
The Story of Oculus Rift - jonbaer
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/09/oculus-rift-mark-zuckerberg-cover-story-palmer-lucky
======
staunch
> _Before I met them, I’d assumed that Zuckerberg and Luckey would have much
> in common. They’re both hackers who started valuable companies before they
> turned 20, but the similarities pretty much end there._

> _..._

> _Luckey does not come from money, nor did he have access to the prep-school,
> Ivy League fast track that Zuckerberg and so many of Silicon Valley’s young
> masters started on._

People are still surprised that poor white people and rich white people are
not the same. Wealth divides far more than race in America.

What makes Palmer Luckey all the more badass is that he created a product from
scratch that changed the world. Zuck cloned Friendster and leveraged the
exclusivity of a "Harvard social network" to bootstrap his site.

John Carmack, also from a poor background, is the one who believed in Oculus
first. He is most responsible for helping Palmer Luckey make VR happen.
They're the big heros here, not the rich kid who bought it for $2 billion.

~~~
kelukelugames
Yes, the divide between the poor and the rich is wide. Though I don't know how
it compares to race. That's really subjective.

My friends make anywhere from 10 bucks an hour to over half a million every
year. My wealthy friends are incredibly nice but sometimes they are awkward.
Multiple rich people have asked me about the kind of boat I own. I don't have
a boat. Sometimes I make my poor friends feel the same way. They are jealous
that I can afford a mortgage.

I also have white co-workers and black co-workers. My white co-workers are
incredibly nice but sometimes they are super awkward. They ask me questions
about chopsticks and interment camps. As for my black friends, well, sometimes
they deal with worse.

Bonus: Everyone's favorite astrophysicist on the challenges of being black
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inz1sdhsMCU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inz1sdhsMCU)

~~~
staunch
Neil deGrasse Tyson is obviously an amazing person. He was also born into a
nurturing, educated, well off household. He received a credential costing a
fortune from an elite university which served as his entrance ticket into the
professional world. Poverty and elitism are what prevent there from being more
like him.

~~~
kelukelugames
Did you watch the video? He literally lists all of the problems he faced from
racism.

------
mentos
Dk1&2 owner here, I've slowly soured on VR over the past year as my 'reptile
brain' has come to associate the headset with motion sickness and I would say
I have a pretty steely stomach. I'm an avid FPS player, spent 4 hours in the
HL2 VR mod about 18 months ago with minimal sickness. But the killer for me
has been the slow buildup of aversion to VR over time. I've never been more
excited for a technology but I fear there are some impossible problems to
solve.. Any other dev kit developers feel the same way?

~~~
ericflo
You should not be playing a FPS in VR, especially on anything pre-release like
the DK2. Acceleration without some kind of cockpit to ground you is one of the
worst offenders, and virtually all FPS games do that by design/necessity.

This is one of my worst fears about VR adoption: gamers, especially the kind
who will be on the leading edge of this stuff, want badly to play FPS games
and they'll find ways to do it and they're all going to hate VR.

I'm glad Oculus is putting their "comfort ratings" front and center, and being
really vocal about the principles of sickness-free VR, but I'm worried people
are going to skip all the warnings and advice and ruin this for everyone.

~~~
mentos
I appreciate that and I only ever played about 8 hours of HL2 VR, I stopped
when I beat the campaign and moved on to playing WarThunder for a couple
months then slowly tapered off.

>>This is one of my worst fears about VR adoption: gamers, especially the kind
who will be on the leading edge of this stuff, want badly to play FPS games
and they'll find ways to do it and they're all going to hate VR.

Part of the promise of VR is being able to negotiate a virtual world on foot
which currently has too much of a mismatch to work without sickening the user.
So what are the long term solutions to this? To me they are really hard if not
impossible problems.

~~~
ericflo
Cloudhead's "Blink" system is one good first step
[http://uploadvr.com/cloudhead-blink-vr-
movement/](http://uploadvr.com/cloudhead-blink-vr-movement/) AltspaceVR has
been doing something similar for a while too.

Another idea is something called redirected walking, which basically tricks
you into walking in circles even though you think you're walking in a straight
line.

Someday we may have electronic solutions to sim sickness -- they've discovered
that by sending tiny amounts of electricity through our inner ears, they can
programmatically control how you feel you're moving.

