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Oculus and other VR headsets will be at CES 2015 which start at Tuesday, this thread will be posting the events of the show. If anyone is going there you are free to post your experiences here.
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Oculus's booth
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http://vrfocus.com/archives/10097/oculus-launches-ces-2015-app-reserve-crescent-bay-demos/The Oculus CES 2015 app can be used to simply reserve a spot to see Crescent Bay in action at the company’s booth, located in the Las Vegas Convention Center South Hall on the 2nd Floor, Booth #26002. Those without the app should note that Oculus VR will also be accepting walkups during the event. A variety of timeslots are available although, from the looks of it, they’re already pretty much all full up a good day before the event even gets underway. That’s pretty impressive given that there are 17 slots for each of the four days of CES.The app also contains some general Oculus VR links, much like the app that was launched for the Oculus Connect developer conference back in September 2014. These include a link to the Oculus VR homepage and access to your Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts as well as emails, ensuring that you never have to close to app throughout CES. It is currently available for free on both the iOS and Android operating systems (OS). There doesn’t appear to be any other option perhaps to see the Gear VR smartphone-based HMD, suggest that it will be more readily available to see throughout the event.A recent tweet from Oculus VR notes that scheduling will open ‘soon’, meaning the event isn’t full booked at all, it’s just yet to open.https://twitter.com/oculus/status/552130043627831296 No.176
http://vrfocus.com/archives/10142/skybound-nba-artists-den-red-bull-partner-samsungs-milk-vr/Today saw Samsung host its anticipated 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) press conference ahead of the full show’s launch tomorrow. The company had plenty of new announcements to make about its slate of electronics, including its virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD), Gear VR. But whereas other conferences have seen the company talk about the videogame experiences coming to Gear VR, today’s briefing revealed a lot of exciting content partners for the company’s recently-released VR video app, Milk VR.Skybound Entertainment’s David Albert, who has worked on the popular The Walking Dead series, took to the stage to announce a new VR mystery/suspense/thriller series that will be released later this year. Short episodes will be made available exclusively through Milk VR, though details such as plot, casting and a title were kept quiet. As for a possible The Walking Dead VR experience, Albert noted that “We’re not ruling anything out but you’re going to have to stay tuned.” With that tease Albert left the stage.But Skybound Entertainment isn’t the only company to partner with Samsung on Milk VR. As the image above shows, the likes of NBA, Artists Den and Red Bull have signed up to create content for the platform, which Samsung says will be updated daily across a number of genres. The NBA partnership in particular will be offering behind the scenes footage. Details on just how this content will be distributed and if users will have to pay for it remains to be seen at this point in time. Milk VR launched over the holiday season and can be downloaded for free, though it’s only thought of as a testbed right now before a full app launch later down the line. No.179
http://www.roadtovr.com/razer-hacker-dev-kit-osvr-sensics/Today Razer and Sensics, along with a bevy of VR industry supporters, have announced the OSVR (Open Source Virtual Reality) initiative alongside the $199 ‘Hacker Dev Kit’ VR headset which is due to launch this summer.The Hacker Dev Kit is an open source VR headset from Razer, designed with the help of Sensics a company that’s been working in the world of professional head mounted displays for more than 10 years. According to Razer and Sensics, the HDK VR headset will have a 5.5-inch 1920×1080 60Hz display with a 100 degree (diagonal) field of view. Hardware IPD and diopter adjustments will compliment the unit’s dual-element aspheric optics, freeing glasses users from the need to wear them while using the headset, according to the companies.Sensics CEO Yuval Boger, who said that work started on this project some 18 months ago, tells me that the HDK VR headset is designed to be modular and hackable.''
“Everything about this product is going to be open source,” he said. “You could make your own if you wanted to or you can hack it—we’re inviting people to hack it. If you just want the optics or you just want the board, you can go ahead. It’s designed to make it easy for the hacker.”While the VR headset will be sold for $199, its entire design will be made available on the OSVR website so that the makers among us can build their own. The magnetic front cover will be an easy target for initial customization, allowing people to make their own by 3D printing or other means. The unit’s control box will have a USB 3.0 port for accessories while the headset itself will contain two USB 3.0 connections for internal expansion.And a tons more info in the link.
