
Oculus Connect 2014 - ABS
http://www.oculus.com/blog/oculus-connect-2014/
======
jaryd
This quote specifically:

"This was followed by a dimly lit museum corridor with a T-rex coming around
the corner and slowly but menacingly approaching me. The model was very
detailed and well animated, which really sold it. It wasn’t scary per se, but
when it got close and roared right at me, I was definitely teetering on the
edge of feeling like I was near a living creature. Why take kids to museums
when they can travel back to the era of dinosaurs? VR in education is going to
be huge."[0]

Reminds me so much of this clip:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1_bp8YKUPU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1_bp8YKUPU)

[0][http://www.roadtovr.com/hands-on-oculus-rift-crescent-bay-
pr...](http://www.roadtovr.com/hands-on-oculus-rift-crescent-bay-prototype/)

~~~
robert_tweed
> VR in education is going to be huge

I've been seeing this repeated a lot lately, but I am going to say not with
current hardware it isn't. The potential is obvious, but since SDK 0.4.0, the
Rift comes with a huge on-screen disclaimer that can't officially be disabled
(much to the annoyance of developers) that it is not for use by minors.

The reason is that much more research is needed to determine whether or not VR
headsets are safe for developing eyes and brains. When you are using a VR
headset, you are continually focused on infinity, which is not natural.

Sim sickness also continues to be a problem. Again it is not known whether
there are potentially damaging effects while the brain is still in
development. I would expect especially younger children to compensate for sim
sickness for more readily than adults do, but who knows if that is at the
expense of their balance and coordination in the real world? Right now, we
don't.

University-level education, yes: VR will yield immediate tangible benefits.
The truly big gains for general education cannot come until these problems can
be worked out, which hopefully will be somewhere around CV3-CV4 (say around 5
years out). It won't be a solved problem within a year or two, unfortunately.

~~~
tedks
>The reason is that much more research is needed to determine whether or not
VR headsets are safe for developing eyes and brains. When you are using a VR
headset, you are continually focused on infinity, which is not natural.

It's not natural for humans to move 60mph either, but we do it all the time.
Before that, when cars were first invented, they thought that going that fast
would just kill you instantly.

~~~
robert_tweed
They don't let minors drive cars either.

~~~
dragonwriter
Who are they? In most US jurisdictions, the age at which one can be licensed
to drive on public roads is below the age of majority.

------
penprog
I could listen to John Carmack talk all day. Awesome keynote

~~~
staunch
They scheduled him for a only an hour (even though his talks are usually 2-3
hours) and chased him off the stage when he went over time. It's odd that even
Oculus doesn't seem to be treating him with the level of respect he deserves.

He's going to talk off stage for another hour or two while the stage is empty
during lunch. Hopefully they'll learn for their next event.

~~~
jfoster
I don't think it's that they lack respect for him. I would attribute it more
to having a schedule for the event that they need to stick to.

~~~
staunch
No one who works for Microsoft would bump Bill Gates off stage against his
express wishes. Or Zuckerberg. Later in the same stream Palmer Luckey (founder
of Oculus) was cut off even more rudely when he tried to allow one more
question before a break. He was visibly upset.

Palmer Luckey and John Carmack should be in undisputed control of Oculus.
These slick suits who invaded should all leave now that they've made tons of
money. Leave the genuinely passionate people to their work.

~~~
joeevans1000
Did they not realize they ate from Facebook's hand and now they're Facebook's
little bitches?

Don't blame the suits. Palmer knew what he was taking. It's hard to tell if
Carmack knew about the sellout before it happened.

These types of scenarios have been around for thousands of years. It's only
recently that you can follow them live, though. Fascinating stuff.