Edit: Here's a video of Palmer Luckey talking about that inner ear stuff
(GVS):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CRdRc8CcGY&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CRdRc8CcGY&feature=youtu.be&t=11m5s)

~~~
sfjailbird
I've often wondered if the feeling of acceleration/deceleration could easily
be simulated with a simple tilting chair. Tilt the chair back to simulate
forward acceleration (like a car speeding). Gravity pulls you 'backwards',
similar to the feeling of being pressed back in the seat. Opposite for
deceleration. I hereby donate this idea to the world.

~~~
cjrp
That's exactly what they do in full-motion flight simulators.

~~~
wlesieutre
Racing games as well.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-N3XDc-3QQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-N3XDc-3QQ)

------
whysonot
> When Iribe said, Yeah, it’s pretty much just about gaming, at least for now,
> Zuckerberg seemed to lose interest. Facebook was not a video-game company
> and over the years had moved to make games a smaller part of what users saw
> when they logged on.

I've seen Mark's vision for Oculus described as the next step in connecting
all of the people on the planet in a few pieces now. What interests me about
this position is that it implies:

1) gaming and entertainment braodly are not the end game. Instead, the social
interactions.

2) VR hardware will see broader consumer penetration in the population not yet
reached by facebook than mobile phones

Not sure what I think yet.

~~~
deelowe
I don't see it happening. There's no way people are going to be strapping
things to their faces for social interaction.

~~~
cpeterso
I agree. Many people (30% apparently) prefer text messages over voice calls. I
don't see 360° VR video being convenient or worth the bother for casual
communication.

[http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/22/tech/mobile/americans-
prefer-t...](http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/22/tech/mobile/americans-prefer-text-
messages/index.html)

~~~
interpol_p
Our home use has really diverged away from voice calls and towards messaging
and FaceTime. Where FaceTime is reserved for special occasions (kids chatting
to grandparents, long distance relatives, calling home when on a business
trip).

I wonder if VR as a communication tool could supplant video calling? Although
it lacks the ability for a family to physically gather around a screen and
communicate as a group.

------
Animats
What's the killer app for the Oculus Rift? So far, there are roller coaster
simulators and first person shooters. Those are fun, but the market is
limited. (The roller coaster thing is fun for about half an hour, tops. The
FPS market is bigger, but will only catch on if you can kill more effectively
wearing the headgear.)

In the last go-round of VR, the killer app was supposed to be the Multiverse
(as in "Snow Crash"). Now that Second Life is available but slowly sinking,
that doesn't seem as compelling. The problem with Second Life doesn't seem to
be graphics resolution, lag, or anything technical; it just isn't worth the
trouble. There's an Oculus Rift client mod for Second Life, not that anybody
cares. (The Second Life people should do a WebGL client; more people might try
it.)

Interestingly, in the first round of VR, back in the 1980s, it was "gloves and
goggles", so you could actually do something while in there. This time, the
gloves seem to have disappeared. The stock controller is the XBox game
controller, although there's an optional wrist-tracking controller. Full
finger tracking, no.

~~~
erikpukinskis
> What's the killer app for the Oculus Rift?

Here's my guess: Feeling like you're in the same room with someone who is far
away.

~~~
IanCal
This is something I see mentioned a lot, and would be great (as a remote
employee). However, either the people are 3D renders or wearing headsets
themselves. Maybe I'm picturing it wrong though.

~~~
greglmercer
This is worth more than you'd think. The multiplayer demo I tried at PAX 2014
had me and a friend sitting maybe three feet from each other, and generic
blank avatars in-game, but seeing him nod and nodding back myself was a hugely
intimate experience. It's tough to describe, a purely emotional experience.

~~~
interpol_p
Do you think the experience was worth putting on a headset for? To chat with
someone like that?

I ask because I wonder whether the overhead of using the device is outweighed
by its value as a communications tool.

------
bkraz
It's really sad to see no mention of Valve anywhere in the article. The work
that was done at Valve in 2012-2013 on VR hardware and software was critical
to the success of Oculus. Valve created a complete VR demo that was shown to
Andreessen-Horowitz near the end of 2013, and was a deciding factor in their
decision to invest, as well as Facebook's decision to buy. At that time, the
best hardware created by Oculus did not have 6DOF, high-resolution tracking.
It did not have low-persistance, globally-illuminated displays. It did not
have proper lens distortion correction. It did not have presence. Basically,
all of the hardware factors that have made modern VR exciting were discovered
and developed by the team at Valve. Unfortunately, Valve was not able to
capitalize or commercialize all of this work, and basically just gave it away
through a very awkward interaction. Source: I worked there on VR. Of course,
they are now working with HTC on the Vive, which is really great, and is going
to give Oculus major competition.

