Oculus Latency Tester Announced, Reserve Yours Today

0
pre-order oculus latency tester

pre-order oculus latency tester

Oculus VR Inc announced the Oculus Latency Tester in the company’s latest update. The device, which Oculus has been working on in the background, will allow developers to rapidly iterate during development of their virtual reality games and software by making latency testing quick and easy. The company, which expects the unit to sell for less than $100, is now taking ‘reservations’ for the Oculus Latency Tester which is sort of like a pre pre-order — it’ll secure your place in line once the pre-orders start.

Everything We Know About Google Glass

2

google glass news

Google Glass could be the first product to take augmented reality into the mainstream. The forthcoming minimal head mounted display promises to make our interaction with technology more seamless and natural. There are many who will welcome it. There are many who will hate it. Regardless of which side you’re on, we’re synthesizing everything we’ve learned after months of following every bit of Google Glass news.

Despite a recent deluge of Google Glass news, the company has been extremely quiet regarding Glass specs. There are still big gaps in our knowledge of the device. However, there have been hints to glean along the way for those paying attention.

First I’ll start by painting the clearest technical picture of Google Glass specs from the available information:

Google Glass Specs

google glass specs

  • Display: 640×360 resolution (13)
    • Appears to use a temple-mounted projection in combination with a prism/waveguide. Field of view is likely no higher than 15 degrees. Display appears in the top right of your vision as a transparent color image (1).
  • Processor and RAM: Dual-core OMAP processor (13)
    • Likely an ARM processor such as those available in modern smartphones. 1GB of RAM is my best guess based on space restrictions.
  • Battery Life: Unspecified battery
    • Unless Google has struck some major battery breakthrough, expect 2-4 hours of continuous display usage, less if recording video, using WiFi, or taking photos (2).
  • Connectivity: WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS on-board, but no 3G or 4G for cellular data (1)
    • Glass can tether to iPhone, Android, and other devices for data.
  • Software: Based on Android 4.0 (13), Glass OS?
  • Controls: Touchpad on the side, a physical button, and voice commands (1)
    • “Ok Glass…” is used to start command phrases. Touchpad must be tapped to start Glass listening for command phrases and can also be tapped to make selections. Gestures on the touchpad allow you to swipe left or right to slide through lists or down to go back. Tilting your head up slowly will also prompt Google Glass to start listening for voice commands (13).
  • Sensors: Gyroscope, magnetometer, and accelerometer (13)(3)
    • One unidentified sensor rests on the inside of the projection arm, near the eye (10). An anonymous source tells us that it is neither a camera for eye-tracking or a proximity sensor to detect when glass is worn. However, SlashGear says they have a source “close to the Glass project” that says it is indeed an infrared eye-tracking camera (13). We’re still lacking corroboration on that front though.
  • Ports: MicroUSB seems to be the only port on Google Glass(4)
    • Makes us wonder how Glass will charge, maybe it’ll use inductive charging? If a MicroUSB port is present it could have support for MHL which would provide HDMI output.
  • Camera: 3.1MP CMOS camera, focal length 2.8 mm, f/2.4 aperture (5), front-facing microphone appears to be just beneath the camera (11).
    • Technically capable of 1080p video but we’ve only ever seen 720p video from Google Glass, likely due to hardware restrictions (6).
  • Weight: ~36 grams (7)

Google Glass Frames, Lenses, and Colors

google glass sunglasses

Google has shown a number of frame and lens styles for Google Glass.

Lenses:

  • No lenses (10)
  • Sunglasses (8)
  • Prescription lenses (9)

Frames:

Google says that the latest version of Glass has a screw that allows you to remove the frame and swap it out for a new one (1). At the moment they won’t say if they’re naming any partners that will be making frames, but the New York Times says that the company is in negotiations with Warby Parker on Google Glass frames (12).

Previously we’ve seen a prescription lens Google Glass prototype with traditional frames at Google IO 2012:

google glass frames black

Colors:

As for the Glass unit itself, Google has showed off a variety of colors including Charcoal (black), Tangerine (orange), Shale (grey), Cotton (white), and Sky (blue) (10):

Google Glass colors: Charcoal, Tangerine, Shale, Cotton, Sky.

