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Speaker 1: Didn't touch with technology with tech Stuff from how stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Obama. And today we're going

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Speaker 1: to take another look back on an older episode. You see,

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Speaker 1: we got a lot of news about the Oculus Rift

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Speaker 1: that's been piling up since March of two thousand fourteen,

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Speaker 1: and we did an episode called the Oculus Rift Story

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Speaker 1: as the story so far, so there's enough information to

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Speaker 1: kind of update that, but not so much that we

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Speaker 1: can do a whole new episode. Right that original episode

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Speaker 1: published on August. If you want to, well, you don't

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Speaker 1: need to go looking for it, because we're about to

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Speaker 1: play it. We're about to play it, however, just to

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Speaker 1: give you an idea in the timeline of where this occurred. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so since August two thirteen, a lot has happened. So

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Speaker 1: once we have played through that episode, stick around. We

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Speaker 1: have a lot to say about what's been going on

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Speaker 1: since then. So, without further ado, here's the original episode. Today,

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Speaker 1: we wanted to talk about something that, uh technology that

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Speaker 1: really made a big splash in late two thousand twelves

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Speaker 1: and really in two thousand thirteen, something that got a

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Speaker 1: lot of people excited. I guess you could say it

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Speaker 1: kicks started the virtual reality craze again in the US.

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Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. The Oculus Rift. So yes, and as

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Speaker 1: of June they announced that they had just raised sixteen

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Speaker 1: million in private funding. Sixteen million dollars, which isn't shabby

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Speaker 1: for a company run by a twenty year old guy. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's not focus on how young this guy is. Now,

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Speaker 1: that's amazing, that's that's this is a tinkerer, who is

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Speaker 1: who is of the people? And uh in eighteen years

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Speaker 1: younger than I am. Yeah, no, he really is. Though.

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Speaker 1: He's one of those guys who worked out of his garage,

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Speaker 1: messing with stuff that interested him and was able to

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Speaker 1: leverage that into something that is really taking at least

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Speaker 1: one section of the gaming world by storm. So we

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Speaker 1: were will be talking a lot about video games, but

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Speaker 1: in this case, it's a it's a peripheral for video games.

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Speaker 1: So all of you people out there who hate video

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Speaker 1: game topics, this is still cool. It's virtual reality. Now,

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Speaker 1: before we get into a discussion about Oculus Rift and particularly,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to mention just sort of a history of

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Speaker 1: virtual reality. Uh, kind of Jonathan's history of virtual reality.

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Speaker 1: So this isn't in our notes or anything. This is

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Speaker 1: from my own personal, completely unofficial. He is making it

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Speaker 1: up as he goes along. Dinosaurs will be involved, Okay,

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Speaker 1: well actually yes, well technically it's not a dinosaur. Pterodactyl

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Speaker 1: is not a dinosaur, but it's close. Um so virtual reality.

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Speaker 1: For those of you who were alive in the nineties

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Speaker 1: and remember this kind of stuff that it started to

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Speaker 1: really kind of get buzz in the early to mid nineties.

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Speaker 1: This was one of those terms that was promising to

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Speaker 1: turn computing on its head. It was changing the way

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Speaker 1: we thought about computers. It was gonna be immersive. You

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Speaker 1: were going to be surrounded by the computer data. You

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Speaker 1: would be part of this experience. It would no longer

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Speaker 1: be this separation that was created by a screen and

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Speaker 1: a keyboard and a mouse. And this was partially due

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Speaker 1: to science fiction. It was largely due to science fiction. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because because the actual technology at the time was not

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Speaker 1: not up to part none, none, up to the expectations

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Speaker 1: that were generated as a result of both science fiction. Also,

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Speaker 1: I mean, obviously Hollywood had a big deal with how

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Speaker 1: this was portrayed and and it was never really realistic

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Speaker 1: in the Hollywood version. Also, if you watch any of

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Speaker 1: those movies that had a lot of virtual reality elements

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Speaker 1: to them, they look awful by today's standards. When you

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Speaker 1: talk about the graphics quality, well, there were showcases of

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Speaker 1: that early computer generated right, but it was still even

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Speaker 1: though they look horrible by today's standards, they still looked

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Speaker 1: amazing compared to what was capable what we were capable

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Speaker 1: of doing with virtual reality at that time. Also, it

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Speaker 1: was really expensive because this was all a technology that

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Speaker 1: had to be built from the ground up, specifically for

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Speaker 1: the purpose of virtual reality. Now here's a hard, cold

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Speaker 1: fact about technology. If you're designing something that is brand new,

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Speaker 1: as in no one has built this kind of stuff before,

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Speaker 1: there's a huge amount of money that goes into that

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Speaker 1: to to build them development enormous amount of money, and

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Speaker 1: virtual reality did not you know, it generated a lot

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Speaker 1: of buzz, which was good in the early days, but

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Speaker 1: then the reaction to what was actually possible was such

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Speaker 1: that a lot of that interest and a lot of

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Speaker 1: the support drained away very very quickly. So you're left

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Speaker 1: with these people who were doing valuable work in the

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Speaker 1: field of virtual reality. But because there was this bubble

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Speaker 1: that burst early on in the development of the technology

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Speaker 1: itself and the industry, they were left with very little

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Speaker 1: to work with once that bubble went away. So also,

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Speaker 1: I feel like at the time, people we were focused

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Speaker 1: on the entertainment issues of it and weren't really thinking

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Speaker 1: forward to UMU, to the possible medical purposing and and

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Speaker 1: therapy purposing. At least anyone outside the actual industry was

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Speaker 1: not seeing those that. You know, there were people who

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Speaker 1: were working in the industry who's actually saw some really

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Speaker 1: cool applications, some of which we have actually seen happen

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Speaker 1: over the course of the several years that have in

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Speaker 1: between when virtual reality was a buzzword and today. But

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Speaker 1: people who were looking at it from the outside, the

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Speaker 1: general consumer, they were looking at it as video games

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Speaker 1: or sometimes you know, I think it got pigeonholed, is

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Speaker 1: all I'm saying. Yeah, there were there was a smaller,

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Speaker 1: smaller segment who were thinking virtual sex and uh, but

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Speaker 1: I mean those were like the those were like the

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Speaker 1: two applications. It was either you were playing a game

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Speaker 1: or you were having some sort of weird virtual romantic

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Speaker 1: internal Yeah. Yeah, that that's scene in Demolition Man happened. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was a thing. Yeah, yes, it was a thing.

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Speaker 1: Uh if you if you haven't seen that, I don't

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Speaker 1: necessarily recommend it for for a snipe Sander Bullock picture.

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Speaker 1: You know it's it's it's fun. It's a fun film.

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Speaker 1: I'm not anyway. So anyway, getting getting back into virtual

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Speaker 1: reality so to speak. Uh So, as time went on,

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Speaker 1: the virtual reality community began to really like the people

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Speaker 1: who are really working on trying to develop things like

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Speaker 1: sophisticated head tracking technology, sophisticated display technology, and input various

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Speaker 1: user interfaces. Uh. What they began to do was they

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Speaker 1: began to appropriate stuff from other industries, mostly the video

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Speaker 1: game industry, because video games were progressing and they were

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Speaker 1: starting to introduce new types of controllers. So, for example,

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Speaker 1: when the Nintendo WE launched and they had the WE

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Speaker 1: control with the multiple access gyroscopes in it that allowed

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Speaker 1: for very specific kinds of interaction with the console, the

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Speaker 1: video or the virtual environment. By now it's called virtual

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Speaker 1: environment's not virtual reality. Because virtual reality had sort of

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Speaker 1: a stigma attached to it. The virtual environment. People were thinking,

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Speaker 1: why don't we take that, like literally, We'll go out

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Speaker 1: and buy a Nintendo WE and take apart the controller

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Speaker 1: and use the technology in the controller to help develop

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Speaker 1: our stuff because it's less expensive than developing one on

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Speaker 1: our own or buying one of these very specific types

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Speaker 1: of parts that are only made for virtual reality. So

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Speaker 1: that kind of sets the scene for what happens with

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Speaker 1: the Oculus Rift. So let's go and first we'll just

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Speaker 1: talk about what the Oculus Rift is. It is a

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Speaker 1: headset that has two screens in the headset, one screen

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Speaker 1: for each eye. The two screens both render a very

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Speaker 1: similar image from a from a game. Yeah, on casual glance,

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Speaker 1: you would think that it's the same picture, but they're

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Speaker 1: from very very slightly different angles, just like your eyes

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Speaker 1: are to right right to to give the illusion of

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Speaker 1: depth when your brain puts the two inches together. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we'll talk more about what's actually going on there

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Speaker 1: a little bit later in the podcast. So it's this

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Speaker 1: headset and it has motion tracking. Uh so essentially your

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Speaker 1: head's motions are interpreted by by hardware in this headset

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Speaker 1: sent to a computer that is taking that as input

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Speaker 1: and then processing it within a game engine of some

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Speaker 1: sort and sending back the response so that the images

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Speaker 1: you see are based upon the movements you're making. Right.

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Speaker 1: I mean that's basic head tracking technology. But it was,

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Speaker 1: and it's this is this is what's interesting to me.

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Speaker 1: This is not new, Like I said this, this started

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Speaker 1: way back in the nine needs, but a lot of

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Speaker 1: the software side was very primitive, and so the pictures

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Speaker 1: you would get would be very very basic. Like when

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Speaker 1: I said that whole pterodactyl thing. One of the early

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Speaker 1: games was your this blocky figure moving around a blocky

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Speaker 1: landscape being chased by a blocky pterodactyl and you had

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Speaker 1: to just kind of run around and try and shoot

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Speaker 1: other people using a blocky gun that fired get ready

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Speaker 1: for it. Blocks. Uh, it was not it was not

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Speaker 1: that immersive. I mean, it was interesting that your head

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Speaker 1: could move, you know you it did track your motions,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't immersive in the sense that you felt

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Speaker 1: anything was realistic. And there was a latency issue. And

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about latency later. To latency is like the

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Speaker 1: death sentence for virtual reality systems. So, uh, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: a new idea, but this was a new way of

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Speaker 1: of approaching it, and it was all made possible by

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Speaker 1: other industries. It wasn't the fact that the virtual reality

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Speaker 1: industry had advanced to a huge degree. It was because

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Speaker 1: of things like smartphones and tablets. So let's talk about um,

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Speaker 1: kind of one of the most famous failures in virtual

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Speaker 1: reality first, because because this is one that uh the

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Speaker 1: founder of Oculus Palmer Lucky has mentioned before, which is

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Speaker 1: also from Nintendo. Yeah, the Virtual Boy. Back in nine.

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Speaker 1: This was one that the little headset would display red

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Speaker 1: vector graphics. I think maybe not the first, but one

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Speaker 1: of the first games to feature Warrio was on the

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Speaker 1: Virtual Boy. Uh, so he was able to survive Virtual Boy,

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Speaker 1: even if the product itself did not survive very long.

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Speaker 1: Time magazine gave it a review that was not positive.

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Speaker 1: They actually said that, uh, that it was migrain inducing

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Speaker 1: and uh and so there was a lot of bad

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Speaker 1: press about the Virtual Boy and it didn't sell terribly well.

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Speaker 1: It was one of the tech's biggest flops. I remember

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Speaker 1: it being a blip on on on my radar and

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Speaker 1: then almost immediately disappearing right up there with the Nintendo

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Speaker 1: Power Glove. Oh yeah, if you had the Power Glove

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Speaker 1: and a Virtual Boy, you are a huge Nintendo fan.

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Speaker 1: You look like a cyborg, but you're probably throwing up

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Speaker 1: a lot and you maybe had two games to play. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's also true, so Palmer Lucky. He looks back on

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Speaker 1: this history of virtual reality and he is absolutely fascinated

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Speaker 1: by it and wants to get involved in it. But

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Speaker 1: let's learn a little bit more about who he is. First,

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Speaker 1: Like you said, Lauren, he's twenty years old right as

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Speaker 1: of right this very moment. Um He's uh, he's he's

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Speaker 1: from Irvine, California. Um, he self identifies as a hacker

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Speaker 1: maker both both at the same time. Probably. Um. He

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Speaker 1: was homeschooled. His dad's a car salesman, I believe. Okay,

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Speaker 1: he went to as you know, he for school for

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Speaker 1: for college. He was actually studying journalism. He in fact

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Speaker 1: said that one of the things he wanted to do.

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Speaker 1: He was always interested in taking things apart and learning

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Speaker 1: how they worked and then trying to put them back together.

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Speaker 1: And you know, he had kind of typical smart kids

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Speaker 1: success rate at things still working when they were put

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Speaker 1: back together after he had taken him apart. But he um,

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Speaker 1: he said that he wanted to go to journalism school

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Speaker 1: to learn to become a writer so that he could

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Speaker 1: tell people he could write articles, like really good articles

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Speaker 1: to explain how stuff works. He wanted my job, Palmer

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Speaker 1: Lucky wanted my job. Well, I'm really glad that he

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Speaker 1: took his own job instead of ours. Yeah, because we'd

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Speaker 1: be all of a job and neither of us would

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Speaker 1: have invented the oculus rift fact. Yeah, because he his

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Speaker 1: plan b ended up ended up being a lot more successful.

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Speaker 1: Being pretty okay, Um, but yeah, he was. He was.

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Speaker 1: He was into some some interesting pursuits as a child. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: originally it was all about blowing stuff up, shocking stuff

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Speaker 1: or setting it on fire, like like like Tesla coil guns.