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No.181
http://www.zdnet.com/article/ces-2015-3d-systems-brings-3d-printing-to-wearables-oculus-rift-and-chocolate/For 3D Systems, 3D printing was an overnight success about 30 years in the making. And in 2014, the technology – and the hype – finally caught up with them, according to CEO Avi Reichental.At 3D Systems' CES 2015 press conference at the MGM Grand, Reichental proclaimed that 2015 is the year when 3D printing will become mainstream and available in almost every home. That's why the theme of 3D Systems' press conference on Tuesday was "the home of now" and took place in an MGM hospitality suite equipped with food, fashion, and fun stuff – all 3D printed.The company showed off its recently announced 3D printers, like the CocoJet, a chocolate printer, in partnership with Hershey's, and the Ekocycle, a printer that uses post-consumer recycled plastic filament, which is a product in partnership with will.i.am and Coca-Cola. They also spotlighted the new Touch Haptic 3D Stylus and OpenHaptics SDK system, which works with Oculus Rift to create a virtual sculpting software tool to transform 3D modeling – one of the biggest hurdles to bringing 3D printing mainstream – to a simple, game-like experience for everyone. No.183
http://vrfocus.com/archives/10250/oculus-vrs-input-solution-shown-sometime-soon/Iribe said as much to The Verge in an interview at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show this week. “We haven’t showed anybody our early versions of VR input yet” he stated. “We’re excited to show something sometime soon. But we’re not ready yet. And it will definitely change as we show it. We’ll show different things that will continue to improve. I think long-term, everybody agrees that at some point, you want the lightest, smallest pair of glasses or goggles, and you want to see your hands naturally, and you want to see your body naturally, and you want to feel like you’re 100 percent totally there. That is really really difficult, and we’re not going to get that level of body tracking, hand tracking, eyes, mouth, whole human tracking in the early versions of VR.”Last year Oculus VR announced an acquisition of Nimble VR, a hand-tracking company that completed a successful Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign for its device, which was mounted to the Oculus Rift. That provides some pretty significant hints about where the company is going with its input solutions. Don’t expect a solution to be ready for the consumer Oculus Rift’s launch, though.“We won’t release a version with bad input,” Iribe continued. “It’s something that we feel like breaks the experience. We’d rather have a very simplified input or a gamepad input. We haven’t made that decision yet, but we’d rather have something very dependable that is clearly not trying to be the perfect VR input than something that’s half-baked. And what we’ve seen out there in the community… nothing’s really hit that mark yet. It’s really important to the whole Oculus team to get VR input right in the beginning and not deliver something that misses the mark.” No.185
http://vrfocus.com/archives/10346/oculus-mitchell-crescent-bays-screen-good-enough-consumer-rift/Iribe revealed as much in an interview with Tech Crunch. “We are starting to commit to some things,” he said. “So internally we are starting to lock in on certain components whether it’s the screen technology, the optics, the weight; it’s much lighter which is something that was a huge improvement from Oculus Rift DK2, which kind of unfortunately got very heavier. Now we feel like it’s really at a weight that consumers can enjoy for long periods of time. People aren’t going to be living in these things but you should be able to enjoy it for a while and not get fatigued based on the weight.”Elsewhere, Oculus VR’s VP of Product Nate Mitchell stated that, in his opinion, the OLED display found in the Crescent Bay prototype of the Oculus Rift, is ‘good enough’ for CV1. That display is yet to have its resolution specified, though it is said to be better than DK2′s 1080p screen. The most anticipated details for CV1, such as a release date and price, are still yet to be confirmed. CES hasn’t been the show to reveal this information, but there’s still plenty of chances in 2015 to reveal all. No.187
