Awesome Stuff: Feeling Virtual Reality

from the five-senses dept

True virtual reality — the kind we've been envisioning now for decades — is inching ever closer to, well, reality. But while most of the focus is new devices that let you see a virtual world, there are some people out there working on the other senses to round out the simulated experience. This week, we're looking at Gloveone, a haptic feedback system that wants to do for touch what devices like the Oculus Rift are doing for sight.

The Good

I don't think I need to sell anyone on the idea of fully immersive virtual reality, which is a sci-fi dream every bit as potent as flying cars and hoverboards, but one that's looking a lot more attainable. And then there's the idea of a glove-based input and feedback device, which remains intriguing even to those who were burned in 1989. So what can I say? The Gloveone is just cool. Even basic haptic feedback has proven a boon to mobile devices and game controllers, and those systems don't begin to approach the complexity and detail of the Gloveone's, so I'm excited to see what can be done with the technology.

The Bad

The Gloveone isn't likely to be many people's first foray into virtual reality. It would be great to use as part of a complete multi-sensory setup, but by itself it may not be all that exciting. The ability to interact with objects on regular screens will surely have some applications, but it's alongside something like the Oculus Rift or Microsoft Hololens that the device will truly shine, and those aren't exactly household staples just yet. But, ultimately, that isn't the point: the creators surely know their direct consumer appeal is currently limited, but they are banking on a future where virtual reality setups become more and more common, and filling in an important gap.

The Future

And that's what the Gloveone's really about, and what makes it awesome: the (potentially) coming VR future. The creators are putting a huge focus on developers: the developer site is already up with documentation, runtimes, SDKs and a package for Unity3D (with Unreal Engine compatibility as a stretch goal, which could lead to some exciting games). This community is where the Gloveone can really shine and where most of the attention is likely to come from for the next little while, as forward-thinking developers start doing interesting and unexpected things with the technology. The truth is, there probably isn't much reason for the average person to buy something like this right now — but given a bit of time and creative innovation, the Gloveone may prove to be the prototype for the next generation of haptic devices.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, haptic feedback, virtual reality

Awesome Stuff: Virtual & Augmented Reality Headsets

from the shifting-reality dept

• SEER First up is SEER, which its developers insist is an augmented reality solution inspired by Iron Man. It has a wide field of view, works off of your existing smartphone and is a very open platform. I'm guessing the guys behind this weren't thrilled with the timing of the HoloLens announcement, but it still looks pretty cool, and the price tag doesn't seem crazy.
• VISR The VISR looks like Google Cardboard made much nicer. It's using laminated corrugate, so while still corrugated material, it's much nicer and more durable. Plus it comes with a strap to attach it to your head (unlike the basic Google Cardboard setup). Despite all that, VISR is priced at about the same price as you'll find various folks selling their own variations on Google Cardboard, so this seems like a fairly nice alternative. XG Virtual Reality Headset Taking it up a notch is the XG Virtual Reality headset, which could be seen as sort of somewhere between Google Cardboard and the Oculus Rift. It's made by I AM Cardboard, which was one of the more well known makers of pre-fabbed Google Cardboard offerings, but they decided to take it up a notch and build a much nicer overall headset at a still reasonable fee.

Filed Under: augmented reality, awesome stuff, headsets, virtual reality

Awesome Stuff: Mainstreaming Augmented And Virtual Reality

from the oculus-who? dept

• First up, we've got the Altergaze -- which might also be described as the poor man's Oculus Rift. It's a 3D printed (and it looks it) contraption for holding your mobile phone, and having an Oculus Rift-like virtual reality experience for a less money. The video clips of people reacting to it are fantastic. The project is based out of the UK, so the pricing is in £s. If you're willing to do some self-assembly, it'll run you just £50, but can run up to £100 or more if you want an assembled version. The project is designed to be open source hardware, so if you've got your own 3D printer (and access to the right lenses) you could conceivably try to build your own. This project is about halfway to its £50,000 goal after just a day or so. With nearly a month left it'll fly past that goal.
• Next up, we've got the Rescape, which creates an augmented reality/virtual reality game on a mobile phone. It uses a funky "game controller," which is more or less a device to make you feel like you're holding a gun in a first person shooter, and which holds your phone on top, through which you can view the game. Tough to describe in words, easy to understand if you watch the video. Basically, it puts you live inside a first person shooter, using your mobile phone, even clothing other "players" in military outfits or whatever. If you ever wanted to "live" in a first person shooter, rather than just watching one on a TV or computer screen, check it out. This one seems a bit pricey, as you'll have to shell out over $100 for just a single "controller," and that's probably not nearly as fun as having a few in order to play with friends. While this looks like quite a lot of fun, they're having trouble attracting buyers. With just over a week to go, they're only around 20% of their $150,000 goal.
• Finally, this last one may be my favorite of the bunch, in part because the Matt Hat makes no effort at all to hide the fact that this is not a consumer product, was started entirely as a joke, but since people seemed interested in it, he'd toss it up on Kickstarter. Basically, it's an attempt to create a DIY augmented reality heads up display, a la a Google Glass, but rather than something like Glass, this is just taking an old baseball cap, a visor and a smartphone -- and then patching it all together. It looks terrible, and the guy behind it doesn't hide that at all. Also, assembling it yourself is required (even though he'll include a baseball cap in the package -- though no indication what kind). That involves cutting a hole in the cap, some rubber bands and a variety of other random things. As Matt himself notes, this is functional, not fashionable. The video showing you how to put it together yourself is fantastic. This one will run you about $50 Australian, which is about $46 US. Even so, not too many people are going for it. At the time writing this it has just 5 backers after a few days of being live. That's not going to get Matt anywhere near his $50,000 goal. I haven't decided to support this one yet, but there's something tempting about it. For all the talk of people reacting to "Glassholes," I'm really curious how people walking down the street would respond to this monstrosity.

Filed Under: augmented reality, awesome stuff, virtual reality