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Speaker 1: I read about some way coil guns. He built coil

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Speaker 1: guns as a kid. He actually said at one in

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Speaker 1: one interviews, it's a miracle I am still alive because

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Speaker 1: he was building stuff like anything that would involve destruction

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Speaker 1: through electronics was really fascinating to him. Typical kids can't

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Speaker 1: can't blame him, you know, like probably like some little

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Speaker 1: I don't want to be an armchair psychologist. But in

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Speaker 1: general I notice that kids and I do not I

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Speaker 1: don't separate myself from here, have occasionally power fantasies because

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Speaker 1: so much of their life is Hell's determined by other

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Speaker 1: people exactly, So this is sort of a self determination,

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Speaker 1: self empowerment kind of things. Some of us focus on

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Speaker 1: dinosaurs because dinosaurs are bigger than our parents and therefore

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Speaker 1: are more powerful. Some of us focus on tesla coil

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Speaker 1: guns that can melt our parents faces off if we

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Speaker 1: ever had that desire, which, by the way, he did not.

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Speaker 1: Let's be clear, he was not. He was not planning

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Speaker 1: on on zapping people. He just wanted to build stuff anyway,

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Speaker 1: well as far as we know, but he did. He

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Speaker 1: did wind up doing something constructive as well. He uh,

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Speaker 1: he started up an iPhone repair business, didn't he. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he sure did. As a teenager, he began to eat

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Speaker 1: when the iPhone came out, he was fascinated with that. Immediately,

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Speaker 1: he took one apart and learned really what made it work.

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Speaker 1: And so he because of his his practical knowledge of

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Speaker 1: electronics that was, you know, largely self taught, he ended

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Speaker 1: up having a successful iPhone repair business. He also would

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Speaker 1: jail break people's iPhones, so if they wanted to have

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Speaker 1: an iPhone that could run other types of stuff on

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Speaker 1: it that rather than just what Apple would allow you

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Speaker 1: to run a boot with whatever. Yeah, he would actually

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Speaker 1: do that for a fee, and apparently it was pretty successful.

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Speaker 1: So so successful that he might have made around thirty

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Speaker 1: six thousand dollars in a single year, which you know,

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Speaker 1: as a teenager is a pretty good many humans. It's

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Speaker 1: a pretty good salary for for for something like this

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Speaker 1: is this is his version of a lemonade stand. That's

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Speaker 1: a pretty successful lemonade stand. Yes, as of two thousand nine,

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Speaker 1: when he was sixteen, I believe that was when he

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Speaker 1: began looking into purchasing virtual reality equipment. That's when he

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Speaker 1: kind of had had had been online and had seen

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Speaker 1: some stuff and was getting interested in the subject, right

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Speaker 1: and and that was also he's done interviews where he's

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Speaker 1: talked about how the industry changed dramatically, Like back in

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Speaker 1: the early days. Besides things like Nintendo's Virtual Boy, which

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Speaker 1: were really the exception, those were the few. There were

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Speaker 1: only a few things that were ever consumer based technologies

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Speaker 1: that the average person was would be expected to purchase

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Speaker 1: right right, even today a few years later, the very

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Speaker 1: low end virtual reality equipment runs around a thousand bucks

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Speaker 1: of pop I think um and and a lot of

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Speaker 1: it um. A lot of the more professional gear was

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Speaker 1: running up near a hundred thousand bucks. In fact, one

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Speaker 1: of the things he found he found a piece of

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Speaker 1: virtual reality equipment that was pretty rare at the time

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Speaker 1: it was first produced cost ninety seven thousand dollars. He

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Speaker 1: bought it for eighty seven bucks because, again, the VR

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Speaker 1: industry just kind of out. Yeah, so he was really

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Speaker 1: interested to seeing, you know, in seeing how these things worked,

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Speaker 1: how did they track head head motion, how did they

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Speaker 1: feed video in? And a lot of these early early

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Speaker 1: VR equipment pieces are enormous, right, They require things like

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Speaker 1: some kind of rig exactly, they require a rig so

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Speaker 1: that their support because if you were to just wear

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Speaker 1: it yourself, it would be so heavy as to be uncomfortable.

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Speaker 1: Some of them would be too heavy for you to

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Speaker 1: even effectively move your head. So a lot of them

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Speaker 1: would have these rigs that would allow you to have

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Speaker 1: suspension from from like uh uh, not the ceiling, but

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Speaker 1: it would the rig itself would extend beyond where you

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Speaker 1: would stand, and there'd be chords that would help support

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Speaker 1: the weight of the helmet, so you wouldn't have full

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Speaker 1: three sixty degree motion either. If you were to try

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Speaker 1: and turn all the way around, eventually those those cords

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Speaker 1: are start to wrap up, yeah, and you'd have to

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Speaker 1: turn back the other way. So he was interested in

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Speaker 1: purchasing as many of these as possible to learn what

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Speaker 1: made him tick. Yeah, he he was thinking about creating

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Speaker 1: more immersive game interfaces and uh and and experiences and

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Speaker 1: but but none of this stuff was really what he

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Speaker 1: was looking for. He was he was kind of hoping

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Speaker 1: to to salvage something together for himself, honestly, and um,

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Speaker 1: and none of it was working, right, So, but he

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Speaker 1: learned a lot during this period, Yeah, and um. And

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Speaker 1: as of twenty eleven, he was working at the University

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Speaker 1: of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies, which I believe

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Speaker 1: is in military associated facility from a lot of the

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Speaker 1: stuff they did was for the military Specifically, he was

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Speaker 1: working in the Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Program UM, sometimes

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Speaker 1: called virtual IRAQ, which helps veterans who have PTSD use

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Speaker 1: VR therapy to to get over their post traumatic stress disorder. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In fact, this is one of the most fascinating uses

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Speaker 1: for virtual reality. And I've I've actually talked to there

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Speaker 1: was Um, there are people over at Emery, and there

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Speaker 1: are people over at Duke who run labs that use

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Speaker 1: this kind of approach, and I've talked about it for

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Speaker 1: use with PTSD have also talked about it for use

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Speaker 1: with things like phobias, and the idea is it's this

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Speaker 1: immersion therapy where you immerse a person into certain situations

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Speaker 1: that might trigger anxiety or stress, but they are they

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Speaker 1: know that they are in a safe environment. They know

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Speaker 1: ultimately deep down that they are perfectly safe, that they

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Speaker 1: are not really in that. But it's immersive enough for

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Speaker 1: people who have a severe fear of flying. I've heard

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Speaker 1: that it's extremely successful, something something along the lines of

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Speaker 1: you could do a virtual visit to an airport. And

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Speaker 1: the interesting thing here is that the scientists have discovered

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Speaker 1: that the graphics do not have to be photo realistic

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Speaker 1: at all. They don't have to be you know, to

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Speaker 1: the point where you would look at something and think

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Speaker 1: that's identifiable as Dullest International Airport, for example. You look

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Speaker 1: at and just say, there's a building and there's the

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Speaker 1: representation of a plane next to it, that's the airport.

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Speaker 1: And once you get into the immersive environment, which usually

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Speaker 1: takes around half a minute to a minute long for

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Speaker 1: you to really get acclimated, assuming that everything is working

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Speaker 1: properly on the technical end, then you start to have

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Speaker 1: the actual physical reactions you would if you were in

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Speaker 1: the real situation. So, for example, one about a fear

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Speaker 1: of heights. I remember specifically reading about this, actually talking

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Speaker 1: about this to some of the people at Duke and

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Speaker 1: Emory Um. You might have a simulation where you're on

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Speaker 1: the top of a tall building. The building does not

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Speaker 1: necessarily look like a real building. I mean, it might

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Speaker 1: look like almost a cartoonish example, but the person would

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Speaker 1: start to have that same physiological response as if they

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Speaker 1: were in the real situation. And it was part of

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Speaker 1: this this uh, this therapy to expose oneself to these

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Speaker 1: situations in a safe environment to get acclimated. It's the

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Speaker 1: psychological principle of facing your fears. Essentially. There's there's a

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Speaker 1: lot more technical terminology I won't go and there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of a lot of other elements to this therapy.

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Speaker 1: Obviously that you don't want it to just be cruel

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Speaker 1: and be like, hey, I heard you're scared of spiders.

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Speaker 1: Here's a big harry spider. That's not that's not therapy.

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Speaker 1: That's cruelty. It's it's extremely guided therapy and and there

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00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:16,720
Speaker 1: are many parts of it and uh, but but but

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Speaker 1: it's excellent, really interesting work. Yeah, and so Lucky was

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Speaker 1: working on this. He was, this was part of the

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Speaker 1: stuff that that he was involved in. And he he

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Speaker 1: will be the first to tell you, by the way,

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Speaker 1: he's a hardware guy, he's not a software guy. And

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Speaker 1: in fact, there's some great interviews that he's done with

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Speaker 1: other members of the software community, of the video game

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Speaker 1: community where he says the success of the Oculus Rift,

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Speaker 1: the early success that has had before, it's not even

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Speaker 1: a consumer product yet as of the recording of this podcast.

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Speaker 1: It's there's developer kits that are out and that's about it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you cannot you cannot as a consumer by this and

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Speaker 1: expect to use it. With a ton of games there

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Speaker 1: right now, there are two games that are really I

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Speaker 1: think I think three as as of this podcast. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so the third one has has recently joined in the

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Speaker 1: past week. But it's not like you can't plug it

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Speaker 1: into your console either. This is PC only right now,

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Speaker 1: with the hope that maybe one day it'll it'll be

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Speaker 1: available for multiple platforms any rate. He he actually says, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, point blank. He says, the success of this

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Speaker 1: would not exist without the software side. But that's not

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Speaker 1: my world. I can't program I can build this hardware.

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Speaker 1: So uh he he really was using that expertise while

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Speaker 1: working over at the Southern California's Institute for Creative Technology, right,

385
00:21:39,760 --> 00:21:41,960
Speaker 1: and he threw I think that he was a member

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Speaker 1: of a couple of forums, the names of which I

387
00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:46,080
Speaker 1: am completely forgetting. So somebody right in and tell me

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Speaker 1: correct my complete lack of a word to give you,

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Speaker 1: Mr Lucky. First of all, I object to have to

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Speaker 1: call you Mr. You're eighteen years younger than I am.

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Speaker 1: But if you're listening, just to just right in and

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Speaker 1: tell us what they were. Um. And he developed this

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00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:04,480
Speaker 1: plan um too. You know, he really wanted to to

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Speaker 1: build a kind of kind of a personal hobbyist kit

395
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:13,160
Speaker 1: of VR headsets and do it yourself. Yeah. Yeah, So

396
00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:17,240
Speaker 1: so he planned a Kickstarter to just create a hundred

397
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:20,840
Speaker 1: enthusiast kits. Um you know that that you know, contributors

398
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Speaker 1: would would get the pieces of a virtual reality headset

399
00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:26,080
Speaker 1: and put it together themselves and be able to play

400
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Speaker 1: around with it. And um. But but this got the

401
00:22:28,960 --> 00:22:31,760
Speaker 1: attention of John Carmack. Yeah. And if you don't know

402
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:33,760
Speaker 1: that name, then you haven't been playing a lot of

403
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:37,200
Speaker 1: ID Softwares games. Yes, he's the co founder of ID Software.

404
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:39,920
Speaker 1: He was the lead programmer on like Wolfenstein three D

405
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Speaker 1: and games Okay it was a series and was just

406
00:22:46,119 --> 00:22:48,639
Speaker 1: the first one. Wasn't a very good quake player. So like,

407
00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:52,240
Speaker 1: once multiplayer got into introduced and I realized that, hey,

408
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:57,320
Speaker 1: people react very differently than computer controlled bad guys, my

409
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:02,760
Speaker 1: my kill death ratio was out the window. Oh I'm not.

410
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Speaker 1: What I'm saying is I'm not good at these games,

411
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Speaker 1: and what and what and furthermore, that you don't like

412
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:09,000
Speaker 1: games that you can't be better than other people at.

413
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:12,520
Speaker 1: Oh I hate that. That's just in general. By the way,

414
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Speaker 1: if you ever have the opportunity to play a game

415
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:17,840
Speaker 1: with me, just turn it down. Just and I'm including

416
00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:21,800
Speaker 1: like board games, card games, maybe a role playing game

417
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:24,719
Speaker 1: that did I mean, if you're playing clue, do you

418
00:23:24,760 --> 00:23:26,920
Speaker 1: just flip the table at some point? Actually I'm very

419
00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:30,320
Speaker 1: good at Clue. I am really good at Clue. But

420
00:23:30,359 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 1: so he got the attention of John Krmack, um and

421
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:35,680
Speaker 1: uh and and and and Karmack was kind of like, hey,

422
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:37,639
Speaker 1: so this is pretty cool. Can I buy one of

423
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:40,040
Speaker 1: these kids from you? And and Lucky was like, I

424
00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:43,959
Speaker 1: can give you one of those, no problem. Um so

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00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:46,920
Speaker 1: so Lucky said him a prototype, and Karmac just ran

426
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Speaker 1: with it. He demoed it um with a Doom three

427
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:54,199
Speaker 1: b f g at E three right, and that that

428
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:59,480
Speaker 1: made everybody think, Wow, I have never experienced doom like this.

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Speaker 1: This is a really immersive first person shooter experience. The

430
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:09,280
Speaker 1: VR is working. Uh, it is exciting. Where can I

431
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:11,760
Speaker 1: get one of these? Right? It exploded and I mean

432
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:15,320
Speaker 1: everyone was excited about it. Yeah. So uh, you know,

433
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 1: getting back to this idea of the developer kit one units,

434
00:24:19,359 --> 00:24:23,119
Speaker 1: what that reminds me of is Wozniak in jobs, because

435
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:27,080
Speaker 1: the very first Apple computer was essentially the same sort

436
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: of thing, like we'll send you the parts, you build

437
00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:32,639
Speaker 1: a case, and you've got yourself a computer. That was

438
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,840
Speaker 1: the Apple one. So that's exactly what Palm are Lucky was.

439
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:37,919
Speaker 1: He that was kind of like that was He was like,

440
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:40,239
Speaker 1: this is gonna be like a little side hobby for me.