 

Waterproof Google Glass?

One picture we dug up shows someone using Google Glass covered in water droplets… will the unit be water resistant?

waterproof google glass

Google Glass Features

google glass hiking directions walking directions

What can Google Glass do? The most recent video, ‘How it Feels Through Glass’, gives us a glimpse of what Google Glass features we can expect. The company says that the entire video was filmed using the Google glasses. Though the overlay that you see is added in post-production, it is true to what Google Glass can do and how it works, according to Joshua Topolsky’s time using Glass (1):

Elsewhere we have heard and seen what Glass can do; here’s a list:

  • Take pictures
  • Send photos
  • Record video
  • Make phone calls
  • Show the time
  • Show weather
  • Flight status notifications (possibly a subset of Google Now functionality)
    • Arrival and destination airports
    • Airline
    • Flight number
    • Departure time
    • On time/delay status
    • Terminal
    • Gate
  • Search Google
    • Images
    • Translation
    • Search results that appear to come from Google’s Knowledge Graph, which includes tons of useful info like real time sports scores, unit conversions, bios on people, info snippets on objects, forthcoming holidays, etc.
  • Stream video via Google Plus Hangout
  • Dictate text
  • Notifications
  • Send SMS
  • Get directions vis Google Maps
    • Driving
    • Biking
    • Walking

Google Glass Interface / Google Glass OS

google glass flight status

SlashGear has a source “close to the Glass project” which has shared what appear to be official images from the Google Glass interface (13):

google glass interface cards, battery, bluetooth

google glass ui web results, send to phone, delete

They describe the Google Glass UI:

In a sense, Glass has most in common with Google Now. Like that service on Android phones, Glass can pull in content from all manner of places, formatted into individual cards. Content from third-party developers will be small chunks of HTML, for instance, with Google’s servers supporting the various services that Glass users can take advantage of.

Some of the cards refer to local services or hardware, and a dog-ear folded corner indicates there are sub-cards you can navigate through. The most obvious use of this is in the Settings menu, which starts off with an indication of battery status and connectivity type, then allows you to dig down into menus to pair with, and forget, WiFi networks, toggle Bluetooth on or off, see battery percentage and charge status, view free storage capacity and firmware status (as well as reset the headset to factory settings), and mange the angle-controlled wake-up system.

In effect, each card is an application. So, if you ask Glass to perform a Google search – using the same server-based voice recognition service as offered on Android phones – you get a side-scrolling gallery of results cards which can be navigated by side swiping on the touchpad. It’s also possible to send one of those results to your phone, for navigating on a larger display.

Google Glass Price

google glass  priceThe first opportunity that the public had to pre-order Google Glass was a Google I/O 2012. U.S. based attendees were able to pre-order the ‘Explorer Edition’ of Glass for $1500 (8).

In the last week, Google announced the #ifihadglass campaign where people could submit short responses to the hashtag in order to have the opportunity to pre-order Google Glass, which would also cost $1500.

The Google Glass price will be “less than $1500” when it launches, according to The Verge (14).

But of course we knew that… Google Glass product director Steve Lee says that they expect millions of people to use Glass (1); that won’t happen if they want $1500 for each pair of Google glasses.

So from here we have only speculation. My best guess is that you will be able to buy Google Glass for $500 when it first launches, but I’m really hoping that Google can trim that figure down to $200 for widespread availability.

$500 is going to be a hard sell as a mere addon for a smartphone — after all you’ll need one to tether a data connection to use most Google Glass features. $200 would of course still be expensive, but not much more than some would expect to pay for a nice pair of sunglasses.

There’s no official word on how many pre-orders were placed at Google I/O 2012 or how many people will be accepted into the Explorer program through the #ifihadglass campaign. Around 6000 people attended Google I/O 2012 and pre-orders were restricted to U.S. attendees only. My best guess for total Google Glass pre-orders from I/O 2012 is around 2000 units.

Google Glass Release Date

google glass google io 2013
Expect to hear more about Google Glass at IO 2013

The company says that they expect the Google Glass release date to be before the end of 2013. That leaves up to 10 months for the team to continue to refine Glass before launch.