http://vrfocus.com/archives/10346/oculus-mitchell-crescent-bays-screen-good-enough-consumer-rift/Mitchell revealed as much in an interview with Engadget during the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. “I, personally, think that that resolution is high enough to be a consumer product for the beginning of the Oculus Rift,” Mitchell explained. “And, one thing we’ve said often, is anytime we show a feature prototype, it’s gonna be that good if not better. For me, I do think that’s good enough for the V1 of the Rift.” Note that Mitchell is speaking personally and his views may not be shared by all of Oculus VR. A display upgrade is still possible for CV1, then.Interestingly, Oculus VR is yet to specify the resolution of Crescent Bay’s screen, only noting that it’s better than the 1080p panel found in the Oculus Rift’s second development kit (DK2). The previous HMD used a display from Samsung, with Oculus VR helping to produce the Gear VR smartphone-based HMD in return. Gear VR uses the 1440 x 2560 display found on the Galaxy Note 4′s screen. It’s possible that this could be the same screen for Crescent Bay, though Oculus VR currently won’t say if it is. No.188
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http://www.roadtovr.com/interview-osvr-hdk-creators-hdk-not-razer-headset-ces-2015/Yesterday, Razer announced that, in partnership with experienced VR headset producers Sensics, it was to launch a new, entirely open-source virtual reality platform. It was a surprising move from Razer, traditionally associated with premium PC peripherals, and after trying the OSVR HDK (Hacker Developer Kit) headset, we were keen to find out more.One interesting element that came out of the interview is, although Razer are have helped design the OSVR HDK, which will function as the flagship device for the OSVR project, it is not a Razer product, according to the company’s Senior Product Manager, Chris Mitchell. Razer want their brand name associated only with consumer-facing products rather than enthusiast devices such as the HDK.On Sensic’s part, Yuval was bullish about what they’d managed to achieve in this early iteration of the HDK, due for release in June this year. The inclusion of dual element optics for example, unusual in the sphere of consumer VR headsets right now, Yuval sees as “…pushing the art of the possible.”It’s still not yet clear what the long term effect of OSVR as a movement will be, but the partnership between the two companies seems to have produce an ethos that will ring true with many VR enthusiasts and hackers around the world. We’re looking forward to seeing where this one leads. No.190
http://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-audio-sdk-coming-rift-dk2-gear-vr-cv1-launches-ces-2015/At CES 2015, Oculus brought their latest Rift Crescent Bay prototype to show off at the show. And while the unit remains identical to what we saw at the company’s ‘Connect’ developer conference in 2014, there’s new stuff hidden in the headphones, specifically the 3D positional audio that the company says is key to virtual reality immersion.Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe told Road to VR that the Oculus Audio SDK would be available to developers of the Rift DK2 and Samsung’s Gear VR prior to the launch of the consumer version of the Oculus Rift, commonly called the ‘CV1′.The Oculus Audio SDK will allow developers to tap into Oculus’ solution for 3D positional audio, which makes use of a ‘head related transfer function‘ that processes sounds to give them an accurate position in 3D space, taking into account factors like the shape of the human ear and the fact that, unless the listener is directly facing the origin of the sound, the sound waves will reach each ear at slightly different times. Essentially, the Oculus Audio SDK attempts to digitally recreate the cues that the brain uses to determine the origin of sounds in real life.Oculus announced during its ‘Connect’ developer conference in 2014 that, in addition to adding integrated headphones to their latest Rift ‘Crescent Bay’ prototype, the company had licensed 3D audio technology from Visisonics called RealSpace 3D. At the time, however, the tech was not implemented into virtual reality demos shown by Oculus. The Oculus team has taken a snapshot of the RealSense 3D implementation and has begun building it into the Oculus SDK, according to Iribe. Once the package becomes available, it will give developers of Oculus experiences an easy way to enrich their demos with 3D positional audio.Other implementations of 3D audio have been seen in various Oculus Rift demos, but having a single, consistent method for adding VR-optimized audio is likely to be a boon for developers.“Although HRTF technologies have been around for decades, the addition of precise head tracking makes it much more effective,” says Oculus.On Crescent Bay, Oculus has added what they’re calling ‘VR audio’ to their demo set that’s being used to show off the prototype, which was first seen at the Connect conference in 2014. The Showdown demo from Epic Games is still part of the demo set, but doesn’t yet include Oculus’ VR audio. On Gear VR, Oculus showed a small demo set which included some simple scenes from the company’s Herobound title, and an additional scene that put players on top of a mountain with a pterodactyl flying over head. No.191