441
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,119
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this. And at this point where

442
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:45,680
Speaker 1: the press gets a chance to see it and Karmack

443
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:50,159
Speaker 1: he sees the potential for this well beyond a hobbyist

444
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:54,240
Speaker 1: you know, tiny tiny project. He sees this has potential

445
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 1: to be a legitimate video game peripheral and this was

446
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:00,760
Speaker 1: a goofy prototype. I mean there, you know it's I'm

447
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:03,160
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that he was like duct taping straps

448
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 1: to it so that people could demo it at E three.

449
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 1: So right, this was a little jankie. I like to say, yes,

450
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:12,000
Speaker 1: that is the technical professional term. So what was Lucky's

451
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:16,360
Speaker 1: reaction to this sudden increase and interest and the possibility

452
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 1: of actually having a feasible company as a result. Um,

453
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: basically he dropped out of the journalism program at Cali

454
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:27,919
Speaker 1: State University. Not a surprise. That's following in the footsteps

455
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 1: of so many giants in the technology industry. By the way,

456
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 1: staying school kids, not all of us can be Palmer Lucky,

457
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:37,119
Speaker 1: right right. If you are Palmer Lucky, go ahead. But

458
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:40,119
Speaker 1: I mean, if you have a genuinely terrific idea that

459
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 1: has gotten someone of the ilk of John Carmack interested

460
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 1: in you, that by all means with life's responsibilities like

461
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 1: I am. But but so from from this response at

462
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 1: E three, um, you know a lot of people in

463
00:25:55,840 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 1: the industry started getting into it, and um, and as

464
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 1: soon as they did, he started Lucky started taking prototypes

465
00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: to other folks like like the people at Valve. Yeah,

466
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 1: Gabe Newell example, and uh and and got people like

467
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: Gabe Newell to participate in this new Kickstarter project that

468
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 1: he was putting together for what we know as the

469
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:21,400
Speaker 1: Oculus Rift today. Yeah, so this is really the founding

470
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:24,679
Speaker 1: of Oculus as a company. So Oculus is the company

471
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 1: that is creating the Oculus Rift. And in fact, you

472
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:29,159
Speaker 1: can think of the Oculus Rift as being their first

473
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:33,119
Speaker 1: product and um and so now the plan had changed.

474
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:35,119
Speaker 1: It was no longer going to be let's offer up

475
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:39,879
Speaker 1: one hundred dev kits that this one guy is personally

476
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:42,879
Speaker 1: putting all the pieces together, putting them in a box

477
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: and shipping them off to the hundred or so people

478
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 1: that have backed it. Now it's let's put together a

479
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 1: plan to create a more um slightly not a consumer

480
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:56,639
Speaker 1: level product, because it's still like if you take a

481
00:26:56,640 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 1: look at one of the Oculus Rifts headsets, it does

482
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 1: not look like like a finished product. Yeah it doesn't.

483
00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: It's not sleek and sexy. It's exciting to use, but

484
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:06,679
Speaker 1: when you look at your like, wow, it looks like

485
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 1: a black box that you strapped to your face. It

486
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:11,400
Speaker 1: is because it is, Yeah, that's what it is it's

487
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 1: not it's not something that you would think, oh, this

488
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 1: is something that you could easily market beyond this niche audience. Right.

489
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:22,479
Speaker 1: The Kickstart fund was for development kits, right. So the

490
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: goal of that Kickstart fund was about two was exactly

491
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: two D fifty thousand dollars, two hundred fifty dollars. So, Lauren,

492
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 1: tell me did they make it? They made it times ten,

493
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 1: approximately twenty four hours they had already made the god

494
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 1: and then went went on to raise precisely two million,

495
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:46,399
Speaker 1: four D seven thousand, four hundred dollars. Yeah, it was

496
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: a lot of money they brought in and that yeah,

497
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: so's it makes it one of kickstars big success stories,

498
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 1: right right up there with some of the I mean

499
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 1: clearly not on the level of say the pebble, but

500
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 1: it's it's way up there. It's it's on the it's

501
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: on the Holy Cow, look at what's possible into the

502
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:06,760
Speaker 1: spectrum as opposed to the ah. So that's what really

503
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:10,680
Speaker 1: happens when you yes, yeah, they they wind up having

504
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 1: UM nine thousand two backers, over seven thousand of those

505
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: where development kit purchases. Right, So it was only at

506
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: certain levels or above that you would actually get a

507
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 1: developer receive a k R. Yeah, the first one hundred

508
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:27,360
Speaker 1: people to pledge at the two level to understan five

509
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: dollar level would receive a developer kit at at a

510
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:34,959
Speaker 1: discount because the developer kits in general go at three pop. Right,

511
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 1: that's how much they are currently selling for on on

512
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 1: their side. If you go to oculacy, you can, by

513
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 1: the way, if you want to, you can buy one

514
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 1: of these anyone, but you don't have to have some

515
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: kind of paperwork. You don't need to know that the

516
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: password is sword fish. You know, you don't need to

517
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 1: know what do you still recommend receiving a Rabies shot? Yeah, yeah,

518
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: I'm kidding. No, No, Rabies is associated with oculus raft

519
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: that I'm personally where so far when we get that

520
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 1: to the eight Days Later video game, you know they'll

521
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: be rage. But at any rate, Yeah, get some stuff

522
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know in here, uh plug Yeah,

523
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: the three So you can actually buy one of these yourself.

524
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:15,960
Speaker 1: But if you do that, you do that knowing that

525
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 1: your your actual use of it's going to be pretty

526
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 1: limited if you're not a developer. If you are a

527
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: developer and you want to practice, you know, try and

528
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: create stuff that works with the Oculus Rift. Clearly, that's

529
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: an investment that would make sense for you if you're

530
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:33,959
Speaker 1: an average gamer, unless you are intending to play one

531
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: of the three titles that is currently compatible with the

532
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 1: Oculus Rift, it doesn't make sense because it's not, like

533
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 1: we said, it's not at consumer product level yet. This

534
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: is this is on the way to becoming a consumer product. Yeah,

535
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: so after after one d people could back at the

536
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 1: two level, that was it. It was sort of an

537
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 1: early bird special and if you weren't part of that,

538
00:29:57,360 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: then you had to go at three hundred dollars or

539
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:02,720
Speaker 1: higher to get at least one headset. At the higher

540
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 1: levels you could actually get more than one headset at

541
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 1: a discount. So the solution here to to creating a

542
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:13,959
Speaker 1: viable product is the partnership with developers, the partnership with

543
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 1: game companies, because this is kind of like a specialized

544
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: video display that only works with stuff that's been built

545
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,200
Speaker 1: to work with it. So it's not again, it's not

546
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 1: like you can just plug it in and run any

547
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: kind of software and then you are in the middle

548
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: of it. It has to be optimized for it. And

549
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about why when we get into how

550
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:37,760
Speaker 1: it's actually working. But always important to remind people because

551
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:39,440
Speaker 1: it is an exciting thing. But I don't want everyone

552
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: running out and dropping three dollars and then being disappointed

553
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 1: that they can't play you know, Super Mario and be

554
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 1: running through and knocking the blocks. Although that would be awesome,

555
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 1: That would be awesome. Uh So moving on, Uh, the

556
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 1: Kickstarter campaign was a success. We could say that, I

557
00:30:57,240 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: think that's safe to say, it's safe to call it that,

558
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 1: and he Lucky would continue to show this off at

559
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:08,320
Speaker 1: various conferences and conventions. I first heard about this when

560
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: they showed it off at C E S. I might

561
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: have heard about it once or twice beforehand, but I

562
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,720
Speaker 1: I knew that it was present at the showroom floor

563
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 1: at C Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to play

564
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 1: with it. Then. I didn't get a chance to play

565
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 1: with it until three played the heck out of it. Right.

566
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 1: Yeah that that that kick started campaign had run from

567
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 1: August to September. So yeah, so so moving up to

568
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: when um, they were they were just going like, we

569
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 1: have all the money, and we have all the support

570
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 1: and and let us let us and then they got

571
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 1: then they ended up getting that the additional private support,

572
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 1: as well as more orders that came in after the

573
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: Kickstarter was complete. Um atteen they beat out both the

574
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 1: PS four and the Xbox One for the Best Hardware

575
00:31:56,720 --> 00:32:00,480
Speaker 1: Peripheral Game Critics Award. Not surprising, it's it's got a

576
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: lot of potential, and beyond just the virtual reality realm,

577
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who are interested in

578
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: in appropriating some of the same sort of technologies that

579
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 1: Lucky used to create augmented reality headsets. So this would

580
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 1: be more like the what we hear about the potential

581
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 1: for Google Glass or other various glasses that are supposed

582
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 1: to incorporate augmented reality. At some point they're talking about

583
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 1: using something along the same lines as the technology used

584
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 1: for the Oculus Rift. Not clearly the way the Oculus

585
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 1: Rift is created with these these screens, the solid screens

586
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 1: in front of your face, that's not ideal for augmented

587
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: reality glasses. If you're gonna be moving around in the

588
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:44,440
Speaker 1: real world, because you're not gonna see you're gonna see

589
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 1: a video representation of the real world directly in front

590
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:51,040
Speaker 1: of you. I think most people would imagine that the

591
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: augmented reality version would include clear display that you could

592
00:32:55,880 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 1: see stuff printed on I could I could see a

593
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 1: very similar set of technologies going towards that kind of display. Um.

594
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 1: But but but we'll get into the factual technic stuff.

595
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:10,480
Speaker 1: And just so some other interesting developments happened that one

596
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: of them absolutely tragic. That happened just before E three

597
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 1: June one. Yeah, that's when Andrew Rice, who was one

598
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 1: of the graphics engineers, one of the original team members

599
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 1: at Oculus, was involved in a car accident. He was

600
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 1: it was actually the car was fleeing a police chase

601
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:35,000
Speaker 1: when it collided with him, and uh and he passed

602
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 1: away as a result of that accident. And I mean

603
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 1: that was obviously this was a very tight small development team,

604
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 1: right It's it's still, um I believe under thirty people. Yeah,

605
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 1: that's that's that's tiny. Or when you're talking about something

606
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: that has it's raising sixteen million dollars and has this

607
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 1: kind of reach, right exactly. So that obviously that was

608
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:59,840
Speaker 1: felt deeply within their their own company and across the community.

609
00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 1: And this was the other thing about Oculus, was that,

610
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:06,280
Speaker 1: uh and and something they continued to do. They update regularly,

611
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:09,799
Speaker 1: They blog about the development process, they blog about the

612
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 1: people involved, So there were backers who felt, you know,

613
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:16,800
Speaker 1: personal connection, So that was that was a very tragic

614
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:21,919
Speaker 1: moment um. They also on August seven, so not too

615
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:24,799
Speaker 1: long before we record this podcast. We're recording this in

616
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 1: on August fifteen. Um. And uh, but on August seven,

617
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: John Carmack stopped becoming just an evangelist for the company

618
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:36,239
Speaker 1: and started to work for the company as the chief

619
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 1: technology officer in fact, yep ct O. And uh he

620
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 1: also is uh still continuing his work with other companies

621
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:46,840
Speaker 1: as well. It's not like he's quit everything just to

622
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 1: work exclusively for Oculus, but now he is on the

623
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:53,880
Speaker 1: company payroll. And yeah, as of July, they had seventeen

624
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 1: thousand developer kits out, so they were actually delivering upon

625
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:01,480
Speaker 1: the backing. That's thing else I should point out. Because

626
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:06,040
Speaker 1: their Kickstarter Kickster has a little bit of a I

627
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: don't know if if you could say that Kickster has

628
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:12,319
Speaker 1: a tarnished reputation, but certain the idea of having a

629
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: Kickstarter campaign has a little bit of a tarnished reputation

630
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 1: only because there have been cases, particularly when it comes

631
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:22,919
Speaker 1: to something like promising a particular type of technology, where

632
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: the delivery has either been delayed or even canceled, and

633
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: it has caused, uh, people to kind of have a

634
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: negative reaction to Kickstarter in general. So this is actually

635
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:36,800
Speaker 1: a positive story in the sense that here's a company

636
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:40,400
Speaker 1: that held the Kickstarter campaign unless than a year later

637
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 1: according to their website, like yesterday. If if you buy

638
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:49,240
Speaker 1: a dev kit right now, it'll be shipping sometime in September.

639
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 1: That's a pretty quick turnaround considering that this is still

640
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: I'm sure this is still one of those things that

641
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 1: doesn't have a truly seamless manufacturing process yet because it's

642
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:01,879
Speaker 1: still in the developers um and and they are set

643
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 1: to open a Dallas office very soon. Ye possibly right now.

644
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,839
Speaker 1: Go check you're in Dallas. Let's know if it's open yet. Yes.

645
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:14,800
Speaker 1: So now let's talk about how this crazy thing works.

646
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:17,800
Speaker 1: We mentioned a little bit about it already. Yeah. The

647
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:21,279
Speaker 1: way that you see in three D vision with your

648
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 1: eyeballs is that is that you know they're they're slightly offset.

649
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 1: They are not in the exact same place on your face.