While Google IO 2013 would be a great place to launch, I don’t think the company will be ready to let people buy Google Glass as IO 2013 is only three months away. You should expect to hear more about Google Glass at IO 2013 though — maybe that’s when they’ll launch the Explorer Edition of Glass?

The holiday season is a better guess for the Google Glass release date; it gives them more time to work on the unit and is a popular time for smartphone sales and accessories like glasses!

Sources:

See all Google Glass news from Road to VR

Oculus Rift support for Crysis added by Community Modder [Video]

0
Crysis-Oculus-Rift

Crysis-Oculus-Rift

Oculus Rift developer and community VR enthusiast Nathan Andrews has managed to port his Half Life 2 Oculus Rift for Crysis and has released a video showing how this classic PC shooter might work in tandem with the Rift.

John Carmack Talks Virtual Reality Latency Mitigation Strategies

0

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAJohn Carmack, the famed developer who helped put the Oculus Rift on the map, has been doing plenty of virtual reality research as of late. Carmack is particularly interested in latency. Specifically, he’s interested in reducing latency to a point that looking around inside of a virtual reality world with a VR headset feels genuinely real. Recently he’s published a paper discussing “latency mitigation strategies.”

Low latency is vital in order to feel like you’re really inside of a virtual reality game. It isn’t as simple as slapping a fast head tracker into a head mounted display and calling it a day. There’s a pipeline of hardware that needs to work in symphony to correctly render the game world according to your head movements, and the round trip through that pipeline can take a significant amount of time.

If the end-to-end latency isn’t low enough, it will mean that your view into the virtual reality world feels sluggish. Carmack writes:

A total system latency of 50 milliseconds will feel responsive, but still subtly lagging.  One of the easiest ways to see the effects of latency in a head mounted display is to roll your head side to side along the view vector while looking at a clear vertical edge.  Latency will show up as an apparent tilting of the vertical line with the head motion; the view feels “dragged along” with the head motion.  When the latency is low enough, the virtual world convincingly feels like you are simply rotating your view of a stable world.

Too much latency not only breaks the illusion of virtual reality, but can also contribute to motion sickness and even make games difficult to play. Minimal latency is essential for a virtual reality experience and it’s a problem that’s not yet solved.

Oculus Inc. said at CES 2013 that they have their end-to-end Oculus Rift latency down to 80ms — though it’s likely that they’re continuing to work that figure down.

In the paper, published at #AltDevBlogADay, Carmack proposes several measures that could be taken to reduce end-to-end latency to acceptable levels. According to him, anything under 20 ms is largely imperceptible. And while it is possible to reach that level with current hardware, it will take some careful work to make it happen.

According to Carmack, in an ideal world sensor data is sent to the computer from the head mounted display and then…

The operating system immediately processes the update, and immediately performs GPU accelerated rendering directly to the framebuffer without any page flipping or buffering.  The display accepts the video signal with no buffering or processing, and the screen phosphors begin emitting new photons within microseconds.

“In a typical VR system,” he continues, “many things go far less optimally, sometimes resulting in end to end latencies of over 100 milliseconds.”

It isn’t the hardware itself that’s the issue, it’s simply that modern games don’t require such levels of latency optimization, so the industry has largely avoided techniques that could be used to reduce it.

The paper goes on to describe, at a rather technical level, what steps can be taken to reduce end-to-end latency. If you are a developer looking to make virtual reality games for the Oculus Rift, you’d do well to read this as a primer on some of the latency challenges that you’ll face.

The Verge Goes Hands-on With Google Glass [video]

2
Photo credit: The Verge
orange google glass demo
Photo credit: The Verge

Google Glass is an exciting wearable computing project that the company hopes will be ready for consumers by the end of 2013. The Verge’s Joshua Topolsky recently got to demo Google Glass for himself — something that only a select few outside of Google have done.

