The Oculus Rift VR headset made a guest appearance on the Late Night Show with Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday and we’ve got the video for you. Oculus Inc. has posted a few photos of the production factory and Johnny Chung Lee visiting the offices. We also recap CES 2013 awards received by the Oculus Rift.
Oculus Rift on the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Unfortunately no one from Oculus Inc. was on the show themselves. Instead, the company apparently entrusted The Verge’s editor-in-chief, Joshua Topolsky, with what appeared to be the same handmade prototype that the company showed at CES 2013 last month.
Topolsky is a frequent guest on the Late Night Show. He brought the Oculus Rift along with a few other gadgets for Fallon and the audience to see:
While it’s unfortunate that they spent hardly any time talking about or using the Oculus Rift, it’s a very positive sign for VR headsets, and virtual reality in general, to get exposure to a mainstream audience. Fallon’s reaction was pretty wild; if Oculus Inc. is lucky, they may be receiving some calls from other important folks who want to show the unit on-air.
On the company’s official Facebook page, Oculus Inc. posted this photo of the case in which the prototype traveled from California to New York for the show:
Production Factory Photos
Also on their Facebook page, Oculus Inc. released two behind-the-scenes photos of the factory. According to a preliminary timeline released back in November, the factory would be in the pre-production phase when the photos were taken. In pre-production, a small batch of units are made for final proofing before mass production begins. Here we can see a batch of Oculus Rift headtrackers (formerly called the ‘Adjacent Reality’ IMU), as well as part of the casing which will likely house the lenses.
Johnny Chung Lee Visits Oculus
Oculus also shared some photos from late December of Johnny Chung Lee stopping by the office to take the Oculus Rift for a spin:
Lee is a well know human-computer interaction researcher. He received his PhD in HCI from Caniegie Mellon University and is known around the web for hacking together incredible HCI experiences from affordable hardware. Currently Lee is working in Google’s semi-secret ‘X’ lab, where Google Glass is being developed, as a “Rapid Evaluator.”
CES Awards and Honors
CES 2013 was huge for the Oculus Rift. If the company wasn’t already on the map, they are now. Virtually every major site was abuzz about the Rift and it was lathered with awards and honors. In naming the Oculus Rift best-in-show, The Verge editor-in-chief, Joshua Topolsky, sounded genuinely blown-away:
The Oculus Rift changed my life. No, seriously. My childhood (at least the formative years) was spent reading novels like Neuromancer and Snow Crash, and poring over stories about a future promised by Mondo 2000 and Wired. Virtual reality has long been the ultimate promise of technology — the magic mandala, a doorway to the infinite. But the thing is: it never happened. We got touchscreens, motion sensors, the tablet revolution, body-hacking… but we never got our cyberdecks. Until now. The Oculus Rift actually delivers on the promise, and then some. It’s really, really amazing. Truly and honestly a revelation, a trip, a rabbit hole. And I’m going in. Forever. Goodbye universe. Hello universe.
Here’s a recap of awards:
- The Verge – Best in Show, Best in Gaming, Reader’s Choice
- Wired – Best of CES
- Laptop Mag – Best Gaming Device
- PC Mag – Best Gaming Gear
- GameFront – Best of CES
That’s all for this edition of Oculus Rift News Bits. You can see all of the latest Oculus Rift news here.