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http://www.roadtovr.com/ces-2015-samsung-gear-vr-rolling-out-to-internaional-regions-by-months-end/At CES 2015, Road to VR spoke with Oculus’ Head of Mobile, Max Cohen, who confirmed that Samsung’s Gear VR mobile headset would begin its international rollout by the end of January. The company is also working toward developer monetization and the upgrade path for Android 5.0 Lollipop.Samsung’s Gear VR headset, which was created in collaboration with Oculus, was announced in early September, followed by a U.S. launch in December. Those outside of the country were left without an official way to acquire the unit, meaning those hoping to get the unit right away would be looking at import tariffs, lack of localization, and concerns about carrier-specific phone compatibility with Gear VR.To ensure compatibility, Oculus has recommended that hungry Gear VR users wait for a proper launch in their region. The company now says that the international rollout is about to start.“We’re expanding to international markets this month, it’s going to be a rollout, but we’re starting that this month… International markets are our first priority, but commerce right after that,” said Max Cohen, Head of Mobile at Oculus. When asked to clarify if this meant that by the end of the month we’d see Gear VR available for purchase in an international region, Cohen said “Possibly even before that.” It wasn’t clear which regions will be the first to see Gear VR release.Click link for more.
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http://vrfocus.com/archives/10396/three-new-titles-hit-gear-vr-week/Luckey was asked about his thoughts on the concept during CNET’s ‘The Next Big Thing Panel’ at CES. He clearly approved of the idea, referencing when the company released its first development kit (DK1) for the Oculus Rift as open source last year. “Our first development kit, DK1, was open sourced in September,” he explained.” All of the hardware’s available, all of the schematics are available and all the components lists are available. All of the tooling is available for anyone to 3D print or injection mould. It is a good thing. It is a good thing to share knowledge that has been discovered so that other people can build on it and improve it. It’s a good thing.”DK1′s schematics and such were released online during the Oculus Connect developer conference in September last year. The documents can be found over on Github. Oculus VR released this information in the interest of letting the community experiment with the original Oculus Rift, which didn’t feature any positional tracking as seen in the second development kit (DK2) and beyond. It also has a lower resolution screen. In other words; there’s plenty to work with in terms of DK1 and modifying the kit.OSVR’s HMD is set to go on sale in June 2015 for $199 USD. At CES it is being shown off alongside a demo from Loading Human developer Untold Games. No.196
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http://www.roadtovr.com/ces-2015-altspacevr-ceo-importance-social-experiences-coming-low-spec-computers-video/We had a chance to talk shop with the minds behind AltspaceVR, a yet unreleased social platform for virtual reality, located at the Intel booth at CES 2015 in Las Vegas. Editor and intrepid reporter Ben Lang spoke with Eric Romo, CEO of AltspaceVR about the social aspects of in-game interaction and the importance of non-verbal communication in virtual spaces.The company was offering a two minute demo of their software using the Oculus DK2, demonstrating the social nature of body language, but CEO Eric Romo says that he has comfortably spent hours on end in the virtual space—a claim we’d personally like to put to test.Romo spoke with us about the function of this sort of non-verbal communication within the realm of AltspaceVR, and why being able to “talk with [your] hands, wave, or do virtual fistbumps,”…is so integral to the experience of social interaction and ultimately presence in the space. They do this in part by mapping positional movement from the DK2′s included infrared camera, which allows