Facebook is now in charge. These guys won't stick around forever, and they'll
make tons of money regardless.

~~~
jfoster
Carmack has said publicly that he wasn't involved in the negotiations and
found out after the fact.

[http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/30/5563440/john-carmack-
faceb...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/30/5563440/john-carmack-facebook-
oculus-rift-purchase-comments)

------
iliis
For those of you wondering about the higher resolution: A reddit user made the
suggestion¹ that they are using two displays on top of each other and some
clever signal processing to (almost) double the spatial (and temporal!)
resolution.

See
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XwaARRMbSA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XwaARRMbSA)
for a demonstration of this technique and note that one of the guys from this
project was hired by Oculus.

\--

1\.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2gytxj/i_just_did_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2gytxj/i_just_did_the_crescent_bay_demo_at_oculus/cknt4w7)

~~~
newhouseb
I would be wary of jumping to that conclusion at this point. Lanman et al had
demos of this display technology at SIGGRAPH last month and it was pretty raw
- myself and a few coworkers tried the demo at different times and at no point
were the displays aligned well enough for the effect to really work. Lanman
came from the media lab where he worked on a huge variety of (insanely cool)
display technologies generally around light field displays, so his breadth and
value-add is definitely more than just w/ this specific project.

~~~
iliis
Yeah. I'm watching the keynote right now, and Carmack talks quite extensively
about the display problems they're facing and in no way indicates the use of
multiple displays.

Also, the demo video of Lanman and company mentions 'calibration issues' they
have on the outer parts of the display where you can cleary see alignment
issues.

I still think it's a very clever idea of getting better resolutions with
reasonable effort tough ;)

------
maxmcd
Is there a reason they have white dots on the new prototype? Are they doing
any kind of external tracking?

Edit: Ah, yes that's apparently how they're doing 360° head tracking.

~~~
cypher543
Both Crystal Cove and DK2 had the external IR LEDs, as well. On the DK2,
they're just covered up by an IR-transparent material.

------
higherpurpose
Nvidia's Maxwell GPU architecture seems to add some very nice VR features [1].
With Maxwell coming to Tegra, and Nvidia finally being able to utilize
heterogeneous computing, it seems to me Samsung would be really smart to try
and get the next Tegra chip for their Note 5 or whatever phone they use for
Gear VR 2, next year. Oculus/Carmack also have some great relationships with
Nvidia, and it seems Carmack has already been able to convince Samsung to do a
lot of technical changes for them. I think if they make this happen, Gear VR 2
would be a lot better next year.

[1] - [http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/09/18/maxwell-virtual-
real...](http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/09/18/maxwell-virtual-reality/)

------
moron4hire
I'm working on building a rapid application development framework for VR. I'm
doing it in WebGL right now to, well, be fast about it, considering I don't
have an Oculus yet, just a cardboard box and my smartphone. If you're
interested, please join me to help get ahead of VR software development and
make sure it stays open: github.com/capnmidnight/VR/

------
ghshephard
I'm looking very forward to hearing from anyone there who tries out the
Crescent Bay prototype.

~~~
mdu
It's much better than DK2. Believable presence. They showed a series of
scenes, about 10. Some of the scenes were quite impressive. Much harder to see
the pixel now than DK2 (its still somewhat visible)

~~~
increment_i
Any word on whether this is the final iteration between DK2 and the consumer
launch? I'm debating whether to get the DK2 now, or just wait until the thing
is launched.

~~~
Laremere
This is simply an iteration. They mentioned that they had some things to fix,
so there will definitely be more work done before the consumer version is
ready. If you're not actively wanting to develop for the rift, wait. The
current version is flawed in many ways and definitely not consumer ready. The
biggest reason to wait however is that the first generation of VR content
simply isn't finished yet, so you'd get the hardware and most likely quickly
run out of experiences. The consumer version will be much better, and will
actually have content made for it upon release.

------
XorNot
Great to hear that 360 degree position tracking is in. You'd think it would be
only a small thing, but almost immediately once you get the sense of presence
you start trying to look behind you.

------
splike
I just ordered a DK2 last week, I guess I should cancel that

~~~
coryl
Same here, but I'm guessing this model wont be available until mid to late
2015?