While it’s generated plenty of buzz, Google has been very quiet about the technical specifications of Glass, and even what it can actually do. This past week, Google made a concerted effort to show people what it’s like to wear Glass. In addition to a video and a new gallery of Google Glass photos, the company even got cozy with a bit of press — Topolsky relayed his Google Glass demo in an editorial and the video below wherein he interviews product director Steve Lee and lead industrial designer Isabelle Olsson:

One interesting thing to note from Topolsky’s experience with Glass is that he says using it is very similar to what Google showed in a recent video:

Let me start by saying that using it is actually nearly identical to what the company showed off in its newest demo video. That’s not CGI — it’s what Glass is actually like to use. It’s clean, elegant, and makes relative sense. The screen is not disruptive, you do not feel burdened by it. It is there and then it is gone. It’s not shocking. It’s not jarring. It’s just this new thing in your field of vision. And it’s actually pretty cool.

Would You Wear Google Glass?

Topolsky, who I’ve always thought of as a huge nerd, repeatedly wonders “who would want to wear this thing in public?” It’s a strange question for me to read because I’d wear Google Glass in public in a second. But then again — I’m a huge nerd. That said, I don’t think that Glass looks dorky. I actually think it looks pretty damn cool. Am I alone?

However, Topolsky sounded ready to wear them in public by the end of his Google Glass demo:

…I walked away convinced that this wasn’t just one of Google’s weird flights of fancy. The more I used Glass the more it made sense to me; the more I wanted it. If the team had told me I could sign up to have my current glasses augmented with Glass technology, I would have put pen to paper (and money in their hands) right then and there. And it’s that kind of stuff that will make the difference between this being a niche device for geeks and a product that everyone wants to experience.

But that’s beside the point.  For me, the real determining factor in wearing Glass would be how useful it is.

At the moment it seems like there is a limited set of things that Glass can do. Take a picture, record a video, search Google, get directions, read/respond to texts and maybe a bit more. That’s great, but if Google expects people to wear these things around on a regular basis, it’s going to need to do more. I’d need to do a Google Glass demo for myself to see how useful it would be before pulling the trigger.

Google almost definitely understands this, and that’s one reason why they hosted two ‘Glass Foundry’ developer events in late January / early February.  At these events, folks who pre-ordered Glass for $1500 from Google I/O 2012 were able to try out Glass and were broken into teams to develop useful functionality for the device. Unfortunately, those events were locked down with a strict NDA, so we’ve yet to hear much about what types of Google Glass apps were developed.

I imagine they’ve got a lot of work yet ahead of them if the Google Glass release date is expected to be in 2013. While I’d love to see Glass launch at Google I/O 2013, that’s less than three months away — likely too early. We’ll probably see it closer to the holidays.

So far the Google Glass price has been $1500 for pre-orders, but I’m doubting they’ll sell many to the mainstream at that rate. $500 or less seems like a more reasonable price, but would still be hard to justify for many — $200 would probably be the sweet spot.

See all Google Glass News

Oculus to Give Virtual Reality Talk at GDC Next Month

0
oculus palmer luckey and Brendan Iribe
Palmer Luckey (left) and Brendan Iribe (right)

The Oculus Rift is expected to be delivered to developers next month (and is already in the hands of a select few). This coincides nicely with the ever popular Game Developers Conference (GDC) where we expect to hear much about virtual reality and the Oculus Rift. In addition to details about Valve porting Team Fortress 2 (TF2) to virtual reality, Oculus Inc. Founder Palmer Luckey and CEO Brendan Iribe are teaming up to talk about how “virtual reality is poised to revolutionize the way we play games.”

New Google Glass Pictures Reveal Hidden Sensor [gallery]

3
google glass styles sunglasses

Along with the new video that we pointed out earlier, the company has released some cool new Google Glass pictures. One of the photos shows something we haven’t seen before; on the inside of the eye-boom there is a vertical slit with what appears to be some sort of sensor inside:

hidden google glass sensor

My best guess is that it’s a proximity sensor which tells Glass when you have it on your face. This would allow it to turn the display off to save battery life when you aren’t using it. However, it could just as easily be an ambient light sensor or even a camera to detect eye-movement. We can only guess until detailed specifications are released.

New Google Glass Pictures

Not pictured below is the prescription Google Glass model that we caught back in December.

white glass left

Google Glass colors: Charcoal, Tangerine, Shale, Cotton, Sky.

google glass styles sunglasses

glass bending

glass sweatshirt

See All Google Glass News

New Google Glass Video Shows What It Feels Like to Wear [video]

5

sarah-price-waring-blue-google-glass

You’ll probably have noticed that Road to VR is rather excited for Google’s fledgling Augmented Reality project, codename ‘Google Glass‘. It’s a project shrouded in mystery and it’s secrets tightly guarded, as evidenced by the strict NDAs required by attendees of the recent Google Glass Foundry event in January.