650
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 1: Because we can't be a cyclops. You could be if

651
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:35,359
Speaker 1: you really tried, yeah, or film the misfortune befel you. Yes, Uh,

652
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: this this does happen to to to some people. There

653
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: there are many medical conditions in which you only have

654
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:42,919
Speaker 1: the use of one eye, and and that is where

655
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: you do not get stereoscopic stereo. You know, in can

656
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:49,920
Speaker 1: duel yes, um and uh and yes so so so

657
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 1: combining two images that are very slightly offset, your brain goes,

658
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:55,799
Speaker 1: I can, I can see this in three dimensions. Right,

659
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:58,760
Speaker 1: So instead of us both getting two sets of images,

660
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:01,560
Speaker 1: that remain two sets of images in our brains, which

661
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: would be kind of an interesting experience, I'm sure, but

662
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: also maybe disorienting. Uh. This this two sets of data

663
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 1: get combined into one set, and that's what we think

664
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:14,479
Speaker 1: of as the world around us as far as vision

665
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:17,879
Speaker 1: is concerned. So this helps us judge things like how

666
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 1: close or far away an object is. There are other

667
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:24,640
Speaker 1: things that helped to like like just just comparing the

668
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:28,800
Speaker 1: size of something, Like I know that that Josh Clark

669
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 1: is taller than Lauren. So if I look and I

670
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 1: see that Lauren appears to be taller than Josh, I

671
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 1: know that Josh is approximately a mile away and Lauren's

672
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:40,279
Speaker 1: probably in front of me. Uh, that's just la that's

673
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:42,880
Speaker 1: a science fact. Actually, you make old jokes. I make

674
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 1: short jokes, uh um and and and this is also

675
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 1: how how a lot of special effects end up working

676
00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:53,320
Speaker 1: by by tricking your brain into into thinking of the

677
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:56,480
Speaker 1: force perspective perspective. So Lord of the Rings in the Hobbit,

678
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:58,960
Speaker 1: obviously those are ones that you would think about where

679
00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 1: where because because the video itself is being shown to

680
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 1: you on a two dimensional well until we get to

681
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 1: the three D movies, and on a two dimensional surface,

682
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 1: you can trick people by having this forced perspective thing.

683
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 1: But in in an actual world situation, because you've got

684
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:20,239
Speaker 1: these converging lines of sight on objects, you can use

685
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:23,560
Speaker 1: what is called parallax. That's the idea of these two

686
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 1: lines that eventually do converge onto something that give you

687
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:29,759
Speaker 1: an idea. Yeah, and and that's your focal point that

688
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: gives you an idea of how how close or far

689
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: away something is. The further away an object gets, the

690
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 1: more parallel these two lines become, so that it becomes

691
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 1: less of a useful um tool for things that are

692
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 1: really far away. So if you're talking about two buildings

693
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 1: that are way off in the distance, you might not

694
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:49,479
Speaker 1: be able to tell which one is larger just based

695
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:52,480
Speaker 1: on that alone. Without you know, previous knowledge of building

696
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 1: A is twice the size of building B. But if

697
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 1: it's closer to you, parallax comes into play. So that's

698
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 1: the idea, right. Each screen gives a slightly different view

699
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: of whatever it is you're looking at in the realm

700
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:07,560
Speaker 1: of the virtual environment, which in this case are games

701
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:10,960
Speaker 1: and uh and that way, it gives you the illusion

702
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 1: that it's that you are right there and that the

703
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 1: world you are in actually has depth. Now, there's no

704
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:21,879
Speaker 1: eye tracking software here, but there is head tracking hardware, right,

705
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:24,520
Speaker 1: So it's not it's not keeping track of where your

706
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:27,320
Speaker 1: eye motions are so you can look around. It's not

707
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 1: like if you're wearing just goggles. The goggles themselves aren't

708
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:32,800
Speaker 1: tracking your eyes, but they will move as you know,

709
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: if you as you move the direction of your face,

710
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:37,920
Speaker 1: same sort of thing. So it's using sensors to detect

711
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 1: that kind of motion, whether it's pitch, roll yaw, tilt,

712
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. It's detecting all of that

713
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 1: as as input for changing the way the display appears

714
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 1: in front of you. This display being an LCD screen

715
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 1: in a plastic mask, it's it's about an inch away

716
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:57,840
Speaker 1: from the user's eyes. And um and right that that

717
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: that screen is is divided by a small berry. It's

718
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: a pretty big screen. I think it's like a like

719
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 1: a hundred and ten degrees diagonally. We'll get into that

720
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 1: in a second. But it uses a few other tricks

721
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 1: to create realism as well, Like it warps slightly the

722
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 1: edges of the images and corrects that in the goggles

723
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 1: a little bit. So, uh, you know, the digital rendering

724
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 1: I'm saying is is warped a little bit at the edges,

725
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:21,920
Speaker 1: and then the goggles correct for it, which is basically

726
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 1: how how your eyeballs work because they're curved, right. The

727
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:26,880
Speaker 1: idea here being that you don't want it to just

728
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: look like you are, yeah, that you're looking at a

729
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:32,760
Speaker 1: flat world that has depth behind it, but there's nothing

730
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 1: around you. It also packs the pixels more tightly directly

731
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:40,520
Speaker 1: in front of your eyeball than around the edges, which, again,

732
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:43,760
Speaker 1: because our eyeballs are curved, um, it gives a human

733
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 1: like round nous to an image. It also helps you know,

734
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:50,399
Speaker 1: it keeps keeps you motivated to focus directly straight ahead

735
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 1: with your eyes as opposed to keeping your head still

736
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 1: and moving your eyes around because it's it's kind of

737
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:59,880
Speaker 1: mimicking that sense of when I look ahead that whatever

738
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 1: clear whenever I'm looking at his folk is in focus,

739
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 1: and then everything else is kind of in peripheral vision,

740
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 1: petering out a little bit. Sure, Um, there there are

741
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:10,239
Speaker 1: a few limitations that are currently being addressed. There's a

742
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:14,320
Speaker 1: certain screen door effect which in which right now users

743
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:17,360
Speaker 1: have been finding that they can see through the pixels

744
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:20,399
Speaker 1: of the LCD screen because they're not there's not enough

745
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 1: of them. They need more needs higher resolution, yes, um

746
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:27,560
Speaker 1: and uh and I think that they're trying to add

747
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 1: gays tracking, which would be really interesting. That would allow

748
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:35,279
Speaker 1: you to actually uh dynamically change these elements we talked

749
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 1: about where you've got those pixels that are uh in

750
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:41,479
Speaker 1: the that are concentrated right in front of the eyes.

751
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:44,440
Speaker 1: If you could be able to move that dynamically so

752
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:47,919
Speaker 1: that the you would have this effect where if I'm

753
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 1: I'm walking and I'm not turning my head, but I

754
00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:52,680
Speaker 1: dart my eyes to the left and it is able

755
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:55,560
Speaker 1: to move in real time with that. Uh. And we'll

756
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about prediction software in a bit

757
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 1: that kind of helps with that. Then that could make

758
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:04,360
Speaker 1: it even more immersive and more and feel closer to

759
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 1: being natural in fact. And again, while it's hard to

760
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 1: say that being in a virtual environment is ever kind

761
00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 1: of a natural thing, after that initial adjustment, you do

762
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 1: start to feel, you start to move within that virtual environment.

763
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:22,359
Speaker 1: You don't really necessarily think about your real world surroundings

764
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:26,200
Speaker 1: as much unless you know something changes that that diverts

765
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:29,720
Speaker 1: your attention. Say that you have a anxious Jack Russell

766
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 1: terrier who jumps on your lap. That might you know,

767
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:34,799
Speaker 1: unless that also has happened at the exact same time

768
00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: in the video game that could pull your attention away, right,

769
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: Or let's say that you bang your knee into a

770
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:42,840
Speaker 1: table because you were walking forward as your character in

771
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:45,919
Speaker 1: the game Forward. And by the way, there are people

772
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:50,279
Speaker 1: who are working on various setups that are not meant

773
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 1: for consumer use either, but they were interested in combining

774
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:56,719
Speaker 1: the oculus rift with other things so that you would

775
00:42:56,719 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 1: have even more immersive control in various games like the

776
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: was the group that did the virtual paper Boy, where

777
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 1: they had it hooked up to a resistance bike training

778
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:09,400
Speaker 1: bike where they by peddling the bike, they would propel

779
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:11,839
Speaker 1: the video game character forward. They had a first person

780
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 1: perspective as if they were playing paper Boy, but from

781
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 1: the paper boys point of view, and then they had

782
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 1: a connect sensor protecting their arm motions to be when

783
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:25,160
Speaker 1: you fling of newspaper. So what they did was they

784
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:28,680
Speaker 1: hooked up the Oculus Rift to a an exercise bike,

785
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: resistance training bike, and by peddling the resistance training bike,

786
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:35,319
Speaker 1: they propelled the virtual character forward. And then they had

787
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:37,880
Speaker 1: a connect censor that would detect arm motions so that

788
00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:40,400
Speaker 1: when you throw the papers, yeah, that would be the control,

789
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: that would be the indicator for the game to throw

790
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:44,359
Speaker 1: the papers. And you're seeing it all from the paper

791
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: boys perspective as opposed to that side view that you

792
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 1: had in the original Arcade game. So that's just one example.

793
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:52,759
Speaker 1: There are other people who have kind of developed the

794
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:57,560
Speaker 1: multidirectional treadmills so that you could walk on the treadmill

795
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:00,200
Speaker 1: and this would propel you forward within a virtual environment.

796
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:02,239
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of already, you know, a lot

797
00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 1: of talk already about incorporating the Oculus Rift into other

798
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 1: types of setups of this nature. Now, granted, that goes

799
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:12,719
Speaker 1: beyond what the average video game player would experience. Sure,

800
00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:15,480
Speaker 1: so we don't recommend you get up on your feet

801
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:17,440
Speaker 1: and walk around while you're wearing one of these things,

802
00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 1: because you're not going to see your actual environment, you're

803
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:22,839
Speaker 1: seeing a virtual environment. I I've heard a few, a few, um,

804
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: you know, not sob stories, but but just stories of

805
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:28,920
Speaker 1: of of like caution, you can totally knock over wine

806
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:31,719
Speaker 1: glasses while you are flailing about with this thing. Kind

807
00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 1: of similar to the to the warnings you would hear

808
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:38,120
Speaker 1: from the original WE Remote. People were flinging them into

809
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:40,400
Speaker 1: their television sets and you would see a picture of

810
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 1: a WE remote emerged from an old TV set and

811
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 1: you think mistake, Yeah, wrist strap. So um. But interestingly enough,

812
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 1: you can still use the oculus rift even if you

813
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: have poor or no vision in one eye. M yeah,

814
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: the screen will still work. Sure, Sure you won't again,

815
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:01,399
Speaker 1: you won't get the stereoscopic three to national effect. Um.

816
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 1: But Richard Eisenbey's writing for Kotaku recently described what it's

817
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 1: like playing with a single eye because he had a

818
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 1: bad laser surgery experience. But um, yeah, the doctor's expectaful recovery. Um.

819
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:18,280
Speaker 1: But he said that the three D effect was slightly

820
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 1: flattened and that his depth perception was off, like you

821
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:23,560
Speaker 1: do when you only have one eye work, um, and

822
00:45:23,640 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 1: that motion blair was increased, but that it was still

823
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:29,239
Speaker 1: very immersive and actually didn't cause any queasiness. Right. And

824
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:32,439
Speaker 1: one of the big causes of queasiness is this idea

825
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:36,400
Speaker 1: of latency which I mentioned earlier. Latency if if you know,

826
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: the name kind of gives it away. What latency is

827
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: is it's a delay between when you take an action

828
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:44,840
Speaker 1: and when that action is displayed to you. Now, in

829
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:47,400
Speaker 1: the case of head tracking software, that would mean that

830
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: if I turned my head to the right, the display

831
00:45:50,560 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 1: would reflect that turn on the screen. But if there's

832
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:55,839
Speaker 1: a delay between when I turned my head and when

833
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:59,280
Speaker 1: it happens on the screen, my brain thinks, woe, something

834
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:02,919
Speaker 1: is mess up you. Right, Because it's it's actually better

835
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:06,319
Speaker 1: than instantaneous when you're seeing it in in real life

836
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 1: because your your your your brain is filling in information

837
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:12,160
Speaker 1: that it doesn't already have yet. Um, it's there's some

838
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 1: predictive stuff going on in your brain already. It's and

839
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:16,800
Speaker 1: it's handling a lot of input from a lot of

840
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:19,439
Speaker 1: different sources, everything from your inner ear to what's coming

841
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:22,399
Speaker 1: into your eyes to what you're you're sensing like by touch.

842
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:26,399
Speaker 1: So All of these things go into telling your brain

843
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:28,319
Speaker 1: what is going on around you, and when those things

844
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:30,799
Speaker 1: don't match up, your brain is like, something's not good.

845
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:34,800
Speaker 1: Let's trigger the stomach to empty all of its contents

846
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:37,800
Speaker 1: as rapidly as possible, or at least that seems to

847
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:39,880
Speaker 1: be the case. It seems like a bad reflex. But

848
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 1: but if you've ever been, say on a boat, and

849
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:45,719
Speaker 1: you have that sensation of you know, the ground you

850
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,680
Speaker 1: are on is moving, but because you're moving with the ground,

851
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:52,239
Speaker 1: your vision isn't reflecting that, right, You're not, Especially if

852
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 1: you're on the inside of a boat and you can't

853
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:56,759
Speaker 1: see the outside at all. Your brain is just saying,

854
00:46:56,920 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 1: this is weird because everything it looks still from micro expected.

855
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:02,520
Speaker 1: But I'm feeling like you're moving all over the place.

856
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 1: Let's turn on the vacate the stomach flip switch and

857
00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:09,880
Speaker 1: see maybe that will make it better, right, somehow that

858
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:13,080
Speaker 1: will fix things. I don't understand the physiological part of this,

859
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 1: but this is what seems to happen. So that one

860
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:19,160
Speaker 1: while we're plugging out shows Yeah, stuff to blow your mind.

861
00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:22,680
Speaker 1: Listen to it. It's awesome. But yeah, the this idea

862
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: of the mismatched data that comes into you. It often

863
00:47:25,640 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 1: ends up making you feel a dizzy, nauseous, you know

864
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: there's or nauseated I should say, I mean you might

865
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:36,880
Speaker 1: be nauseous as well, but nauseated, um, then you you

866
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:40,399
Speaker 1: you know it's it's unpleasant. And so latency is a big,

867
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 1: big contributor to that. So getting latency down where there

868
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:47,120
Speaker 1: is as little delay as possible is a goal. Now.