the software to recognize head movement and translate it to the virtual avatar— but with the addition of the Intel’s RealSense 3D Camera, a new depth sensing camera that does handtracking, it really adds the possibility for increased interaction and transmission of natural movement.And while wildly gesticulating profanities can be fun in VR, a large part of their concentration goes into integrating web content for shared viewing. Romo told us about the zoom function built into AltspaceVR‘s web browser that helps to mitigate some of the resolution issues with the Oculus Rift’s current 1080p screen, and allows for more comfortable text reading and image sharing among users in the virtual environment.The service is not without its controversy though, which could possibly come in the form of content licensing from video streaming platforms like Netflix. Romo hopes to mitigate any potential dispute by making the content accessible only “on your own web browser. For you to see Netflix there, you have to be logged in separately…[and] we have to find ways to make that clear and not stressful for the user.”Thankfully, AltspaceVR is going to be optimized for lower specced machines, like laptops with integrated GPUs and possibly even mobile solutions like Gear VR. Altspace‘s demo was running in an optimised form, on Intel’s Integrated GPUs with seemingly no judder or hitches at all – a good indictment of the hardware.The Redwood City based software company has secured more than $5.2m in investment startup from venture capitalists to grow their 3D social platform, and is gearing up to allow access to a closed beta sometime soon.DK2 owners can sign up now for the closed beta to secure their spot as a tester for AltspaceVR.http://altvr.com/ No.197
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http://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-audio-sdk-coming-rift-dk2-gear-vr-cv1-launches-ces-2015/At CES 2015, Oculus brought their latest Rift Crescent Bay prototype to show off at the show. And while the unit remains identical to what we saw at the company’s ‘Connect’ developer conference in 2014, there’s new stuff hidden in the headphones, specifically the 3D positional audio that the company says is key to virtual reality immersion.Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe told Road to VR that the Oculus Audio SDK would be available to developers of the Rift DK2 and Samsung’s Gear VR prior to the launch of the consumer version of the Oculus Rift, commonly called the ‘CV1′.The Oculus Audio SDK will allow developers to tap into Oculus’ solution for 3D positional audio, which makes use of a ‘head related transfer function‘ that processes sounds to give them an accurate position in 3D space, taking into account factors like the shape of the human ear and the fact that, unless the listener is directly facing the origin of the sound, the sound waves will reach each ear at slightly different times. Essentially, the Oculus Audio SDK attempts to digitally recreate the cues that the brain uses to determine the origin of sounds in real life.Oculus announced during its ‘Connect’ developer conference in 2014 that, in addition to adding integrated headphones to their latest Rift ‘Crescent Bay’ prototype, the company had licensed 3D audio technology from Visisonics called RealSpace 3D. At the time, however, the tech was not implemented into virtual reality demos shown by Oculus. The Oculus team has taken a snapshot of the RealSense 3D implementation and has begun building it into the Oculus SDK, according to Iribe. Once the package becomes available, it will give developers of Oculus experiences an easy way to enrich their demos with 3D positional audio.Other implementations of 3D audio have been seen in various Oculus Rift demos, but having a single, consistent method for adding VR-optimized audio is likely to be a boon for developers.“Although HRTF technologies have been around for decades, the addition of precise head tracking makes it much more effective,” says Oculus.On Crescent Bay, Oculus has added what they’re calling ‘VR audio’ to their demo set that’s being used to show off the prototype, which was first seen at the Connect conference in 2014. The Showdown demo from Epic Games is still part of the demo set, but doesn’t yet include Oculus’ VR audio. On Gear VR, Oculus showed a small demo set which included some simple scenes from the company’s Herobound title, and an additional scene that put players on top of a mountain with a pterodactyl flying over head. No.198
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It's horrible and hilarious.