Nuggets of news regarding Glass are tough to come by then, so when things do surface it’s of great interest. Today, Google posted a new video named ‘How It Feels [through Glass]’ — which seems to detail Google’s vision for how Glass might work in reality. The video is filmed entirely in the first person and looks through the eyes of a lucky but anonymous avatar enjoying various activities whilst wearing a set of Google Glass[es].

It’s clearly a promotional piece designed to generate buzz for the project, but it actually does gives an enticing glimpse into the possibilities Glass might bring and, more interestingly, the practicality of wearing and using them. The video demonstrates the user triggering actions verbally with sentences prefixed with “Glass” then followed with “..take a picture”, presumably leveraging a version of the company’s ‘Google Now’ voice recognition technology already present in its Android mobile OS. Less clear is the hint that physical actions (say by pointing / sliding with your hand in close proximity to the visor) also trigger actions — although I may have misinterpreted this.

How to Get Google Glass

The video is actually part of a new promotional website, pushing the Glass brand seemingly with the aim to introduce the general public to the idea of Glass and the ideas behind augmented reality with a solidly visual / text-light approach. The website also offers a chance to get a set of Google Glass for yourself:

We’re looking for bold, creative individuals who want to join us and be a part of shaping the future of Glass. We’d love to make everyone an Explorer, but we’re starting off a bit smaller. We’re still in the early stages, and while we can’t promise everything will be perfect, we can promise it will be exciting.

Using Google+ or Twitter, tell us what you would do if you had Glass, starting with the hashtag #ifihadglass.

Whoever Google chooses from the #ifihadglass campaign will still have to pay $1500 and head to New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles to pick up the unit.

It certainly seems that Google are shifting the Glass’ profile up a gear in preparation for getting units out there into the wide world. Let us know whether you’ve applied for a unit and what you said to blag your way into the program, we’d love to here from you over on our forums.

Studying the Consequences of Avatar Embodiment at Stanford’s State-of-the-art Virtual Reality Lab

4

stanford virtual human interaction lab

Stanford uses their virtual reality lab to study the consequences of avatar embodiment. A ten minute presentation by the lab’s director, Jeremy Bailenson, reveals some enthralling findings showing that how we see ourselves in virtual reality can measurably impact our actions in real life.

Overview of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL)

vhil hmdThe VHIL lab is what you might call a premium virtual reality setup — far outside of the budget of most individuals. In addition to a CAVE, they’ve got a ‘multisensory’ room which features 22 point surround sound. There’s even special floor-shaking speakers embedded in the floor which could be used to simulate the rumble of a falling virtual object, among other things.

The head mounted display (VR headset) they are using in the multisensory room appears to be the ~$36,000 nVisor SX111. The unit has a 1280×720 display and a 102 degree horizontal field of view. Optical tracking looks to be used for positional tracking.

The Consequences of Avatar Embodiment

When I stepped into the Holodeck, one of the most exciting things was avatar embodiment — having my entire body represented within the virtual reality game world.

While my avatar was indeed quite blocky, it still felt like me. After all, when I moved my arms in real life, my avatar moved its arms in the virtual world. And when I walked around in the real world, my avatar moved the very same way. For each real-world action, my avatar responded convincingly in the virtual space.

Project Holodeck’s director, Nathan Burba, accompanied me during my time in the Holodeck. As he spoke to me within the virtual world, I looked in the direction of his avatar just like I would have looked at him in real life; despite his avatar having a square head and no eyes, it still felt natural because I was so immersed.

While I thought a lot about my experience after the demo, I had no idea that the virtual world could leak out and affect my real-life actions.

That’s what the director of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Jeremy Bailenson, says he’s demonstrated through numerous experiments. I recently came across this enthralling presentation and was very surprised at the myriad of findings:

Oculus Rift Developer Kit Arrives at Minecraft Headquarters, Notch Apologizes for Breaking Embargo

8
mojang minecraft notch oculus rift virtual reality
Markus "Notch" Persson (left) poses with Rift dev kit in 2012
mojang minecraft notch oculus rift virtual reality
Markus “Notch” Persson (left) and Jens “Jeb” Bergensten (right) pose with Oculus Rift developer kits.