869
00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: Oculus says that they developed a reduced latency technology that

870
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 1: got it down to two milliseconds to send the information

871
00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:59,719
Speaker 1: from the headset to the software. Now that's a one

872
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:02,239
Speaker 1: way trip there. Remember there's a round trip that we

873
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:04,360
Speaker 1: have to take into account here. It's not just the

874
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 1: trip to the software. The software has to crunch the

875
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 1: numbers from whatever data it's receiving and send back the

876
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:15,560
Speaker 1: appropriate response to the screen. So it takes longer than

877
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:18,840
Speaker 1: two milliseconds for all that to happen. Oh and humans

878
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:22,680
Speaker 1: can detect the latency of around fifty milliseconds, maybe even

879
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:25,560
Speaker 1: fewer than fifty milliseconds. That's no time at all. I

880
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:28,160
Speaker 1: mean we're talking a fraction of a second. Now. According

881
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 1: to Steve Lavelle, using the rift and playing a game

882
00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:34,480
Speaker 1: at sixty frames per second. Latency is right around thirty

883
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 1: to fifty milliseconds, so just right below or at that threshold.

884
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 1: So um, that includes the time it takes with the

885
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:44,640
Speaker 1: sensors to pick up the motion, send that motion out

886
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:47,880
Speaker 1: the port, go into the game engine as a command,

887
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:52,279
Speaker 1: and then yeah, so I mean that's that's the full trip,

888
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: that's the whole round trip. And if it's able to

889
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 1: do that reliably at that speed, that's good. And we

890
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:00,520
Speaker 1: you know, I expect that that's some thing that they're

891
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: going to work on improving to make sure that there

892
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: is as little latency issue there as possible, especially as

893
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:10,319
Speaker 1: video games start to push that limit of sixty frame

894
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 1: sixty frames per second. Uh, if they are pushing to

895
00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:16,040
Speaker 1: make it even more frames per second, then clearly you

896
00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:18,399
Speaker 1: have to worry about that latency issue because that's more

897
00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 1: data that's going through these ports. Like we said, the sensors,

898
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:24,920
Speaker 1: the motion sensors detect yaw, pitch, and roll, and they

899
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 1: use what is called sensor fusion, which is not a

900
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:30,640
Speaker 1: type of cuisine as I first thought, but it's actually

901
00:49:30,680 --> 00:49:33,359
Speaker 1: a technique to combine all the data that's gathered from

902
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:38,600
Speaker 1: these various sensors into virtual virtual actions within the context

903
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:40,719
Speaker 1: of the environment you're in, the game you are in

904
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:45,200
Speaker 1: UM and then Steve Level also wrote an incredible blog

905
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,120
Speaker 1: post that is really really technical if you are interested

906
00:49:48,200 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 1: on the software side of this and about how to

907
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:56,360
Speaker 1: reduce latency to to the minimum levels. I highly recommend

908
00:49:56,400 --> 00:49:59,600
Speaker 1: it because it's it's fascinating, but it's way too technical

909
00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:01,919
Speaker 1: for us to go into here. But this is where

910
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:07,120
Speaker 1: he was talking about predictive techniques. So prediction is exactly

911
00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 1: what it sounds like. The game engine starts to predict

912
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 1: what you are going to do based upon what you

913
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 1: are doing right now, oh wow, and and so so

914
00:50:15,160 --> 00:50:17,719
Speaker 1: it starts to render out what you're going to need

915
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:20,800
Speaker 1: to see next before you actually need it. And and

916
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:23,759
Speaker 1: the goal of this is not to give you a

917
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:27,440
Speaker 1: vision of the future, but rather to remove that latency,

918
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 1: to make it as small as possible. So if the

919
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 1: predictive techniques are good, then it means that you have

920
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:37,600
Speaker 1: a very smooth experience, very little motion blur, no latency.

921
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:41,120
Speaker 1: If it's bad, it means that like if you suddenly

922
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:43,160
Speaker 1: turn left, but it starts to go right because it

923
00:50:43,239 --> 00:50:45,160
Speaker 1: thought you were going to go right, then that's going

924
00:50:45,239 --> 00:50:48,000
Speaker 1: to just exacerbate the problem, so predictive technology has to

925
00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:51,680
Speaker 1: be really sophisticated for it to do more good than harm.

926
00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:55,680
Speaker 1: His blog post goes into great detail about how they

927
00:50:55,680 --> 00:51:00,880
Speaker 1: are using this to try and create a really immersive,

928
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:05,879
Speaker 1: comfortable experience with the Oculus rift, and like I said,

929
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:10,359
Speaker 1: it's really really great. The Oculus blogs in general fantastic read,

930
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:14,640
Speaker 1: but they are very technical, so read at your own risk.

931
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:17,920
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what the actual hardware has. So

932
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 1: the according to what's in the developer kit right now,

933
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 1: keeping in mind the consumer version is going to be

934
00:51:24,719 --> 00:51:27,040
Speaker 1: different from what is out there right now. It will

935
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:31,480
Speaker 1: very likely change indeed. Uh so, um yeah, so so

936
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:35,719
Speaker 1: we've got we've got six degrees of freedom that that yeah,

937
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 1: um for for the head tracking. Um that hundred degree

938
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 1: diagonal screen that we were talking about, which is um

939
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:47,719
Speaker 1: nine degrees horizontal, ninety degrees horizontal field of view. So

940
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:50,840
Speaker 1: you know those the screens are are Physically they're small,

941
00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:53,680
Speaker 1: but because of their proximity to your eyeballs, they look

942
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: pretty big. It builds your vision. Um. It's a d

943
00:51:56,760 --> 00:52:01,360
Speaker 1: v I video input Digital visual interface ACE input. So

944
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:05,440
Speaker 1: this was that that INUT interface, by the way, was

945
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 1: originally developed by the Display Working Group. Uh. That's the

946
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 1: kind of interface that allows you to hook up a

947
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:15,280
Speaker 1: display to a computer. So a lot of computer monitors

948
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:20,279
Speaker 1: and displays have this. However, it does have HDMI adaptation. Yeah,

949
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:22,920
Speaker 1: you can get an HDMI adapter to convert from d

950
00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:24,680
Speaker 1: v I to h d M I, but you do

951
00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:28,120
Speaker 1: need to have that adapter. Does not have natively does

952
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:31,160
Speaker 1: not have an HDMI port to hook up, but you can.

953
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:34,000
Speaker 1: That's one thing I expect the consumer version would have,

954
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:36,239
Speaker 1: just because of the drive to move to h d

955
00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:40,759
Speaker 1: M I, especially since a lot of video game consoles

956
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 1: have that kind of thing. I expect that we will

957
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:46,440
Speaker 1: see h d m I native support in whatever the

958
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:49,239
Speaker 1: consumer version is. They haven't announced that, so don't take

959
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 1: that as you know gospel. That's just that's just my prediction. Um. Yeah,

960
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:57,840
Speaker 1: so you need to have either HDMI or d v

961
00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 1: I video out on your computer or in order to

962
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:02,600
Speaker 1: run this. Yeah, if you were like, but my computer

963
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:06,160
Speaker 1: only has FireWire, it is for PC only right now,

964
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:09,200
Speaker 1: Um that they are again hoping to roll it out

965
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:14,560
Speaker 1: to UM consoles and mobile platforms. They're also talking there

966
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:17,480
Speaker 1: there's buzz anyway that they're talking about expanding it to

967
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:21,680
Speaker 1: watching movies, serving the web, doing programming. Yeah, which in

968
00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:27,520
Speaker 1: the matrix, Yeah right, lawnmower man. Uh yeah, we just

969
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:31,000
Speaker 1: shows our own frames of reference for virtual environments, doesn't it.

970
00:53:31,040 --> 00:53:35,399
Speaker 1: You say, matrix, I say a lawmore man like, um so, yeah, yeah,

971
00:53:35,520 --> 00:53:38,399
Speaker 1: I wonder about watching movies because again, at that point,

972
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:40,640
Speaker 1: you're not really even talking about head tracking, right, There's

973
00:53:40,680 --> 00:53:42,959
Speaker 1: no purpose for head tracking if you're watching a film,

974
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:45,879
Speaker 1: because the film is captured from a single point of view.

975
00:53:46,239 --> 00:53:49,640
Speaker 1: I mean, unless you're presenting only part of a movie screen,

976
00:53:49,719 --> 00:53:52,440
Speaker 1: which I can't imagine being a satisfying experience. You're really

977
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 1: just looking at something really close to your face. Unless

978
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:57,760
Speaker 1: you eventually get to a point where you are able

979
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:00,319
Speaker 1: to create a well, especially if if it's a three

980
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:02,520
Speaker 1: D animated movie, then this would be much easier to do.

981
00:54:03,120 --> 00:54:06,560
Speaker 1: You could you could create a movie where you would

982
00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:10,440
Speaker 1: be able to change your perspective as opposed to relying

983
00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: upon the camera to define what the perspective is. Sure,

984
00:54:14,400 --> 00:54:16,120
Speaker 1: just even even I think you know, if you've got

985
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:20,680
Speaker 1: one of the digital three D stereoscopic films that you

986
00:54:20,800 --> 00:54:22,480
Speaker 1: just I mean, even without being able to move your

987
00:54:22,520 --> 00:54:24,440
Speaker 1: head around, it would be Yeah, I can see that.

988
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:27,400
Speaker 1: Where you're talking about maybe watching movies that were designed

989
00:54:27,440 --> 00:54:28,799
Speaker 1: to be in three D in the first place, maybe

990
00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:31,000
Speaker 1: this would give a superior three D experience. I can

991
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:33,759
Speaker 1: see that. And also it reduces eyestrain from looking at

992
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:37,440
Speaker 1: a three D screen because the the way that the

993
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 1: way that these goggles work is, um, you're you're actually

994
00:54:40,719 --> 00:54:44,840
Speaker 1: focusing on your You're relaxing your eyes to a to

995
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:47,880
Speaker 1: a distant point. You're looking. You're you're kind of looking

996
00:54:48,040 --> 00:54:51,040
Speaker 1: through the screen, which is the default for your eyes looking.

997
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 1: It's it's any any kind of eye strain that you get,

998
00:54:53,040 --> 00:54:54,840
Speaker 1: you would think, you know, it's an inchway from your

999
00:54:54,880 --> 00:54:56,840
Speaker 1: eye that's going to lead to terrible eyestrain, but but

1000
00:54:56,920 --> 00:54:59,800
Speaker 1: actually looking at your computer screen foot away from you

1001
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:02,799
Speaker 1: causes a lot more eyes strain than these The idea

1002
00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:04,799
Speaker 1: being that this is like looking through a window as

1003
00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:07,680
Speaker 1: opposed to Yeah, but any it's kind of interesting. Um

1004
00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:13,360
Speaker 1: so the screen, Yeah, it's um currently eight hundred. But

1005
00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:17,160
Speaker 1: that's that's if you combine the two screens, right right, Uh, yeah,

1006
00:55:17,200 --> 00:55:20,920
Speaker 1: it's what what what's at six forty? Yeah? Yeah, the

1007
00:55:21,040 --> 00:55:23,520
Speaker 1: up six forty by hunder Prye, which is that's close

1008
00:55:23,600 --> 00:55:26,640
Speaker 1: to the resolution of seven, which is twelve eighty by

1009
00:55:26,719 --> 00:55:29,040
Speaker 1: seven twenty. But but again, this is a thing that

1010
00:55:29,080 --> 00:55:32,000
Speaker 1: could change for for consumers, right, And also, I mean,

1011
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:37,040
Speaker 1: you know, obviously higher resolution means better pictures in general,

1012
00:55:37,200 --> 00:55:39,759
Speaker 1: but there's also something you need to consider that the

1013
00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 1: closer you get to a screen, the less resolution matters. Right,

1014
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:46,879
Speaker 1: So unless your screen is getting larger and larger and larger.

1015
00:55:46,920 --> 00:55:49,799
Speaker 1: So let's say you've got you stay with a Let's

1016
00:55:49,800 --> 00:55:53,160
Speaker 1: say that's your tvOS forty in Right, Depending upon how

1017
00:55:53,239 --> 00:55:56,200
Speaker 1: close you sit to that television, seven and ten ADP

1018
00:55:56,480 --> 00:56:00,600
Speaker 1: might not be that distinguishable. Now if you sit if

1019
00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:03,040
Speaker 1: you sit further closer and closer to it, then you're

1020
00:56:03,040 --> 00:56:05,920
Speaker 1: gonna notice. If you sit further away, you're those differences

1021
00:56:06,120 --> 00:56:08,880
Speaker 1: fade away into nothing. So if you could have a

1022
00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:12,440
Speaker 1: seven twenty P and a ten ADP set side by side,

1023
00:56:12,719 --> 00:56:15,439
Speaker 1: but if you're fifteen feet back, they look the same,

1024
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:18,960
Speaker 1: assuming they've both been calibrated for that room and etcetera, etcetera.