[http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%2...](http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/Abrash%20Dev%20Days%202014.pdf)

------
misiti3780
I’ve watched more V.R. than most people, and I don’t feel like I have brain
damage,” says Chris Milk, a former music-video director whose company produces
and distributes short, 360-degree movies watched on a headset.

that's one of the best example of confirmation bias I have seen in a while.
Chris is assuming because he doesn't feel brain damage he doesn't have it! (I
have no opinion on if VR causes brain damage - just pointing out the absurdly
of that quote)

~~~
in3d
This not an example of the confirmation bias at all. More like possibly
biased, anecdotal evidence that might have not been verified. You can very
well notice signs of your own brain damage.

------
bane
Here's a great post from 2014...has anything major changed in the last 18
months?

[http://assayviaessay.blogspot.com/2014/03/virtual-spaces-
rea...](http://assayviaessay.blogspot.com/2014/03/virtual-spaces-real-
data.html)

------
callesgg
The picture is clearly a photoshop job. Why would they do that.

------
oska
_> As the Oculus Rift is about to hit the market, Zuckerberg is cautious.
“It’ll ramp up slowly,” he says. “The first smartphones … I don’t know if they
sold a million units in the first year. But it kind of doubles and triples
each year, and you end up with something that tens of millions of people have.
And now it’s a real thing.”_

I'm sceptical and not least because of Zuckerberg's involvement. Mark
Zuckerberg reminds me most of Bill Gates and has so far displayed the same
level of vision and imagination as Gates (i.e. almost none).

~~~
Tmmrn
It fits then that Oculus partnered with Microsoft, cut out support for all
operating systems except windows, cut back their source code releases and are
working with Microsoft, AMD and nvidia on windows-exclusive proprietary (and
as of now secret NDA'ed) APIs.

I think a world in which technology is a black box that is controlled by
corporations by means of proprietary software WAS Bill Gates' vision for
Microsoft.

------
djloche
I'm buying a Rift as soon as it is available for shipping. I experienced about
1.5 minutes of Dk1 and was sold.

------
bronz
It was when the DK2 first came out that I realized VR was not the slam dunk it
is often portrayed as. The DK2 was bought by many people, many more than the
DK1. And once all of those customers started posting feedback on the internet
it became clear that motion sickness was still a huge problem. And motion
sickness will not be resolved with higher frame rates or lower latency as most
of us believed prior to the DK2. Oh well.

~~~
Pfhreak
Since the above is anecdotal (or at least, not well referenced), I feel
comfortable in adding a personal anecdote to the contrary.

I bought a DK2, played with it and developed some prototypes with it. I have a
very wide IPD (Interpupillary Distance), which meant that I couldn't focus
cleanly on the image of the DK2. I experience some mild to moderate motion
sickness when I use the DK2 in most titles.

However, there are some experiences -- particularly those with a cockpit or a
third person camera -- that significantly reduce or eliminate the sickness. At
PAX this year, I tested both the HTC Vive (Call of the Starseed -- a Myst-like
title) and the Oculus CV1 (Eve Valkyrie -- a space superiority dogfighter)
with absolutely no motion sickness at all, despite some rather hectic motion
in Eve. Both demos were approximately 15 minutes of VR time. The higher frame
rates and resolution, along with better accommodation of my wideset eyes
absolutely improved the 'presence' in the demo. It was absolutely a material
change from the DK2, which I've shelved until the consumer ready hardware is
available.

Additionally, DK1 and DK2 content is still generally content under
development. We're still learning which experiences are good or bad in VR, and
how to move the player without disturbing their equilibrium. Games like Eve
Valkyrie and Call of the Starseed were both designed from the ground up with
VR in mind, which also helps.

------
spoon16
Anyone know what type of desk they are using?

------
Tmmrn
> Our mission isn’t to connect a billion people, it’s to connect everyone in
> the world.

I wonder whether he is aware that Oculus has been moving away from that goal
for a while now. They are now a company that works with Microsoft, AMD and
nvidia on Windows-exclusive APIs and have dropped support for all other
operating systems.

That's why all "social" VR applications for the Oculus Rift are a joke. Sure,
you can get together in VR. But only when you use windows and only with other
windows users. Zuckerberg says he wants to connect everyone. Right now Oculus
is working on connecting Windows users exclusively. I wonder what Zuckerberg
thinks about his newly acquired company acting this way.

~~~
blazespin
Not really accurate, their mobile/ Samsung solution is not windows.

