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Oculus Co-Founder's New Venture: Long-Range Virtual Reality Tracking System (roadtovr.com)

Posted by timothy on from the where-you-really-sorta-are dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Jack McCauley was among Oculus' founding members and played a seminal role in the development of the Rift DK1 and DK2 VR headsets as the company's VP of Engineering. After departing from the VR firm sometime around the 2014 acquisition by Facebook, McCauley has continued his interest in VR, most recently demonstrating a laser tracking system that makes use of MEMS technology to actively track targets. He says the system's strengths are long range and low cost compared to camera-based tracking solutions, which Oculus currently uses.

15 comments

  1. Our cyborg overlords gonna lourve it ! by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 1

    Laser tracking system that makes use of MEMS technology to actively track targets

    Device like that in the wrong hands would devastated many innocent lives

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:Our cyborg overlords gonna lourve it ! by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      It's not like he paired that high power laser with a spinning mirror.....

      Dammit KENT!

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    2. Re:Our cyborg overlords gonna lourve it ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "would"?

    3. Re:Our cyborg overlords gonna lourve it ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tinfoil hats would devastated many grammer's.

    4. Re:Our cyborg overlords gonna lourve it ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I just wanna say... there are a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market that taste just as good as the real thing!

  2. One way to bypass employee's ethical standards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Have your programmers develop a system to track body parts for recreational use, turn around and use the same code to track and blow people into body parts.

    1. Re:One way to bypass employee's ethical standards by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Yep. Then all you need to do is get your enemies to wear tracking targets and you're set!

      Honestly though, computer vision systems have such far-reaching potential benefits that I'm not overly concerned about the inevitable inclusion in killing machines as well.

      How about something with a far more dubious risk/reward ratio, like behavioral psychology and its cozy relationship with marketing? How much real human benefit has that brought, compared to the costs of manipulating billions of people into buying things they didn't previously want, or paying irrational premium prices thanks to manufactured demand? In a very real sense every extra dollar spent on something due to marketing represents a little slice of someone's life-effort that has been stolen. Distributed murder by a thousand papercuts, with the victims being manipulated into clamoring for more.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  3. Talk About Over-Design by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MEMS Technology+Basic Camera approach is more than enough for this task. Just use something correctly characterised or calibrated and you can even track attitude in a moving tank. You can do this in bulk if you know what you are doing and be cheap.

    But I guess, being american and all, using a "think simple" approach won't make him those big bucks for cashing out to facebook likes later on.

  4. Re:VR is for cows. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    sexconker, you are so funny! your jesting is so smart and insightful, every time I read your cow posts I feel like I learned something new while being entertained! thank you for being such a wonderful human being!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  5. PTZ camera? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As noted in the article a fixed camera like in the DK2 setup gets less useful the further away it is from the target (the headset). I wonder if anyone's tried headset tracking using PTZ cameras? Start out with scanning with minimum zoom until you can pick out the IR diodes on the headset then use P-T to keep the headset more-or-less centered (coarse grained) and Z to keep the array %25-33% field of view (fine grained).

    1. Re:PTZ camera? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are systems that do that already, like this one that uses a full HD fixed camera with pan-tilt mirrors on servo motors: Dynamic target tracking camera system keeps its eye on the ball https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  6. So, like the HTC Vive then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just mount some lasers on it to help keep the IMU lined up correctly.

  7. BS innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Right, let's slowley reinvent everything the military has developed in the last 30 years. Laser shows anyone? Does anyone remember the laser fly zapper that finds flies using laser and them zapps them where they are? This is a Raspberry Pi project. This is super basic tech and it doesn't even solve the main problem of VR. That's done in much more interesting ways.

  8. Digital Overlords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I for one welcome our new Digital Survellance overlords.

    It's so simple. The tech companies which develop and control this technology, in league with the government and large corporations, are simply the new masters of our modern existence. They see and know all thanks to the internet's transition from a many-to-many network of networks, to a giant many-to-few orwellian panopticon.

    The tech companies control us. And the Hipsters and spooks are slowly controlling tech companies. What could possibly go wrong?