Tag Archives: Oculus VR
BBC releases free ‘Doctor Who’ VR short
Doctor Who fans who can't bear the long wait for the twelfth season are in for a treat. The BBC has released Doctor Who: The Runaway, an animated short VR film based on the classic British sci-fi series and voiced by its own Jodie Whittaker, who repr...
This week in tech history: Three years of Oculus figuring out VR
At Engadget, we spend every day looking at how technology will shape the future. But it's also important to look back at how far we've come. That's what This Week in Tech History does. Join us every weekend for a recap of historical tech news, annive...
Facebook is closing half of Oculus pop-ups in Best Buy stores
Facebook is shutting down 200 of its 500 Oculus VR pop-up stores from Best Buy locations around the country due, in large part, to underwhelming interest from the public. Per pop-up workers speaking to Business Insider, some of these kiosks would "go...
Augmented and Virtual Reality Market To Be $4 Billion in 3 Years
At the E3 2015 Microsoft impressed with a Minecraft HoloLens implementation. Everyone believes now Virtual Reality is finally coming to consumers in a big way. Analyst firm CCS Insight just released...
Oculus Redesign Awesomeness
This redesign of the Oculus VR Headset focuses on user familiarity to more comfortably introduce this new virtual reality gaming tech. The design’s clean, sleek look more closely resembles a pair of fancy ski goggles, avoiding the over-embelishment and obviousness of the current headset. The product appeals to the gaming audience all while keeping a look for anything other virtual reality application.
Designer: Syed Rahman
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(Oculus Redesign Awesomeness was originally posted on Yanko Design)
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Facebook Opens Hunting Season for Oculus Rift Bugs
The social network figured that instead of spending time to find the bugs of its first hardware product on its own, it’s better off paying security researchers to do so.
Facebook is taking the easy way out on this, in an attempt to make its VR goggles as safe as possible. After all, no matter how good your software developers are, it’s always better to rely on the masses for finding problems faster, and (why not admit it?) cheaper. Facebook’s Oculus Rift bug bounty program implies rewards of at least $500 for anyone who discovers any bugs in the VR headset. A maximum limit hasn’t been established yet, but I assume that the amount is correlated with the gravity of the bug.
Neal Poole, security engineer at Facebook, pointed out that most bugs are found in the messaging system of the headset, as well as in the website. As he explained, “A lot of the issues that come up with Oculus are not necessarily in the hardware yet. Potentially in the future, if people were to go explore and find issues in the SDK or the hardware, that is definitely of interest to us.”
In other words, Facebook is looking into the software issues of the headset. My guess is that the social network’s security engineers either don’t have any idea about what bugs Oculus Rift might have, or the company doesn’t want to spend that much time and/or money on having its own employees working on the problem.
With this news also resurfaced people’s feedback towards the acquisition of Oculus VR by Facebook. Most people didn’t agree with this, and went as far as claiming that the acquisition meant the end of Oculus Rift.
In other news, a newly discovered Oculus Rift hack enables Netflix users to watch House of Cards in their own private cinema. That’s definitely better than watching a movie on a tablet in bed, but there also are some downsides to it. Only one person can wear the VR headset at a time, so you can’t enjoy watching Netflix with your significant other, for example. I’m sure that other hacks will be discovered soon, and even more so after the headset hits the market.
Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Oculus VR Crystal Cove prototype, and the Oculus Rift hack that enables POV on the Black Armor drone.
Samsung’s Gear VR Headset Could See the Light of Day at IFA 2014
The virtual reality headset developed by Samsung is closer to becoming a reality. According to Sammobile, who have also gotten their mittens on photos of GEAR VR, the device will be launched at IFA 2014.
Gear VR, as Samsung’s product is rumoredly going to be called, will function in a manner that makes it closer to Google Cardboard, rather than to Oculus Rift. Samsung’s VR headset will only be compatible with Galaxy smartphones (most probably only flagships such as S5 or Note 3), so the South Korean company has a precise target audience in mind. On top of that, this design enables Samsung to create a VR headset that doesn’t have an exorbitant price.
Galaxy smartphones will connect to Gear VR via USB 3.0. The necessity for a high-speed connection rose from high bitrate of the material that’s projected in the headset. The virtual reality effect is achieved with the help of the accelerometer, gyroscope and processing power included in the smartphone. Basically, the headset relies on the smartphone to do the head-tracking required for the VR effect.
If the above picture is real, it means that Samsung has also decided on how to call its VR headset. It’s good to see that they went for a simple name that’s incredibly easy to memorize.
Oculus currently reigns supreme in the world of VR headsets (which frankly, doesn’t really have that many members), and Samsung somehow admitted that it couldn’t have possibly developed Gear VR from the ground up, alone. More precisely, the Korean company collaborated with Oculus VR (or, in other words, with Facebook) in order to create the software for Gear VR. As far as the hardware is concerned, Samsung took the matter into its own hands, and to be honest, the headset doesn’t look bad at all.
As IFA 2014 takes place as usual, in Berlin, from September 5 to 10, we’ll have to wait till then to see if the above photos are real, and if Samsung’s device represents a threat to Facebook’s Oculus and Sony’s Morpheus VR headsets. Another star that Samsung might launch at IFA 2014 is the Galaxy Note 4, which should also work with Gear VR. The problem is that the Note phablets are made for productivity, while Gear VR is clearly built with gamers in mind, so it will be interesting to see the reaction of past and future Note users.
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Oculus Buys Carbon Design
Oculus VR, Facebook’s virtual reality gaming headset company, has announced that it has acquired Carbon Design. Based in Seattle, Washington, Carbon Design is known for its exquisite consumer...
Tron Light Cycle In VR Game: VR Keeps Getting Better
While the recent news of Facebook acquiring Oculus VR might have worried or not some people, rest assured: developers are still doing their thing, and this is just proof of that.
Finally, one of the oldest geek dreams becomes true: people will now get to experience what it’s like to control a light cycle as in the cult movies Tron! Luis Sobral, The Arcade Man created this arcade machine along with the Oculus for VR support to deliver an experience as close to the movies as possible. You can appreciate the results in the videos below these lines
Source: Technabob
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