1025
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:22,839
Speaker 1: But if you're talking about an eight inch screen, first

1026
00:56:22,840 --> 00:56:25,359
Speaker 1: of all, invite me over because I want to watch

1027
00:56:25,480 --> 00:56:30,000
Speaker 1: movies and play Halo. But then it obviously will matter more,

1028
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:32,359
Speaker 1: you've got more screen space. The resolution is spread out

1029
00:56:32,400 --> 00:56:36,320
Speaker 1: over a greater landscape area, so you've got to have

1030
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:38,800
Speaker 1: higher resolution or else you will start to notice it

1031
00:56:38,920 --> 00:56:42,399
Speaker 1: at regular viewing distances. Was something that's one inch away

1032
00:56:42,440 --> 00:56:46,239
Speaker 1: from your eye. Uh. While they could probably increase the

1033
00:56:46,320 --> 00:56:49,200
Speaker 1: resolution and it would be maybe noticeable, I don't know

1034
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:51,799
Speaker 1: that they have to stress it too much, all right,

1035
00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:54,520
Speaker 1: I think it's I think mostly the issue right now

1036
00:56:54,600 --> 00:56:57,359
Speaker 1: is that screen door effect that I was talking about. Um,

1037
00:56:57,680 --> 00:57:01,919
Speaker 1: the headset itself costs costs ways a little bit less

1038
00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:03,920
Speaker 1: than half a pound or a little bit less than

1039
00:57:03,960 --> 00:57:06,920
Speaker 1: a quarter of a kilogram. Nice, so it's not too

1040
00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:12,400
Speaker 1: terribly heavy. Another huge advance over older VR software hardware,

1041
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:14,160
Speaker 1: anything that you're trapping to your head and nice to

1042
00:57:14,200 --> 00:57:16,480
Speaker 1: have it light. Yes, Um, and the dead kits right

1043
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:20,400
Speaker 1: now cost three hundred bucks of pop, I've heard. I've

1044
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:22,880
Speaker 1: heard that they're trying to keep it with the final

1045
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:26,040
Speaker 1: commercial product within the three to five dollar range, which

1046
00:57:26,120 --> 00:57:28,960
Speaker 1: you know, when you're considering that most consoles cost around

1047
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:31,160
Speaker 1: that much, makes sense. They don't want it to go

1048
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:33,360
Speaker 1: higher than the console that it would sure, Sure, and

1049
00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:37,200
Speaker 1: it's still a significant improvement over Again, the thousand bucks

1050
00:57:37,320 --> 00:57:39,760
Speaker 1: or so a pop that that current or the hundred

1051
00:57:39,800 --> 00:57:42,760
Speaker 1: thousand dollars if you're talking about the the specifically made

1052
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:47,560
Speaker 1: for the VR industry equipment that was back in the nineties. Yeah,

1053
00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:49,560
Speaker 1: so so it's not like it's it's not going to

1054
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:52,880
Speaker 1: be inexpensive. It's going to be an expensive peripheral. Now

1055
00:57:52,920 --> 00:57:56,080
Speaker 1: if you're if you're used to either building or buying

1056
00:57:56,440 --> 00:58:00,200
Speaker 1: high end video game rigs, this is you know, two

1057
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:05,520
Speaker 1: small dispense compared to what your ten thousand dollar rig was. Um.

1058
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:09,760
Speaker 1: So this kit is not just the hardware. There's the

1059
00:58:09,840 --> 00:58:12,439
Speaker 1: software developer kit too, So this is the software side.

1060
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:14,600
Speaker 1: And again remember Lucky is not a software guy, he's

1061
00:58:14,600 --> 00:58:19,480
Speaker 1: a hardware guy. Uh. The Software Developer Kit contains all

1062
00:58:19,560 --> 00:58:21,840
Speaker 1: the information you would need to be able to develop

1063
00:58:21,960 --> 00:58:26,160
Speaker 1: stuff specifically to display on an Oculus Rift and to

1064
00:58:26,280 --> 00:58:29,720
Speaker 1: work with this motion tracking hardware. And that contains all

1065
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:33,040
Speaker 1: the libraries you need, the headers, the documentation, the samples

1066
00:58:33,080 --> 00:58:36,720
Speaker 1: for integrating the rift with games. It also includes two

1067
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:40,320
Speaker 1: different game engines, the Unreal Engine and the Unity engines,

1068
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:43,560
Speaker 1: and those are widely available game engines that a lot

1069
00:58:43,680 --> 00:58:47,440
Speaker 1: of companies use as the basis for the physics and

1070
00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:51,520
Speaker 1: uh and number crunching engine of whatever game they're running.

1071
00:58:51,880 --> 00:58:54,880
Speaker 1: So there are currently three titles that are compatible with

1072
00:58:55,160 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 1: the Oculus Rift. One of them is Team Fortress Too,

1073
00:58:57,640 --> 00:58:59,880
Speaker 1: which is a squad based first person shooter game moves

1074
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:04,400
Speaker 1: an incredibly frenetic pace. The other one that was originally

1075
00:59:05,120 --> 00:59:09,000
Speaker 1: announced as being compatible was Hawking, which is a multiplayer

1076
00:59:09,120 --> 00:59:13,280
Speaker 1: mech combat video game by Adhesive Games. The third that

1077
00:59:13,320 --> 00:59:16,080
Speaker 1: they just rolled out, um I think, I think in August,

1078
00:59:16,920 --> 00:59:19,600
Speaker 1: right before we right before we recorded this podcast, was

1079
00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:23,200
Speaker 1: Half Life Too, Half Life Too, because I really want

1080
00:59:23,360 --> 00:59:26,560
Speaker 1: I do not at all want actually the experience of

1081
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:30,000
Speaker 1: having a head crab jump at my face. Don't having

1082
00:59:30,040 --> 00:59:32,760
Speaker 1: it be more realistic? Don't you want the experience of

1083
00:59:32,920 --> 00:59:35,760
Speaker 1: watching a gravity gun work right in front of your

1084
00:59:35,800 --> 00:59:39,920
Speaker 1: face and launching things at high velocity? Also, I mean

1085
00:59:40,160 --> 00:59:42,840
Speaker 1: that gives me hope that the next title will be Portal.

1086
00:59:43,200 --> 00:59:45,720
Speaker 1: Can you imagine Portal first person like you are in

1087
00:59:45,880 --> 00:59:48,959
Speaker 1: the world of Portal. That's what I'm waiting on because

1088
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:52,960
Speaker 1: those two, those two universes are connected Aperture Science and

1089
00:59:53,440 --> 00:59:55,640
Speaker 1: and and Black Mason, Black Mesa. As we all know

1090
00:59:55,720 --> 00:59:59,280
Speaker 1: from the Jonathan Colton song. They are connected, completely connected.

1091
00:59:59,400 --> 01:00:02,080
Speaker 1: So come on, guys, let's get our Let's get our

1092
01:00:02,120 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 1: Oarculus riff version of Portal. I that sounds that sounds

1093
01:00:05,240 --> 01:00:07,480
Speaker 1: a little bit sickening, but wonderful. I would love it,

1094
01:00:07,720 --> 01:00:09,760
Speaker 1: can you. Yeah? I don't know what that would be

1095
01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:12,280
Speaker 1: like once you start moving at those in insane speeds

1096
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:14,160
Speaker 1: where you do the vertical portals. I would need to

1097
01:00:14,200 --> 01:00:16,600
Speaker 1: get one of those psychologists to come to my house

1098
01:00:16,640 --> 01:00:18,400
Speaker 1: while I played, so that I could turn it into

1099
01:00:18,520 --> 01:00:21,840
Speaker 1: a height therapy related I can. I can imagine that. Yeah,

1100
01:00:21,920 --> 01:00:23,880
Speaker 1: maybe that game wouldn't work out on the long run.

1101
01:00:23,880 --> 01:00:25,840
Speaker 1: I'd be willing to play it until I started. No, no, no,

1102
01:00:25,960 --> 01:00:28,200
Speaker 1: I want that. I want that right now. But I'm terrified.

1103
01:00:28,360 --> 01:00:30,360
Speaker 1: But those are the titles available right now, not Portal,

1104
01:00:30,480 --> 01:00:33,520
Speaker 1: but Half Life to Team Fortress too and Hawking. So

1105
01:00:34,680 --> 01:00:38,120
Speaker 1: we'll see those expand obviously, but even so, like again,

1106
01:00:38,520 --> 01:00:40,400
Speaker 1: just to stress yet again, this is of course the

1107
01:00:40,480 --> 01:00:43,720
Speaker 1: developer side. Once this becomes a consumer product, you I

1108
01:00:43,720 --> 01:00:46,040
Speaker 1: would expect there to be support for at least twenty

1109
01:00:46,080 --> 01:00:49,040
Speaker 1: titles because if there's if there's not, then you know,

1110
01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:51,240
Speaker 1: it's hard to justify the expense in the mind of

1111
01:00:51,280 --> 01:00:53,400
Speaker 1: the game, or like I'm willing to pay three five

1112
01:00:53,760 --> 01:00:56,400
Speaker 1: dollars on this piece of technology and I can play

1113
01:00:56,760 --> 01:00:59,440
Speaker 1: twenty games on it and that's it, or not fewer

1114
01:00:59,520 --> 01:01:01,600
Speaker 1: than twenty, you are that would be if you can

1115
01:01:01,640 --> 01:01:03,760
Speaker 1: only do less than ten than that might be like

1116
01:01:03,880 --> 01:01:05,560
Speaker 1: why would I pay that much money for that thing?

1117
01:01:05,640 --> 01:01:07,400
Speaker 1: Although lots of people, lots of people have, lots of

1118
01:01:07,400 --> 01:01:09,440
Speaker 1: people are excited about it UM, there there is no

1119
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:13,360
Speaker 1: official release date. Yeah. Yeah. The company's stance is it

1120
01:01:13,400 --> 01:01:15,919
Speaker 1: will be ready when it's ready, which is I think

1121
01:01:16,000 --> 01:01:18,840
Speaker 1: the most responsible way to go about it, because otherwise,

1122
01:01:18,920 --> 01:01:22,160
Speaker 1: what you'll do is you'll create a deadline that you

1123
01:01:22,240 --> 01:01:24,160
Speaker 1: know something will pop up that you could not have

1124
01:01:24,280 --> 01:01:27,440
Speaker 1: anticipated that will either cause you to miss the deadline,

1125
01:01:27,600 --> 01:01:31,480
Speaker 1: thus inviting the ire of all of the internets, or

1126
01:01:31,680 --> 01:01:34,720
Speaker 1: you will start to sacrifice things in order to make

1127
01:01:34,800 --> 01:01:37,480
Speaker 1: the original deadline, and the product will be less than

1128
01:01:37,560 --> 01:01:40,000
Speaker 1: what it could have been. So I think that taking

1129
01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:43,400
Speaker 1: this approach of we aren't announcing a date, We're getting

1130
01:01:43,440 --> 01:01:45,200
Speaker 1: it as soon as possible, but we want it to

1131
01:01:45,280 --> 01:01:48,360
Speaker 1: be good when it launches, I think that's the right choice,

1132
01:01:48,600 --> 01:01:51,560
Speaker 1: especially when you're talking about hardware UM, because I mean,

1133
01:01:51,600 --> 01:01:53,840
Speaker 1: you can't. It's it's harder to update that. I mean,

1134
01:01:53,920 --> 01:01:58,400
Speaker 1: you can do firmware updates obviously, but but in place

1135
01:01:59,360 --> 01:02:03,040
Speaker 1: it's harder. Yeah. Um and and yeah yeah, like like

1136
01:02:03,160 --> 01:02:05,920
Speaker 1: we said, there's no official price yet either. Um. You know,

1137
01:02:06,040 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 1: obviously they want to they want to keep it affordable,

1138
01:02:09,960 --> 01:02:12,600
Speaker 1: and we might see it being used in well, I'm

1139
01:02:12,680 --> 01:02:15,360
Speaker 1: sure we'll see it being used in virtual reality h

1140
01:02:15,760 --> 01:02:18,840
Speaker 1: fields beyond gaming. Yeah, yeah, you know the kind of

1141
01:02:18,840 --> 01:02:21,400
Speaker 1: stuff that they're talking about it being useful for, like

1142
01:02:21,520 --> 01:02:25,600
Speaker 1: like surgery training or um or or architecture and design,

1143
01:02:25,840 --> 01:02:27,800
Speaker 1: which is really kind of cool. That's this idea of

1144
01:02:27,840 --> 01:02:30,120
Speaker 1: being able to take a virtual tour of a building

1145
01:02:30,160 --> 01:02:33,560
Speaker 1: that hasn't even gone beyond the blueprint stage. That's kind

1146
01:02:33,600 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 1: of interesting. And of course the medical uh techniques that

1147
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:40,400
Speaker 1: we've talked about already, this exposure technique. Um. And you know,

1148
01:02:40,800 --> 01:02:44,400
Speaker 1: the VR industry still exists, although they call it virtual environments.

1149
01:02:44,400 --> 01:02:46,440
Speaker 1: For the most part, it still exists. But they do

1150
01:02:47,520 --> 01:02:49,400
Speaker 1: go to the video game industry all the time for

1151
01:02:49,480 --> 01:02:55,920
Speaker 1: all the equipment, so I expect we'll see that continue. Alright.

1152
01:02:56,040 --> 01:02:58,560
Speaker 1: So that was the story as far as it had

1153
01:02:58,640 --> 01:03:02,240
Speaker 1: progressed in August of tooths thirteen. But back in March

1154
01:03:02,520 --> 01:03:06,840
Speaker 1: of two thousand fourteen, there was an event that really

1155
01:03:07,000 --> 01:03:12,040
Speaker 1: shook up the whole Oculus VR world news item. Yeah,

1156
01:03:12,120 --> 01:03:18,200
Speaker 1: it sent ripples throughout the force, like the destruction of danteen.

1157
01:03:18,560 --> 01:03:20,520
Speaker 1: Yeah it was Dantueen. No, no, it wasn't Datu was

1158
01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:22,880
Speaker 1: Aldan right, because the Dantueen was too far from an

1159
01:03:22,920 --> 01:03:26,919
Speaker 1: effective demonstration. But anyway, so, yes, there was this big event.

1160
01:03:27,120 --> 01:03:30,160
Speaker 1: That big event, of course, was when the company Facebook

1161
01:03:30,360 --> 01:03:34,600
Speaker 1: decided it wanted the Oculus VR company, and furthermore than

1162
01:03:34,680 --> 01:03:38,560
Speaker 1: it wanted it two billion dollars worth. And so they said, hey,

1163
01:03:39,080 --> 01:03:40,920
Speaker 1: I'll give you two billion dollars to come and join

1164
01:03:40,960 --> 01:03:44,200
Speaker 1: the dark side. And they said, sure, No, I'm just

1165
01:03:44,280 --> 01:03:47,400
Speaker 1: being silly. I don't think Facebook is the dark side necessarily.

