
Announcing the Acquisition of Surreal Vision - jonas21
https://www.oculus.com/blog/announcing-the-acquisition-of-surreal-vision/
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DigitalSea
This is probably one of the best acquisitions Oculus have made so far, purely
for the talent alone. Last year Oculus acquired Nimble VR and 13th Lab. More
interestingly is 13th Lab were working on similar technology for taking a room
and turning it into a virtual environment. Check out this project 13th Lab
were behind called Minecraft Reality in which Minecraft objects were spawned
in real life: [https://youtu.be/2pOpcR7uf5U](https://youtu.be/2pOpcR7uf5U)

Seems there are some big things planned for Oculus' launch next year, lets see
what Sony brings to the table with their headset for the Playstation 4.

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staunch
Any technical company that John Carmack approves of buying must be
legitimately badass. Many people thought Oculus had already created the VR
platform of the future, but they've only just begun, there's a mountain of
work to do before VR becomes the dominant form of computing. Oculus will have
to buy some of these companies because there's no other way to hire the people
they need.

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AndrewKemendo
This reinforces my view that inside-out SLAM is the future of all AR/VR
implementations.

That is why we are pumping so much effort into it at Visidraft with our AR
system.

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mrfusion
What is inside out slam?

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Animats
Regular SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) is needed to get the
headset's coordinate system locked to the real world. Otherwise you need
external localization aids - markers, transmitters, IR cameras, etc. SLAM as a
general technology is in reasonably good shape, but doing it with no frame
delay to pixel or subpixel accuracy is tough. Many of the known algorithms
deliver their best info about where you were a few frames ago, because you can
average on both sides of the frame and deal with noise and artifacts. If you
have to decide based on the current frame in a changing environment, sometimes
you'll get it wrong.

Someone might come up with a killer app for a mediocre AR system while Oculus
is getting it right. But probably not. The Google Glass debacle shows that
crappy AR doesn't sell. The previous several generations of VR headsets show
that crappy VR doesn't sell. There's good VR in controlled environments right
now, but that's a niche market. This is a technology that has to work quite
well to be tolerable to use.

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thescriptkiddie
Google Glass isn't crappy AR. It has no AR capabilities whatsoever, nor has
Google ever suggested that they have any interest in adding AR to future
revisions. Totally different product.

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Animats
Augmented reality was implemented for Google Glass.[1][2] There were startups
with demo products. The hardware was capable enough to do limited AR. Google
itself didn't get there, but others did.

[1] [http://arforglass.org/](http://arforglass.org/) [2]
[http://www.wikitude.com/products/eyewear/google-glass-
augmen...](http://www.wikitude.com/products/eyewear/google-glass-augmented-
reality-sdk/)

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akramhussein
Amazing news. Another success for the lab at Imperial. The team behind Surreal
are really good from all the work I've seen. I used one of Stephen's projects
for my masters thesis under the same supervisor (Andrew Davison) they all had
and he was extremely helpful. Can't wait to see what they do next.

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bane
I'm starting to feel like Oculus is suffering from sequelitis. I have yet to
use one, but by most accounts, it's in great shape for a v1.0 release. Launch
early and they'll be sure to get good market advantage, and there's already a
plethora of ready-to-run software.

But there's no release yet, specs and requirements keep getting bumped, and
building out a metaverse of some kind seems to be eating up lots of resources.

It's not necessary to have super perfect ultra realistic scenes, people play
minecraft and watch movies perfectly happily with their rifts after all.

Launch, then blow your install base away with a great 2.0 release.

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showerst
I think the opposite, they need to get this right the first time, or people
will try it once, get a little dizzy or disconnected and decide "Oh VR makes
me sick."

With the recent bumps in the specs, I think it shows that you need more power
than most people have available to get that kind of performance.

~~~
DigitalSea
Exactly this. Virtual Reality headsets for many will be an entirely new never
before seen experience, if they get it wrong, people will definitely avoid
trying it again and that will be bad not just for Oculus but the virtual
reality industry as a whole. If Oculus are first to release, they have a lot
of pressure on their shoulders to do it right because their v1 launch success
will have a flow on effect to other devices.

The higher end specifications required to power Oculus will definitely be a
stumbling block. Presumably the headset will cost more than the developer kits
costs, then you need to throw in at least an additional $800 for a high-end
graphics card to power the Oculus. This is the kind of money only hardcore
gamers will warrant, not a small family with a few kids wanting to get them a
Christmas present. I have always said Oculus need to partner with a graphics
card company like AMD or Nvidia and give the headset away with a high-end
graphics card purchase, or at least heavily subsidise it. They're killing two
birds with one stone then.

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c0ur7n3y
I wonder if they've been busy trying to build an "App Store" or something else
to avoid just selling hardware.

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coherentpony
s/Oculus/Facebook/g

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falcolas
Not wholly sure why this was downvoted, it's a bit trite but accurate: Oculus
the company no longer exists. For example, if you were to apply to the "Oculus
company", you're taken to a Facebook career page for a position in the Oculus
division.

In fact, I find it a bit duplicitous that they don't mention the whole
acquisition by Facebook bit on their "About Oculus" company page.

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crimsonalucard
Are they trying to make a move to imitate microsoft's hololens? That's gotta
be it.