Mojang, the company that developed everyone’s favorite indie game success story, Minecraft (2011), might be the first in the world to have received the Oculus Rift developer kit. Two weeks back, Oculus Inc. shared the latest on their manufacturing progress. The first Oculus Rift pilot run had been completed which resulted in 40 developer kits. Though Oculus said they still had some changes to make after the pilot run, we speculated that some of those 40 kits would be going out to prominent developers and it seems we may have been right.

oculus rift creeper minecraft
One of gaming’s most feared foes wears the Oculus Rift

The photo above, which shows Markus “Notch” Persson and Jens “Jeb” Bergensten wearing the Oculus Rift developer kits, was reportedly tweeted earlier today by another Mojang employee and taken down shortly thereafter. ‘DullDieHard’, a quick-thinking Reddit user, appears to have saved the image before it was taken down.

Notch has formerly said that he’d definitely be making his latest game project, 0x10c, compatible with the VR headset. He’s also said that Minecraft Oculus Rift support is likely. He claims to have backed the Oculus Rift Kickstarter with $10,000, which would mean 33 developer kits for his company, Mojang.

I’m doubting that all 33 kits were delivered today along with the two shown above. Rather, these are likely pilot run units which Oculus Inc. sent to Mojang as thanks of their support of the Kickstarter. It’s also possible that Notch didn’t order a full 33 kits, but rather donated some extra cash because he wanted to see the project make it through the Kickstarter.

If Mojang ended up with the Rift units from the pilot run, it’s likely that other developers will be receiving them too. If I had to guess, I’d say that the Oculus sent units to the following: Valve / Michael Abrash, Adhesive Games (Hawken), Epic Games, id  / John Carmack, Roberts Space Industries (Star Citizen), Cliff Bleszinski, and Unity.

Update, 2/19, 9:47 AM: It looks like the reason for the removal of the photo is that Mojang accidentally broke an embargo set by Oculus. Notch acknowledged the mistake just a few hours ago:

Peter Kafka from AllThingsD tries the Oculus Rift, “I’m a little queasy, but it’s awesome” [Video]

0
allthingsd-oculus-rift-featured

At the ‘D: Dive Into Media’ conference on Tuesday, Brendan Iribe joined Peter Kafta from AllthingsD to give him a chance to try the Oculus Rift HMD. His reaction to the experience, mirrored those of many before him — yet another startled VR first-timer hit with a possible glimpse of the future of gaming.

Laughable Article Attacks Oculus Rift and Virtual Reality, “Total Immersion Technology Will Train Future Mass Murderers”

6
oculus-rift-palmer-luckey-development-kit-pilot-run1-featured
Does this look like the face of a killer?

A pathetic article by NaturalNews.com (which I won’t link to to prevent feeding their controversy-driven “journalism”), is attacking virtual reality at large and specifically the Oculus Rift, making the claim that “total immersion technology will train future mass murderers.”

It’s very disappointing that there are people in the world that are happy to throw innocent entities under the bus for the sake of profit.

The poorly researched article evokes the recent Sandy Hook tragedy as it attacks the Oculus Rift, though the writer seems to be confused about whether or not it’s a VR headset or a game:

On the heels of 20-year-old Adam Lanza’s murder of 20 Kindergarten-aged children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School comes now a new type of total immersion shooting game that has the potential to transform psychopaths into total killers, desensitized beyond belief.

The company, Oculus VR, is an immersion virtual reality firm now developing the Oculus Rift, “a ground-breaking virtual reality headset for immersive gaming,” according to the firm’s website.

The company says it has raised $2.4 million in seed money “from project backers and supporters around the world,” as its team works to develop “the Oculus Rift in an effort to revolutionize the way people experience interactive content.”

The headset is getting rave reviews for the very thing that is liable to make it dangerous: its virtual reality immersion capability.

The article goes on to make even more incredibly dubious claims.

