Virtual & Augmented Reality and 3D News - Page 144

I might be showing my age here, but Myst was one of the most amazing games I ever had the chance of playing when I was young. When I first got the chance to test out the Oculus Rift, one of the first games that I thought would be amazing to play in the VR world was, Myst.

Well, the award-winning creators of Myst and Riven are on Kickstarter right now trying to fund their latest title: Obduction. Obduction is an "all-new, real-time, first-person adventure that harkens back to the spirit of Cyan's earlier games Myst and Riven. Obduction resurrects that incredible feeling of suddenly finding yourself in the middle of a new world to explore, discover, solve, and become part of."

One of the most interesting parts of the Obduction Kickstarter page, is in its FAQ, where the question "What about Oculus Rift support" to which the answer is: "We are excited about Oculus Rift (we have a dev kit) and VR in general, and we'd love to have a stretch goal that heads that direction."

Today Jeri Ellsworth released a new video on her YouTube channel that gave us a look into what has been going on in her world since she was let go from Valve. Jeri says she has been working on a project that was started about two years ago when she was recruited by Valve to develop an all new way to play video games using augmented reality and virtual reality.

To summarize a long story, Jeri stumbled across a neat effect using special image projection glasses and a sheet of retro reflective material. When combined, the two pieces of technology created a beautiful holographic gaming experience that does not cause headaches from eye strain. Jeri said that she had a hard time selling the new discovery to Valve as they did not see how this could fit into the types of games they were developing.

Jeri teamed up with a developer at Valve named Rick Johnson who began developing games for the system in his spare time after hours at Valve. Jeri continued working on the headset and managed to shrink it down drastically and at the same time, she developed a "magic wand" that was used to control characters on the gaming surface. The gaming system became popular and Jeri says that Valve employees would stop by her office at the end of the day and spend hours playing games on the system.

Fractal Design has launched a new website and corresponding mobile app that is unlike any other hardware manufacturer's website that I have seen. The new website is clean and minimalistic, which obviously reflects the company's design ethics. The front page features a large slider that is very informative and quite pleasing to the eye, but the refresh really shines when you download the company's app for Android or iOS.

The app is laid out in such a way that users can quickly find information on the product of their choosing, while at the same time managing to provide a rich and minimal user interface. Things really take a turn towards awesome when you check out the Augmented Reality features that the app offerers. By simply downloading and printing out a "trigger"--a small image that helps the app place the AR image--users can use the app to visualize what a particular Fractal Design product may look like in their home, office, or anywhere the trigger is placed.

Until today, I have not put much stock into Augmented Reality, but the concept that Fractal Design has implemented here really gets me excited. I can see this technology being used for all sorts of things such as when buying wheels for your vehicle or even when shopping for a new water cooling system for your PC. This is definitely the future and I hope that we see more tech companies using this in their apps in the future.

Oculus Rift is incredibly awesome, but it is quite limited when it comes to fully supported games. VorpX has stepped in, unleashing its software which is still in beta, which opens up the world of virtual reality to countless new games.

VorpX works with huge games like BioShock Infinite and Mirror's Edge, but best of all, it works with Battlefield 3. None of these games are built to work with the Rift headset, so there are some workarounds that the team of VorpX has used. This includes clicking in and holding down your middle mouse wheel which will let you "edge peak."

Edge peak allows you to look freely at the edges of your field of view, instead of moving within the game world by moving your head, and the Rift. The list of compatible games with Rift thanks to VorpX is huge, and I'm quite excited to test out a bunch of them this week.

I think that 2014 is going to be the breakout year for virtual reality, with kick-ass products like the Oculus Rift which isn't even close to a consumer launch yet. But, now we have Vision Sensor hitting IndieGogo, which the team give a description of "creates new seeing capabilities for the Oculus Rift."

Vision Sensor is basically augmented reality for the Oculus Rift, which sees two sensors and a sensor attachment cover strapped to the front of an Oculus Rift Developer Kit. It features a resolution of 1280x480 at 60FPS, and weighs just 75g so that it doesn't feel too heavy with the Rift, and Vision Sensor on your head.

The team at Vision Sensor say that there are 3 new possibilities to add to the user experience, with the first being an Immersive AR Experience. The second is Intuitive Operation (Mixed Reality) and the final possibility is Regaining Lost Vision. The first, lets you be in the world of Oculus Rift, but still stay in the real-world through augmented reality.