Are we even allowed to cancel? The terms are all sales final.

~~~
yathern
This model - much like the Crystal Cove prototype is likely not available to
purchase. It is not a dev kit, but rather a proof of progress, and a stepping
stone to CV1. I believe there will not be a DK3. All estimates point to CV1
being likely available in Q4 2015.

------
rock57
I am wondering: how would Oculus compare with this
[http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014/09/19/sony-dreams-
of...](http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014/09/19/sony-dreams-of-profit-
with-morpheus-virtual-reality-headset/) especially taking into account the
obvious PS4 synergy...

------
lam
John Carmack said the controller is the missing link. For those who have been
developing / testing DK1 or DK2, I wonder what are you thoughts on existing
controllers that you've been using? What are they lacking, and what would be
nice to have in a controller for VR (or AR)?

~~~
XorNot
Any type of pointer to start with. The first thing you notice (and do) in the
demo scene is try and reach out and touch something.

~~~
lam
But isn't a pointer already provided by controllers like those made by Sixense
already?

------
broabprobe
Been having a great time attending the conference via Janus,
[http://vrsites.com/assets/Firefoxg/9/convcenter.html](http://vrsites.com/assets/Firefoxg/9/convcenter.html)

------
Rapzid
I believe the future of the optical tech is going to be custom screens.
They'll be shaped for the optics and have a pixel layout to complement the
optical distortion. Has there been any talk about this?

~~~
mattnewport
Yes, they did talk about this briefly. I believe Carmack talks about it in his
keynote (video linked in another HN news post). Basically the issue in the
near to medium term is that VR isn't a big enough market to drive the
development of custom displays yet. Display hardware design is still primarily
focused on the needs of smartphones and Oculus has to work with what they can
get from Samsung right now.

------
rheide
Integrated audio is going to be a dealbreaker for me. If I can't use my own
high-quality headphones I will not use an Oculus.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
They are designed to be removable.

You might not want to, though. They are there because 3d audio is important to
the experience, and the reason they ship with integrated headphones is that
it's both hard and important to get the 3d audio to "sync up" with the
display, especially during rapid head movements.

------
ginko
It's nice that they add support for HRTFs.

Now all that's missing is a cheap and scalable way to measure or measure a
person's HRTF.

~~~
DonHopkins
Maybe somebody could develop a mash-up of these two excellent products for a
"personal ear casting system":

[http://kemar.us/](http://kemar.us/)

[http://www.createamate.com/](http://www.createamate.com/)

When I worked at Interval Research Corporation, they had one of those in the
lab (the Kemar mannequin, not the CreateAMate kit), and it was really creepy!

~~~
DonHopkins
And no, the Kemar mannequin is NOT to be used as an aural sex toy. It's
totally legit!

[http://kemar.us/](http://kemar.us/)

"If KEMAR was not part of your life already from 1972, you can catch up with
the timeline we made to highlight KEMAR's evolution. Many things may have
changed in our lives, but KEMAR remains the same: your faithful friend and up-
to-date manikin for acoustic research."

One of its uses is to make your own Head Related Transfer Function by casting
a pair of rubber ears (pinnae), plugging them into the head, and recording
their response to sounds. They are also great fun to dress up and accessorize
at parties. And they give you a totally legitimate excuse for when you are
caught walking around with a briefcase full of rubber ears.

The timeline pictures for 2013 show it "assembled, calibrated and delivered as
a complete out-of-the-box system" that would be a blast to carry through
airport security.

Mark my words: some day, everyone will own one of these awesome things.
Kickstarter, anyone? ;)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-
related_transfer_function](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-
related_transfer_function)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_head_recording](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_head_recording)

[http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/virtual-surround-
sound3...](http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/virtual-surround-sound3.htm)

[http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~acl/Equip/KEMAR.pdf](http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~acl/Equip/KEMAR.pdf)

[http://www.gras.com.cn/down/KEMAR_body_model_measure_catalog...](http://www.gras.com.cn/down/KEMAR_body_model_measure_catalogoe.pdf)

I would love to have seen the wild parties at this conference:

[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CEYQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gras.com.cn%2Fdown%2FKEMAR_body_model_measure_catalogoe.pdf&ei=H0UgVLjwC4O07Qa87oDQAw&usg=AFQjCNEzCefn5WMwIB6mwGNv7Do6lkc80g&sig2=w-wa_4YorxZtnkhg77C4Vw&bvm=bv.75775273,d.ZGU&cad=rja)