“The Doom games, by the way, are probably one of the most desensitizing of all, especially for impressionable youngsters and those who don’t have a full grip on reality, experts believe.”

I’d love to know what “experts” are citing the Doom series as “one of the most desensitizing of all.”

It’s important to realize that the people responsible for this work likely know exactly what they’re doing. The following paragraph from the article just reeks of conspiracy theory and a pathetic attempt to stir controversy.

“One other thing to note: Oculus VR’s company logo resembles the “all-seeing eye” that is on the back of every U.S. dollar, an important symbol of the “Supreme Being,” which was borrowed by Freemasons from the nations of antiquity.”

This is from the same site that brought you such classics as, ‘Everything is Rigged – Health, Politics, Finance and More – But Here’s How to Beat the System,’ and ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome Often Just a Cover Story for Children Who are Brain Damaged by Vaccines’

The article concludes with the following:

The point is this: At a time when violent video games have been blamed for contributing to an overall culture of violence that appears to be growing worse in America, the last thing future psychos need is a game that will allow them to further desensitize themselves to the “business” of killing, all the while helping them hone their “skills.”

… a statement which flies directly in the face of the fact that the rate of violent crime in the U.S. has been falling, according to the FBI, as the video game industry grows ever large and more influential.

I forgot to note the hilarious part where they included completely irrelevant details regarding John Carmack.

“Also, the device is backed game developer John Carmack, whose games have previously been funded by the Pentagon.”

It’s a shame they didn’t realize that John Carmack also makes rockets, it would have been a juicy bit for their ridiculous story.

‘PosiTTron’ DIY Oculus Rift Positional Tracking Addon Prototype

10

This guest article is written by Jordi Batallé, who has been hard at work over the last few months developing a DIY positional tracking solution for head mounted displays (HMDs / VR headsets). Batallé is a virtual reality enthusiast who holds a master’s degree in computer science. In his last article he introduced readers to the concepts of positional tracking and degrees of freedom (which you’ll need to know about to understand the following text).

Adhesive Games’ Khang Le talks Hawken, the Oculus Rift and Robot Jox

0
Khang Le Hawken Q A

Khang Le - Creative Director and co-Founder of Adhesive Games

Khang Le, co-Founder of Adhesive Games, answers your questions.

HAWKEN is a free-to-play, online, multiplayer, mech-based first-person shooter that puts you in the pilot seat of a giant robotic war machine.

Customize and upgrade your mechs the way you want, then join your friends on the battlefield to rain destruction across HAWKEN’s beautiful and immersive alien landscapes. Best of all, HAWKEN is FREE!

..is the blurb on Hawken’s official website, and for once it’s a description refreshingly succinct and free of marketing clutter. Of course, this no-nonsense lack of pretence is what Hawken’s all about. Subtle characterisation and intricates plots be damned, Hawken is all about shooting your friend’s online Mech avatars in the face with massive guns, and as a result it feels like a breath of fresh air.

Welcome to the new Road to VR!

0

Welcome to the new look Road to VR!

So, the more observant among you may have noticed that things look a little different around here lately. Yes, we’ve made a few changes and we’d like to introduce you to them officially.

When Ben and I decided to partner-up to build the next version of RoadtoVR.com, there was one major thing we knew we wanted, besides a spring clean and a lick of digital paint.

We wanted to extend the lively debate already present in the comments sections to a fully-fledged community forum. We liked the idea of people who already came to the site for its leading-edge VR journalism, staying around to meet each other and discuss the content. To that end, let me introduce you to our virtual reality forum.

And, to compliment the new forum, once you’ve taken a few seconds to register with the site you’ll get access to a selection of new social features such as status updates, friend requests and personal messaging — so there now really is no reason not to reach out and touch someone (in the non-restraining order sort of way, naturally).

We also now have our own dedicated server platform which allows us to extend the site, and when we see fit, to grow as our ever-expanding readership does.

So that’s it! We hope you enjoy the new site and we look forward to sharing with you all what promises to be one of the most exciting years since virtual reality’s inception.

Let us know what you think of the new look over on the forum.

39,929FansLike
13,574FollowersFollow
66,541FollowersFollow
27,800SubscribersSubscribe

Latest Headlines

Features & Reviews