Years in the making and the final industrial design of the thing is just a slight step up from a cardboard box. Awful foam around the headset, crummy plastic on the headbrace, flimsy open headphones, and it looks like it will still be unusable for anyone that wears glasses. I'm still grateful to Oculus for kicking off all of the interest in VR, but I doubt I'll ever be buying their devices if this is the best they can do.
Oculus Rift
261–270 of 378 posts
Re: Oculus Rift
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
A podcast I listen to recently discussed the theoretical horror of flying while being stuck next to a passenger strapped into an Oculus Rift who is totally oblivious to how annoying they are being to their fellow passengers with their gestures and reactions to the VR experience that no one else is seeing. Please don't be that guy.. :-)
Now we just need a catchy portmanteau like "glasshole" for that guy ? Vridiot?
HMD-bag
Re: Oculus Rift
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I mean, the HoloLens is additive. That means if you want to show a dark object in a room with white walls, you cant. You sure? Do you have a source you can cite?
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-...
I'm kind of delighted that the author of that article, Michael Abrash, worked at Microsoft (twice), at Valve, and is now at Oculus.
Re: Oculus Rift
#264Does anyone know if the issues people were reporting with simulator sickness have lessened with the version they plan to sell? see: https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?t=5127&start=20
Since that forum post they have implemented low persistence display which apparently helps immensely with the motion sickness some people experience.
You can watch an explanation of how it works here: https://youtu.be/HoLHHUdi_LE?t=5m41s
Essentially it just flashes the frame briefly then switches the display to black. This helps with the tiny motions your head and eyes make between refreshes which normally cause your brain to not respond well because your movement isn't matching what you are seeing.
They also implemented something called Time Warping which is very complicated but it's basically a depth-aware frame interpolation that let's the device create way more frames than actually are which helps again with keeping your brain from freaking out about the discongruity of your head motion and your vision.
This video explains how that works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvtEXMlQQtI
Re: Oculus Rift
#265I really want VR computer monitors so that I sit at a desk with no monitors so that I can run 4,5,6, any number I want or just 1 big monitor. Also it would give me a lot more privacy as no one else could see my monitors unless I shared the monitor to them which I imagine would be a little easier to do with virtual monitors than when physical ones (even considering screen sharing which is iffy sometimes).
Your use case is particularly apt for frequent fliers. I've almost had a tray table-supported laptop destroyed on more than one occasion by a reclining passenger in front of me. It would be amazing to just set up a small keyboard+trackpad on my lap and not have to even pull the computer out of its bag. If I could do this, I wouldn't even care how ridiculous I looked.
Also, consider a future where a laptop is just a ~silicone skin over the current "bottom half" of a laptop. Batteries could also be smaller since the screen currently eats so much juice, or it could stay the same size to power the VR headset (but I imagine that the smaller screens would use less juice).
Re: Oculus Rift
#266I recently returned my Oculus Rift, not even two weeks after buying it. Dropping Linux support is not okay.
> Dropping Linux support is not okay.
It's v1 of a product, if they waited to have every feature under the sun before initial launch then nothing would ever get released, ever.
Re: Oculus Rift
#267The Xbox controller is really surprising to me. Years in development and it will ship with an Xbox controller. Oculus Touch didn't even get demonstrated and "prototype" was mentioned time and again.
What is really needed IMHO is a mind-reader. Something simple that would detect brain waves and allow you to move around. That way one could aim by turning your head and move by thinking about it.
I know tech. has some way to go before it gets there, but that is the missing piece that would make this the next level of computing (and probably one that would cause Half Life 3 to finally show up).
Re: Oculus Rift
#268I really want VR computer monitors so that I sit at a desk with no monitors so that I can run 4,5,6, any number I want or just 1 big monitor. Also it would give me a lot more privacy as no one else could see my monitors unless I shared the monitor to them which I imagine would be a little easier to do with virtual monitors than when physical ones (even considering screen sharing which is iffy sometimes).
This is going to make working from home a whole lot more easier. Expect outsourcing to get easier, expect fall in business travel.
A whole lot of things are going to easy and cheap.
Re: Oculus Rift
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
other than "can't fall off a seat tray" there isn't much point in having 4 virtual monitors if it gives you less readable real-estate than a real monitor.
Really? Even if the visible, readable real-estate is limited, I think there's be a huge usability boost from using... "virtual monitors" is a terribly ambiguous phrase... virtually co-located monitors? The key metric for me is how much information I can access with input under a minimal threshold. From personal experience, a hotkey to swap virtual desktops (e.g. Alt+Up) still isn't the same as having multiple physica…
> Would be curious whether a fuzzier, internal-sensor-only, limited "intent" tracking mode (e.g. flick head to switch monitor) would make people hurl or not.
Yes, it would. This has been studied pretty extensively, the head movements need to be very precisely matched by rendering. The absolute worst you can do is any kind of non-linear response -- acceleration + lag can make people who are very tolerant of VR nausea literally throw up.
Re: Oculus Rift
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure why I'm getting downvoted and why you think I'm saying the controller is bad. Oculus keeps spreading tons of hype and making very disappointing announcements. A bundled xbox one controller is nothing to get excited over. Their supposed new input is, but they had virtually nothing to show for that.
I for one agree with you. They punted on the controller in order to make the release, and their prototype controllers look underwhelming in comparison. It feels like they've cut corners in an effort to beat Valve's VR platform to market.
Except they're not beating Valve to market. Vive should be released for the holiday season 2015 alongside the Steam Machines.
Rift won't be here until Q1 2016 (and their input solution later still).