Those of you interested in Virtual/Augmented Reality applications and head mounted displays should have a serious look at the "Oculus Rift" Kickstarter project:
<http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game>
They set out to build a VR headset that actually works and is affordable, as opposed to most typical VR headsets which are either very expensive, or provide a rather underwhelming immersion experience, or usually both.
The Kickstarter has already reached and exceeded its funding goal of 250.000$, now at 1.6 Mio $, but there are still 19 days to go. For 300$ you can get a rift developer kit for early adopters. Experts of various game companies have praised the current prototype, and the legendary John Carmack of iD Software speaks very passionately about it. This is not yet a consumer product, but something for developers and people experienced with the various shortcomings of current VR technology.
Related, here is a interesting video of a technical panel discussion at QuakeConn 2012 between John Carmack[1] of id Software, Michael Abrash[2] now at Valve Software, and Palmer Luckey of Oculus about the device and their views about the current state of VR/AR. Given Carmacks and Abrashs fame and reputation in computer graphics and game programming, for people working with VR and computer graphics this is probably a "must see" video - just like many other stuff that involves Carmack or Abrash.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gaqQdyfAz8&feature=player_detailpage>
[1] If you want to hear Carmacks very detailed views on the state of VR/AR technology, VR headsets, video games, computer graphics APIs like OpenGL/Direct3D, the state and quality of graphics drivers and operating systems, raytracing vs. rasterization based rendering, display technology and display latency issues, throughput/refresh vs. latency issues and various other interesting technical topics, i can also highly recommend his QuakeConn 2012 keynote video -- set some time and patience aside though, his keynote lasted over 3.5 hours:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt-iVFxgFWk&feature=player_detailpage>
[2] Michael Abrash Blog at Valve: <http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/>
<http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game>
They set out to build a VR headset that actually works and is affordable, as opposed to most typical VR headsets which are either very expensive, or provide a rather underwhelming immersion experience, or usually both.
The Kickstarter has already reached and exceeded its funding goal of 250.000$, now at 1.6 Mio $, but there are still 19 days to go. For 300$ you can get a rift developer kit for early adopters. Experts of various game companies have praised the current prototype, and the legendary John Carmack of iD Software speaks very passionately about it. This is not yet a consumer product, but something for developers and people experienced with the various shortcomings of current VR technology.
Related, here is a interesting video of a technical panel discussion at QuakeConn 2012 between John Carmack[1] of id Software, Michael Abrash[2] now at Valve Software, and Palmer Luckey of Oculus about the device and their views about the current state of VR/AR. Given Carmacks and Abrashs fame and reputation in computer graphics and game programming, for people working with VR and computer graphics this is probably a "must see" video - just like many other stuff that involves Carmack or Abrash.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gaqQdyfAz8&feature=player_detailpage>
[1] If you want to hear Carmacks very detailed views on the state of VR/AR technology, VR headsets, video games, computer graphics APIs like OpenGL/Direct3D, the state and quality of graphics drivers and operating systems, raytracing vs. rasterization based rendering, display technology and display latency issues, throughput/refresh vs. latency issues and various other interesting technical topics, i can also highly recommend his QuakeConn 2012 keynote video -- set some time and patience aside though, his keynote lasted over 3.5 hours:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt-iVFxgFWk&feature=player_detailpage>
[2] Michael Abrash Blog at Valve: <http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/>