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http://www.roadtovr.com/ces-2015-sixense-shows-distortion-correction-stem-motion-controller/Sixense, creators of the tech behind the Razer Hydra, and the upcoming STEM motion controller, gave us a demo showing how STEM’s new distortion correction method can make a huge difference in environments with magnetic distortion.With the forthcoming STEM system, Sixense has made an upgrade that appears to cut through distortion like a hot knife through butter. Sixense’s Danny Woodall showed us the difference in tracking with and without distortion correction.From what I understand, thanks to the addition of an on-board IMU, the controller consistently knows the gravity vector (which direction is down). This gives it a reference point to compare against. When the magnetic tracking suggests that the unit is tilting up or down (in this case, due to magnetic distortion) the IMU functions as a double check. When the two agree, tilting gets the green light. When they disagree, the known downward direction from the IMU is used to as a reference to compensate.Regarding shipping, Sixense’s Danny Woodall says that “by the end of the month we should be shipping out all of the prototype units. And then right after that we’ll be starting to push out all the Kickstarter units to everyone else that’s pledged. I think probably early March hopefully most people will start having systems show up at their doorsteps.” No.201
http://vrfocus.com/archives/10457/gear-vr-premium-store-launch-first-us-spite-international-availability/The 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA has treated fans of the Gear VR smartphone-based virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD) to some promising updates on the near future. Earlier on in the week VRFocus reported on news that an international release of the kit is expected this month in English-speaking countries first. That still leaves the question of just when the device will launch its premium store, having released in the USA last month with free content only. According to Oculus VR, the ability for VR developers to charge for content will be arriving in the USA first, even if Gear VR is available in other countries.The company’s VP of Product Nate Mitchell confirmed as much to VRFocus at CES, noting that the commercialisation of Gear VR is ‘decoupled’ from its international release. This essentially means that the company isn’t waiting on the release of Gear VR in other territories to launch the premium store and will be moving ahead with the USA launch first in spite of which other countries will have the device at the time. It’s not clear just how quickly the premium store will follow in other areas although hopefully it won’t be too far behind.As it stands Gear VR owners are essentially getting by with a diet of videogame demos and short video-based experiences. Oculus VR is however updating the Oculus VR Store with new content every Tuesday and Darknet developer E McNeill has released the full version of his title onto the store for free until the option to charge finally arrives. Hopefully once the premium store launches the full versions of titles such as Protocol Zero, Viral and Oculus VR’s own Herobound: First Steps will pop up.Samsung a shit basically, fuck region locking.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/latest-oculus-rift-prototype-introduces-spatial-audio-2015-1Oculus showed off its newest Oculus Rift prototype at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and the virtual reality headset has an incredible new feature.It's called "spatial audio", and it makes the virtual environments sound like you're truly there.To test this new feature, I was ushered into a room padded with foam to allow for better acoustics.Spatial audio is incredible: it means if a bird flies overhead in a game, you can hear its chirp travel from behind you, to over your head, and finally to in front of you. If you turn around, the audio responds accordingly. This only adds to the realism.I got to try a version of the latest "Crescent Bay" Oculus Rift prototype that didn't feature spatial audio last month at Business Insider's Ignition conference. More than a month later, I got to try the same demos, but this time with spatial audio, and I can say it certainly makes a big difference.More in link.
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http://vrfocus.com/archives/10449/virtuix-shows-new-tracking-pods/At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week Virtuix is showcasing its Omni. The device is an omnidirectional treadmill which people can use to move in-game. For this you need Virtuix-made shoes. Now the company has unveiled small tracking pods that you clip to the shoes. These pods track your feet’s movements. Although this does not change the experience,the tracking of the players feet is supposed to improve the accuracy of the motion in-game. At CES people where able to try a demo while using the pods. The demo TraVR acts as a training experience so that people can see how acurate the pods make the Omni.The Omni made some other strides recently with its partnership with CloudNav. Its partner company helped create software solutions for problems facing the Omni and because of the company Virtuix had a working demo to showcase currently at CES. Also Virtuix announce that the Omni is due to ship this quarter before CES. We will provide a hands-on in the near future.I really don't see Treadmills ever becoming a good input for VR, the amount of movements you can do on them is too limiting.
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http://www.tested.com/tech/488085-9-takeaways-oculus-vr-ces-2015/Downplaying Screen ResolutionText Readability will be a ChallengeThe FOV Target is Around 110 DegreesOptics Remain Key: Pixel Smearing ConfirmedThe Ergonomics are CloseWireless HDMI isn't PracticalInput Input InputConsumer Version 2 May be Iterative ReleaseGo to link if you want to know why, it's too long to paste it here.