The finalists of VR Jam 2013 have been announced, which was a joint venture between Oculus VR and IndieCade. If you're lucky like me and own an Oculus Rift headset, you can download 14 of the 20 finalists' submissions, with two dragon simulators to try out.

On September 19 the winning team will be announced, where they will receive a $10,000 grand prize as well as a trip to the Oculus HQ. The winning team will also win a trip to the IndieCade Festival which takes place between October 3-6, where they will have a showcase exhibition of their game. For the full list of finalists, we have:

Today, QNAP Security announced the launch of its latest Linux-based VioStor NVR product. The VioStor NVR VS-2100 Pro+ series is a two-bay tower form-factor NVR that is available in four, eight, and 12 channels and is designed with small to medium business and small office/home offices in mind.

The VioStor NVR VS-2100 Pro+ series features dual-core Intel 2.6GHz processors and 4GB of DDR3 memory to ensure high-performance and stable recording while providing smooth playback from multiple megapixel IP cameras. The series is able to accommodate up to 8TB of high-quality videos encoded in H.264, MPEG-4, M-JPEG, and MxPEG. Full HD 1080p at 180fps video playback is supported thanks to onboard video hardware.

"The global security market presents high demand for HD resolution applications, and QNAP VioStor products are well-positioned for this need," said Amily Fang, product manager of QNAP Security. "The VS-2100 Pro+ series are affordable surveillance solutions for small-scale surveillance deployment scenario such as childcare, elder care, home, parking lot, retail stores, and so on."

This morning Oculus VR, the company behind the Oculus Rift, announced a new addition to the team. The company said that id Software co-founder and legendary programmer John Carmack has joined the Oculus team as the company's new Chief Technical Officer. Oculus says that Carmack "is one of the brightest minds of our generation - pioneer, visionary, and industry legend. There are very few people in the world that can contribute to the Oculus Rift and the future of virtual reality like John can."

For those of you who might be too young to remember, John Carmack is the brains behind revolutionary pioneer first-person shooter games such as DOOM, QUAKE, RAGE and Wolfenstein. Carmack is widely considered to be one of the pioneers of 3-D graphics and has recently worked as a programmer in the aerospace industry at Armadillo Aerospace. Carmack prepared a statement which I have pasted below.

"I have fond memories of the development work that led to a lot of great things in modern gaming - the intensity of the first person experience, LAN and internet play, game mods, and so on. Duct taping a strap and hot gluing sensors onto Palmer's early prototype Rift and writing the code to drive it ranks right up there. Now is a special time. I believe that VR will have a huge impact in the coming years, but everyone working today is a pioneer. The paradigms that everyone will take for granted in the future are being figured out today; probably by people reading this message. It's certainly not there yet. There is a lot more work to do, and there are problems we don't even know about that will need to be solved, but I am eager to work on them. It's going to be awesome!"

Today, we're seening evidence that Microsoft has plans to build its own version of so-called SmartGlasses similar to that of Google Glass. A recent patent application from the software giant shows off what appears to be augmented reality glasses for multiplayer gaming.

The patent shows off what appears to be a pair of normal sunglasses with a camera and microphone mounted in the nose bridge. Sensors would be located at different positions around the frame as well as speakers mounted near the ears. The patent claims device could receive voice commands, track your eyes, calculate depth, and recognize the faces of fellow players.

This patent falls in line with a similar patent by Microsoft recently that details how to augment live events with augmented reality displays. At the moment, it is still unclear if Microsoft has produced any prototypes or if this patent is simply IP.

How many hours did you put yourself through in Atari's 1984 classic, Paperboy? I know I rode through that game for countless hours, and it looks like I might just do it again with Globacore's new title.

Globacare are a creative technology company who specialize in large multi-touch displays, and have unveiled a new work-in-progress, first-person homage to Paperboy, Paperdude VR. Paperdude VR uses Oculus' VR headset, Rift, as well as Microsoft's motion sensor, Kinect. You can see in the video above that player rides on a stationary bike, attempting to throw newspapers into peoples' mailboxes.

Paperdude VR is a great concept, something that might just keep gamers a bit fitter than they are now. Constantly peddling your bike in a game is sure to keep gamers a bit fitter. The more I see on Oculus Rift, the more I want it.