1166
01:03:47,760 --> 01:03:53,200
Speaker 1: But this announcement was met with some pretty extreme responses

1167
01:03:53,240 --> 01:03:55,400
Speaker 1: on either side of the spectrum. Yeah, there was a

1168
01:03:55,440 --> 01:03:58,400
Speaker 1: lot of enthusiasm. Yeah, because it meant that Oculus rift

1169
01:03:58,880 --> 01:04:01,000
Speaker 1: now had an annoy or miss safety net, I mean

1170
01:04:01,600 --> 01:04:03,800
Speaker 1: all R and D money that they could possibly want

1171
01:04:03,880 --> 01:04:07,560
Speaker 1: a multibillion dollar company supporting them. So it wasn't like

1172
01:04:07,880 --> 01:04:12,840
Speaker 1: if let's say that their hardware implementation didn't work out

1173
01:04:12,920 --> 01:04:16,000
Speaker 1: the way they had planned. As a small company that

1174
01:04:16,240 --> 01:04:20,200
Speaker 1: was dependent upon investment, it might not have been able

1175
01:04:20,280 --> 01:04:22,400
Speaker 1: to bounce back from something like this. But with this

1176
01:04:22,520 --> 01:04:25,880
Speaker 1: big company, they can afford to take risks, right, So

1177
01:04:26,000 --> 01:04:28,640
Speaker 1: that's a big thing. However, there was also a certain

1178
01:04:28,680 --> 01:04:33,080
Speaker 1: amount of trepidation. Yeah, because let's face it, Facebook is

1179
01:04:33,160 --> 01:04:36,120
Speaker 1: in the business of collecting all of the data about you.

1180
01:04:37,000 --> 01:04:40,360
Speaker 1: I mean, we we the services free because we are

1181
01:04:40,440 --> 01:04:43,120
Speaker 1: the product. Exactly, if you are using Facebook, you are

1182
01:04:43,240 --> 01:04:45,760
Speaker 1: a product that is being sold. And I mean that's

1183
01:04:45,800 --> 01:04:48,480
Speaker 1: the way Facebook generates revenue. If it didn't do that,

1184
01:04:48,720 --> 01:04:51,920
Speaker 1: then Facebook couldn't stick around, so not without forcing us

1185
01:04:52,000 --> 01:04:54,720
Speaker 1: to to pay them. Yeah, so this, this is that's

1186
01:04:54,760 --> 01:04:57,600
Speaker 1: the other side of the coin, right. So some people

1187
01:04:57,760 --> 01:05:01,920
Speaker 1: like Minecraft creator Notch posted a tweet that said he

1188
01:05:01,960 --> 01:05:05,320
Speaker 1: would no longer want to develop a build for Minecraft

1189
01:05:05,760 --> 01:05:08,760
Speaker 1: for the Oculus Rift because he found Facebook to be creepy.

1190
01:05:09,560 --> 01:05:13,000
Speaker 1: So that, Yeah, there's a lot of pushback, especially among

1191
01:05:13,080 --> 01:05:17,080
Speaker 1: I think the hardcore fans of the Rift. Yeah, and

1192
01:05:17,160 --> 01:05:19,920
Speaker 1: and remember you know, the Oculus Rift off also was

1193
01:05:21,560 --> 01:05:24,560
Speaker 1: just going to be a dedicated PC device computer device,

1194
01:05:24,640 --> 01:05:28,960
Speaker 1: not a console related device, So that raises a question,

1195
01:05:29,040 --> 01:05:32,120
Speaker 1: what does Facebook have planned for the oculus rift. Well,

1196
01:05:32,160 --> 01:05:35,360
Speaker 1: one thing that executives have said, and this is something

1197
01:05:35,400 --> 01:05:38,920
Speaker 1: that blows my mind. I mean it's it's hard for

1198
01:05:39,040 --> 01:05:41,480
Speaker 1: me to imagine what would be required to pull this off.

1199
01:05:41,520 --> 01:05:45,720
Speaker 1: But they envision a virtual world with one billion people

1200
01:05:45,800 --> 01:05:48,840
Speaker 1: in it, which which is essentially Facebook's user base. Yeah,

1201
01:05:49,240 --> 01:05:51,560
Speaker 1: and when they had a billion unique users or at

1202
01:05:51,600 --> 01:05:55,720
Speaker 1: least unique accounts. You don't know, necessarily significant difference, I suspect.

1203
01:05:55,840 --> 01:05:58,160
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are quite a few duplicate uh there

1204
01:05:58,200 --> 01:06:01,160
Speaker 1: are people who are using different ounce but anyway, a

1205
01:06:01,240 --> 01:06:05,800
Speaker 1: billion users, uh more or less, and then putting them

1206
01:06:05,840 --> 01:06:09,320
Speaker 1: in this virtual environment as some way of communicating and

1207
01:06:09,640 --> 01:06:13,760
Speaker 1: making a social uh social platform that is completely immersive.

1208
01:06:14,280 --> 01:06:17,920
Speaker 1: That's that's huge. It's hard to imagine. Yeah, yeah, I

1209
01:06:17,960 --> 01:06:22,120
Speaker 1: mean i I'm picturing something like was described in snow Crash. Yeah,

1210
01:06:22,600 --> 01:06:26,000
Speaker 1: I'm just picturing like a a busiest day ever at

1211
01:06:26,080 --> 01:06:29,640
Speaker 1: Disney World and you're just completely surrounded. I mean, obviously,

1212
01:06:29,760 --> 01:06:32,120
Speaker 1: if you're creating a virtual environment, you can create as

1213
01:06:32,200 --> 01:06:34,960
Speaker 1: much space or as little space as you want, so

1214
01:06:35,720 --> 01:06:38,480
Speaker 1: assuming you have the computer power to support it. But

1215
01:06:39,040 --> 01:06:41,080
Speaker 1: it does make me wonder when we would see such

1216
01:06:41,080 --> 01:06:43,520
Speaker 1: an implementation. Obviously, in order for it to be a

1217
01:06:43,560 --> 01:06:46,480
Speaker 1: billion users, you would also need to sell a billion

1218
01:06:46,720 --> 01:06:49,320
Speaker 1: units of Oculus Rift, and I don't think that's gonna happen.

1219
01:06:49,320 --> 01:06:52,320
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's that's a sky high dream. But still

1220
01:06:52,520 --> 01:06:55,000
Speaker 1: the idea you can have enough servers to Oh, yeah,

1221
01:06:55,040 --> 01:06:56,640
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of issues that we need to

1222
01:06:56,640 --> 01:06:59,320
Speaker 1: work out there. There's some there's some steps between where

1223
01:06:59,360 --> 01:07:01,960
Speaker 1: we are and where they want to be. But there's

1224
01:07:02,000 --> 01:07:04,320
Speaker 1: some other issues that we have to mention too. After

1225
01:07:04,440 --> 01:07:08,600
Speaker 1: the acquisition announcement, a company called Zenomax Media, which used

1226
01:07:08,640 --> 01:07:11,840
Speaker 1: to be the employer of one Mr John Carmack, you know,

1227
01:07:12,360 --> 01:07:14,800
Speaker 1: because he was working for in Software. In Software is

1228
01:07:14,800 --> 01:07:17,720
Speaker 1: a subsidiary of Zenomax Media. Well, the company filed a

1229
01:07:17,800 --> 01:07:21,479
Speaker 1: lawsuit against Oculus VR, and they said that the Rift

1230
01:07:21,560 --> 01:07:24,120
Speaker 1: was based at least in part off of the VR

1231
01:07:24,160 --> 01:07:27,480
Speaker 1: work done within Zenomax, and it also relied upon the

1232
01:07:27,560 --> 01:07:31,800
Speaker 1: expertise of CarMax, including several systems that Carmack had designed

1233
01:07:32,120 --> 01:07:37,520
Speaker 1: for Zenomax projects during his time there. Yeah, and apparently,

1234
01:07:37,960 --> 01:07:41,240
Speaker 1: depending upon who you ask, they had some conversations about this. Yeah,

1235
01:07:41,320 --> 01:07:43,720
Speaker 1: Xenomax claims that it tried to work all of this

1236
01:07:43,960 --> 01:07:49,040
Speaker 1: proprietary stuff out with Oculus after oculus is big Kickstarter

1237
01:07:49,160 --> 01:07:51,600
Speaker 1: success proved that they would be actually bringing a device

1238
01:07:51,680 --> 01:07:56,320
Speaker 1: to market um, but that oculust first failed to respond

1239
01:07:56,640 --> 01:08:01,320
Speaker 1: then offered Zenomax what they considered an unfair equity share,

1240
01:08:01,840 --> 01:08:04,400
Speaker 1: only only three percent, which was one point two million

1241
01:08:04,440 --> 01:08:08,480
Speaker 1: at the time or some sixty million dollars after Facebook's purchase.

1242
01:08:08,480 --> 01:08:10,840
Speaker 1: About that they knew that that was going to happen um,

1243
01:08:11,520 --> 01:08:15,120
Speaker 1: which Zenomax claims that they countered, and for the more,

1244
01:08:15,200 --> 01:08:19,800
Speaker 1: claims that Oculus refused um, thereby pressing Zenomax into this

1245
01:08:19,920 --> 01:08:22,960
Speaker 1: lawsuit now Oculus VR. On their part, they said that

1246
01:08:23,320 --> 01:08:28,280
Speaker 1: one uh that Cenomax's demands were outrageous, that they were

1247
01:08:28,320 --> 01:08:31,320
Speaker 1: asking for way too much, and too said that there

1248
01:08:31,360 --> 01:08:35,200
Speaker 1: were there was there was no technology from Cinemax included

1249
01:08:35,240 --> 01:08:38,759
Speaker 1: in the Oculus rift at all. And they also implied

1250
01:08:38,840 --> 01:08:41,559
Speaker 1: that it was pretty convenient that the lawsuit only came

1251
01:08:41,600 --> 01:08:45,240
Speaker 1: out after Facebook acquired Oculus, in other words, after they

1252
01:08:45,320 --> 01:08:47,400
Speaker 1: had all the money. Yeah, this enormous cash flow went

1253
01:08:47,479 --> 01:08:50,080
Speaker 1: into the company. So to be fair, there is some

1254
01:08:50,320 --> 01:08:54,200
Speaker 1: potential evidence available even to the public. For example a

1255
01:08:54,280 --> 01:08:58,320
Speaker 1: tweet from John Carmack in April which said, and I

1256
01:08:58,439 --> 01:09:00,640
Speaker 1: quote when you are in a worry and you know

1257
01:09:00,800 --> 01:09:03,839
Speaker 1: you wrote the exact needed code well at a previous

1258
01:09:03,960 --> 01:09:08,960
Speaker 1: job re implementation. Greats. Yeah. But on the other hand,

1259
01:09:09,160 --> 01:09:11,840
Speaker 1: they also point out that the Oculus Rift SDK was

1260
01:09:11,920 --> 01:09:14,799
Speaker 1: publicly available and doesn't have a single line of Cinemax

1261
01:09:14,920 --> 01:09:18,120
Speaker 1: code in it, so you know, there's a there's a

1262
01:09:18,160 --> 01:09:22,360
Speaker 1: lot of conflicting information. The lawsuit is currently being considered,

1263
01:09:22,439 --> 01:09:26,320
Speaker 1: so we don't have any any results for that, certainly

1264
01:09:26,360 --> 01:09:29,960
Speaker 1: not yet. We we will not rerun this episode again,

1265
01:09:30,040 --> 01:09:32,479
Speaker 1: but we all tried to update you guys. When that

1266
01:09:32,600 --> 01:09:34,800
Speaker 1: comes to ahead, maybe we'll just do an episode where hey,

1267
01:09:34,920 --> 01:09:37,000
Speaker 1: guess what, it's just a bunch of updates on a

1268
01:09:37,120 --> 01:09:41,120
Speaker 1: bunch of unrelated things. Here are fifty topics we've talked

1269
01:09:41,160 --> 01:09:44,240
Speaker 1: about in the past, and two sentences updating on each

1270
01:09:44,280 --> 01:09:46,240
Speaker 1: of them. Oh why did you that's a terrible number

1271
01:09:46,880 --> 01:09:49,240
Speaker 1: never talked about. It would be a pretty awful episode.

1272
01:09:50,520 --> 01:09:53,040
Speaker 1: It would be the most non sequitary, field filled episode

1273
01:09:53,080 --> 01:09:55,800
Speaker 1: we've ever done, and we've done some doozies. But also

1274
01:09:56,120 --> 01:09:59,840
Speaker 1: back in March two thousand fourteen, another thing happened that

1275
01:10:00,080 --> 01:10:03,960
Speaker 1: that excited folks. Oculus unveiled the d K two Developer headset.

1276
01:10:04,600 --> 01:10:07,080
Speaker 1: So keep in mind, all the headsets the Oculus Rift

1277
01:10:07,120 --> 01:10:10,040
Speaker 1: has produced so far have been for developers who want

1278
01:10:10,080 --> 01:10:13,960
Speaker 1: to create games or other applications using the headset. There

1279
01:10:14,000 --> 01:10:17,760
Speaker 1: are no consumer versions of the hardware on the market yet,

1280
01:10:18,360 --> 01:10:21,479
Speaker 1: but this one increased the resolution of the two screens

1281
01:10:21,520 --> 01:10:25,280
Speaker 1: inside the headset to nine sixty by ten eighty. They

1282
01:10:25,320 --> 01:10:27,799
Speaker 1: are O lead screens and they are supposed to reduce

1283
01:10:27,920 --> 01:10:32,000
Speaker 1: motion blur and also increase clarity, color, and contrast the

1284
01:10:32,160 --> 01:10:36,720
Speaker 1: three big cs that you want with your your screens. UH.

