A friendly reminder for those with cable TV: tonight the Virtuix Omni omnidirectional treadmill for VR gaming will be on Shark Tank, a venture capital reality show.
The Shark Tank Virtuix Omni episode airs tonight, December 6th, at 9PM EST (8PM CST / 7PM MST / 6PM PST) on ABC. You can watch Shark Tank live online on ABC, provided you have a participating cable provider, if you aren’t near a TV. If you miss the episode, you should be able to catch the episode on the Hulu Shark Tank page sometime after it airs.
Here are the details from our previous article:
Virtuix Omni, the forthcoming VR omnidirectional treadmill, will be making an appearance on ABC’s popular venture capital reality show, Shark Tank.
For those who haven’t seen the show, Shark Tank puts entrepreneurs in front of a panel of wealthy investors in the hopes that they’ll be able to make an on-the-spot investment deal.
In a surprise to us, the Virtuix Omni will make an appearance on the show next Friday, December 6th.
In a preview of the forthcoming episode shown at the end of last week’s episode, we see Virtuix CEO Jan Goetgeluk and what appears to be investor Robert Herjavec in the Omni donning the Oculus Rift and that ever-flattering harness:
Virtuix appears to have been completely silent about their involvement with the show (likely due to an NDA) so we won’t know if they made a deal or not until the episode airs next Friday, December 6th at 9PM EST.
Last week I had a chance to meet up with Virtuix CEO Jan Goetgeluk and try out the Omni for myself.
What we can infer thus far is that the system shown above is the pre-production Omni prototype which is still using the Kinect for leg tracking. Virtuix says that their forthcoming capacitive tracking system will significantly increase tracking quality. One other thing is certain: assuming nothing goes terribly wrong, this is a great step for VR into mainstream consciousness.
Virtuix has thus far raised funding for Omni production through its highly successful Kickstarter, which raised $1.1 million, and is now offering pre-orders through its website.
Will the Sharks be able to see through the Kinect’s sloppy tracking? Do you think Virtuix walked away with an investment?
