear VR around a party for friends to check out. It's incredible just sitting in place and following along with your gaze as sea life or entire planets fly by in sharp, well-rendered, 360-degree glory."
Heck, can even order a 'nice' version from Amazon for 20 bucks, drop in your phone, done, you've got a VR headset. Pretty amazing how well it actually works.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
Call me old fashioned, but once I get home from work, I want to sit on the couch, grab a gamepad and a beer, and play games. Not jump like a fucking monkey, not wave hands in the air like a cheerleader, etc.
VR seems to be more work than fun, especially if you want to get the fully immersive shebang, which will likely require that 360-degree treadmill thingy and a nice surround sound system.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Out of curiosity I bought the Stooksy VR set for my iphone 6+. It is a Google cardboard variant from plastic foam, and despite its crude appearance it has some good features: ability to adapt for the distance between your eyes, a focus ability and very useful for me: big enough to accommodate my glasses.
In practice it is really impressive (considering that there are not that many great apps on the ios store that can handle google cardboard), the first time I tried Hiroshi Jump and the Zeiss cinema app I was grinning like an idiot.
But I soon found that I was quickly getting dizzy when using the more interactive apps or rollercoaster side by side movies,as the difference between what you see and feel is so big. Think about playing Doom for the first time, but in my case an even stronger dizziness. How do others experience this?
VR seems to be more work than fun, especially if you want to get the fully immersive shebang, which will likely require that 360-degree treadmill thingy and a nice surround sound system.
It is more work than most realize. I was working on VR tech 15 years ago. The graphics have gotten better but the fundamental problems with it remain. Foremost is that the use cases for it are VERY limited and even as a piece of kit for entertainment the novelty wears of very quickly. It's one of those technologies that sounds pretty cool (and is cool up to a point) but most people are going to go "huh, neat" and then never bother with it again. There is almost no use for it in most businesses aside from some high end simulations which very few businesses need. There is no use for it in the home except for some computer games which will only appeal to a relatively small group. Maybe some uses in virtual tours like for museums but that's pretty tiny too.
I think there is a potentially huge market for augmented reality. I can think of all kinds of applications that most people would find useful. I think the market for immersive VR is quite small and mostly centers around computer games for geeks like us.
Well, be happy because you are wrong. Many businesses don't need VR - like the corner market and such - but many businesses do. Anything design related like engineering companies, architecture firms, all the way to travel and entertainment. Hospitals and medical research, automotive, and so on. All will benefit greatly from being able to see and explore things they never could before. This puts million dollar 3D visualization facilities in reach of just about everyone.
And while there are many lining up to play GTA5 or similar first person mayhem kinds of games, regular people can have the equivalent of million dollar simulators in their own homes both for training and for enjoyment. Flight and driving simulations are transformed when the visuals become what you would actually see from cabs, cabins, and cockpits.
There isn't one killer app. It's a killer view in all sorts of different apps. Until you actually experience it it is hard to describe well enough to convey. What I can tell you is I have flown the real deal commercial and military flight simulators. Full motion, hemispherical projection, etc. They may have real cockpits but the out the window view is a 2D projection and flat. Very cool but not totally immersive. Do that in an Oculus Rift and now everything is 3D. You can use a mouse to aim and click on knobs and switches which isn't so realistic, but whatever plane you want to fly is simply a matter of programming. And it is far more immersive and real feeling than any simulator I've ever been in. That is no exaggeration. It's the same for driving sims. In 3D you can "feel" the car breaking loose just from the slight changes in angles that you can now perceive with the head tracking and 3D view. It is astonishing.
Architecture firms have been going nuts that they can now actually enter their creations and fine tune things as well as show them to customers. It's not just a "this is nice" kind of thing. The reports are that the architects are having "wow" moments and are modifying designs that they thought were fine before but once they can explore them in virtual space, they see that things could be even better.
Plenty of people won't have any use for VR at all. But plenty of others will see it as a game changer for their profession, their training, their hobbies, and possibly even their health. It's something you really need to experience to understand. And for the uses that really will push VR into all aspects of any kind of design and training, the game demonstrations don't cut it either.
VR is very weird. Those that haven't seen what it can do are much more likely to claim it is unimportant and will never catch on. Those that have seen can see the potential in everything from games and sims to real world valuable insight generators in many professions. I would bet you haven't actually experienced VR and therefor suffer from the inability to extrapolate. Trust me on this. When you put on an HMD and look around some environment you could never see otherwise, any environment that a computer can generate and synthesize, you will understand.