1285
01:10:36,880 --> 01:10:41,200
Speaker 1: It also includes a a external camera which is designed

1286
01:10:41,360 --> 01:10:45,240
Speaker 1: to help the headset track your your head movements, giving

1287
01:10:45,240 --> 01:10:47,599
Speaker 1: the wearer the ability to like look out over a ledge,

1288
01:10:47,720 --> 01:10:51,000
Speaker 1: or around a corner, yeah, or underneath a table. So

1289
01:10:51,360 --> 01:10:55,920
Speaker 1: because the external camera can track the the orientation of

1290
01:10:56,000 --> 01:10:59,680
Speaker 1: the user's head in relation to their real world environment,

1291
01:11:00,200 --> 01:11:03,800
Speaker 1: it can translate into the perspective you would need in

1292
01:11:03,880 --> 01:11:07,640
Speaker 1: the virtual environment to UH to mimic that motion. So

1293
01:11:08,040 --> 01:11:11,280
Speaker 1: if I were to walk up to a table in

1294
01:11:11,360 --> 01:11:13,080
Speaker 1: a game and I wanted to look underneath it, to

1295
01:11:13,080 --> 01:11:15,840
Speaker 1: see if there were any clues. I could actually squat down,

1296
01:11:16,000 --> 01:11:19,160
Speaker 1: been my head over and the because the external camera

1297
01:11:19,280 --> 01:11:22,519
Speaker 1: could track how my head was changing in orientation in

1298
01:11:22,600 --> 01:11:25,160
Speaker 1: respect to my real environment. I get that reflected in

1299
01:11:25,240 --> 01:11:29,639
Speaker 1: the virtual one. Pretty awesome, and there was some talk

1300
01:11:29,760 --> 01:11:32,439
Speaker 1: for a while about whether or not the the d

1301
01:11:32,600 --> 01:11:35,040
Speaker 1: K two would incorporate this. They showed it off at

1302
01:11:35,080 --> 01:11:39,360
Speaker 1: c e S and there wasn't any guarantee that the

1303
01:11:39,479 --> 01:11:41,600
Speaker 1: d K two would have it. There's still not a

1304
01:11:41,640 --> 01:11:44,200
Speaker 1: guarantee that the consumer model, once it comes out, we'll

1305
01:11:44,280 --> 01:11:46,519
Speaker 1: have it, but there's a lot of hope because it

1306
01:11:46,600 --> 01:11:50,720
Speaker 1: does add to the significantly improved the experience exactly. Now,

1307
01:11:50,840 --> 01:11:54,160
Speaker 1: other companies have also announced since the time we we

1308
01:11:54,280 --> 01:11:56,680
Speaker 1: did that podcast that they are going to launch their

1309
01:11:56,680 --> 01:11:59,880
Speaker 1: own competing headsets. The two big ones would be Sony,

1310
01:12:00,160 --> 01:12:03,839
Speaker 1: which has the device called the Morpheus in development. Obviously

1311
01:12:03,920 --> 01:12:06,880
Speaker 1: that would be important because again the Oculus rift is

1312
01:12:06,880 --> 01:12:08,960
Speaker 1: meant for PCs. If you wanted to have something that

1313
01:12:09,040 --> 01:12:11,080
Speaker 1: had a console experience, you would have to go somewhere else,

1314
01:12:11,120 --> 01:12:14,439
Speaker 1: and so Sony Sony's approach is the Morpheus. Then you

1315
01:12:14,520 --> 01:12:17,479
Speaker 1: also have Samsung getting into this. They have produced a

1316
01:12:17,560 --> 01:12:21,280
Speaker 1: prototype headset, and they have not, at least as far

1317
01:12:21,320 --> 01:12:23,000
Speaker 1: as I can tell, there's been no release of an

1318
01:12:23,000 --> 01:12:26,000
Speaker 1: actual name for the prototype. They do hope to bring

1319
01:12:26,080 --> 01:12:31,000
Speaker 1: it out to market before either Morpheus or Oculus Rift

1320
01:12:31,040 --> 01:12:34,320
Speaker 1: go to the consumer market, so they're they're really fast

1321
01:12:34,360 --> 01:12:36,479
Speaker 1: tracking this to try and beat them to the punch.

1322
01:12:37,360 --> 01:12:40,599
Speaker 1: So I'll be exciting to see what happens. Yeah, definitely. Meanwhile,

1323
01:12:40,800 --> 01:12:44,760
Speaker 1: there are some more serious applications of this technology. Yeah,

1324
01:12:44,840 --> 01:12:48,080
Speaker 1: we're talking military applications. And uh so here in the

1325
01:12:48,160 --> 01:12:51,280
Speaker 1: United States, darpas using the Oculus Rift to help train

1326
01:12:51,439 --> 01:12:55,519
Speaker 1: soldiers in new techniques to fight cyber warfare. I read

1327
01:12:55,600 --> 01:12:59,679
Speaker 1: the story three times from Wired uh and uh called

1328
01:13:00,000 --> 01:13:03,040
Speaker 1: arepas using Oculus Rift to prep for cyber war and

1329
01:13:03,840 --> 01:13:07,679
Speaker 1: I don't get it. The idea is that they would

1330
01:13:07,680 --> 01:13:11,559
Speaker 1: actually be able to visualize things like a cyber attack

1331
01:13:11,680 --> 01:13:15,479
Speaker 1: on a network. So if you remember, like any movie

1332
01:13:15,520 --> 01:13:17,680
Speaker 1: from the nineteen eighties where you have a hacker try

1333
01:13:17,720 --> 01:13:20,040
Speaker 1: to hack a system, half the time it would show

1334
01:13:20,240 --> 01:13:22,840
Speaker 1: a like a three D first person shooter kind of

1335
01:13:22,920 --> 01:13:25,280
Speaker 1: model where you're going through a maze and then you

1336
01:13:25,320 --> 01:13:27,720
Speaker 1: see a skull and crossbones, Like, oh, you don't want

1337
01:13:27,720 --> 01:13:30,439
Speaker 1: to go through their hacker take the door to the right,

1338
01:13:30,520 --> 01:13:33,600
Speaker 1: which for some reason isn't protected, and that's how you

1339
01:13:33,680 --> 01:13:36,920
Speaker 1: hack into the system. Because Hollywood wanted to have and

1340
01:13:37,080 --> 01:13:41,479
Speaker 1: a visually entertaining way to represent this this process. Never

1341
01:13:41,600 --> 01:13:45,760
Speaker 1: mind the fact that hacking doesn't involve wandering through three

1342
01:13:45,800 --> 01:13:49,040
Speaker 1: person our first person shooter kind of environments, except now

1343
01:13:49,160 --> 01:13:53,559
Speaker 1: I totally could, which is weird. So it's making all

1344
01:13:53,640 --> 01:13:57,519
Speaker 1: of our nineteen eight streams come true. Yeah, well most

1345
01:13:57,600 --> 01:13:59,360
Speaker 1: of them. I've got a couple that you know, I

1346
01:13:59,400 --> 01:14:03,040
Speaker 1: still don't. They don't have my DeLorean. But anyway, pretty awesome,

1347
01:14:03,600 --> 01:14:06,439
Speaker 1: interesting implementation. Have no idea if it's ever going to

1348
01:14:06,960 --> 01:14:09,720
Speaker 1: catch on, but it is an interesting approach. Then you

1349
01:14:09,840 --> 01:14:14,000
Speaker 1: also have another one. This is the Norwegian Army looking

1350
01:14:14,040 --> 01:14:17,000
Speaker 1: into using the Oculus riff to improve, uh, the the

1351
01:14:17,240 --> 01:14:21,120
Speaker 1: situational awareness of people who are inside tanks. Now, as

1352
01:14:21,160 --> 01:14:24,280
Speaker 1: you can imagine operating inside a tank which is designed

1353
01:14:24,320 --> 01:14:27,200
Speaker 1: to protect the crew as much as possible, it doesn't

1354
01:14:27,200 --> 01:14:29,200
Speaker 1: have a whole lot of windows. Yeah, I don't. You

1355
01:14:29,280 --> 01:14:31,760
Speaker 1: don't want a lot of views to the outside world

1356
01:14:31,840 --> 01:14:34,280
Speaker 1: in a heavily armored vehicle. It tends to be a

1357
01:14:34,400 --> 01:14:37,840
Speaker 1: point of vulnerability. So what the way some of these

1358
01:14:38,000 --> 01:14:40,720
Speaker 1: UH tanks work is that they have cameras mounted on

1359
01:14:40,800 --> 01:14:43,280
Speaker 1: the outside and usually what you would have to do

1360
01:14:43,960 --> 01:14:46,559
Speaker 1: is you have a monitor and you would switch between

1361
01:14:46,680 --> 01:14:49,280
Speaker 1: camera feeds to see what was going on around the

1362
01:14:49,320 --> 01:14:51,560
Speaker 1: perimeter of the tank. Now, this is important for you

1363
01:14:51,680 --> 01:14:55,040
Speaker 1: to be able to assess the situation, see if there

1364
01:14:55,040 --> 01:14:58,360
Speaker 1: are any enemies or even friendlies near you, because obviously

1365
01:14:58,520 --> 01:15:02,240
Speaker 1: you know you're an enormous vehicle. You have to be careful. Well,

1366
01:15:02,760 --> 01:15:05,639
Speaker 1: what they're looking at is using the cameras that these

1367
01:15:05,680 --> 01:15:07,720
Speaker 1: four cameras that would be mounted to the outside of

1368
01:15:07,800 --> 01:15:12,040
Speaker 1: tanks and digitally stitching together all the camera feeds because

1369
01:15:12,680 --> 01:15:14,680
Speaker 1: when you when you add all of them together, you

1370
01:15:14,760 --> 01:15:17,519
Speaker 1: get a full three D sixty degree field of view

1371
01:15:17,760 --> 01:15:20,519
Speaker 1: around the tank. So if you digitally stitched them together

1372
01:15:20,600 --> 01:15:24,799
Speaker 1: and then feed that through the headset by by sitting

1373
01:15:24,840 --> 01:15:28,240
Speaker 1: down and facing forward in respect to the tank, so

1374
01:15:28,360 --> 01:15:30,240
Speaker 1: you're facing the front of the tank, you would be

1375
01:15:30,360 --> 01:15:32,240
Speaker 1: looking forward. If you turn your head to the right,

1376
01:15:32,560 --> 01:15:34,720
Speaker 1: it would start to pan your view over to the

1377
01:15:34,800 --> 01:15:37,200
Speaker 1: feed that's coming from the right side. And you could

1378
01:15:37,200 --> 01:15:39,880
Speaker 1: do that in three hundred sixty degrees create creating a

1379
01:15:39,960 --> 01:15:43,840
Speaker 1: hypothetically real time digital world that's actually the real world

1380
01:15:43,960 --> 01:15:46,439
Speaker 1: surrounding you. Yeah, so it's really it's really more of

1381
01:15:46,479 --> 01:15:49,680
Speaker 1: a video feed than a than a virtual representation. So

1382
01:15:49,760 --> 01:15:53,200
Speaker 1: you're actually seeing that what's really out there, but you're

1383
01:15:53,200 --> 01:15:55,800
Speaker 1: doing it as if there isn't an enormous tank all

1384
01:15:55,840 --> 01:15:58,720
Speaker 1: the way around you, which is kind of interesting. It did.

1385
01:15:58,800 --> 01:16:02,200
Speaker 1: I think that would also take some getting used to, because, uh,

1386
01:16:02,400 --> 01:16:04,960
Speaker 1: your perspective would be that you are the size of

1387
01:16:05,000 --> 01:16:07,640
Speaker 1: a tank, because when you look around, like the thing

1388
01:16:07,720 --> 01:16:09,479
Speaker 1: that's in front of you and the thing that's behind you,

1389
01:16:09,920 --> 01:16:13,120
Speaker 1: obviously that would be separated by the length of the tank.

1390
01:16:13,640 --> 01:16:17,000
Speaker 1: That's that's got to cause some cognitive dissonance. There's probably

1391
01:16:17,040 --> 01:16:19,000
Speaker 1: some some training you have to do in order to

1392
01:16:19,040 --> 01:16:22,720
Speaker 1: really get good at it. But that's super cool use

1393
01:16:22,800 --> 01:16:25,400
Speaker 1: of this technology too. I mean, obviously I want to

1394
01:16:25,439 --> 01:16:29,559
Speaker 1: see uses that don't necessarily involve warfare that would also

1395
01:16:29,680 --> 01:16:34,240
Speaker 1: be cool. But anything that can can improve people's ability

1396
01:16:34,320 --> 01:16:39,280
Speaker 1: to have situational awareness in various types of scenarios, to me,

1397
01:16:39,439 --> 01:16:42,120
Speaker 1: is an interesting application of something that's meant to be

1398
01:16:42,520 --> 01:16:45,599
Speaker 1: for playing games. Um, this is something we see over

1399
01:16:45,640 --> 01:16:49,360
Speaker 1: and over with virtual environment technology. In general, we see

1400
01:16:49,360 --> 01:16:52,200
Speaker 1: a lot of repurposing. Either we see it repurposed from

1401
01:16:52,320 --> 01:16:54,960
Speaker 1: some other field to be in virtual environments, or we

1402
01:16:55,040 --> 01:16:58,880
Speaker 1: see virtual environment technology repurposed for some other industry. Now sure,

1403
01:16:58,880 --> 01:17:02,800
Speaker 1: and hey, since military funding does frequently um jump start

1404
01:17:03,560 --> 01:17:06,679
Speaker 1: given technology, maybe it's good that these kind of projects

1405
01:17:06,720 --> 01:17:09,080
Speaker 1: are going on right now. That's true, all right, So

1406
01:17:09,200 --> 01:17:12,559
Speaker 1: that wraps up this update to the Oculus Rift. If

1407
01:17:12,600 --> 01:17:15,960
Speaker 1: you guys have any suggestions for future episodes, let us know,

1408
01:17:16,200 --> 01:17:19,040
Speaker 1: send us a message our email addresses tech Stuff at

1409
01:17:19,120 --> 01:17:21,559
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, or drop us a line

1410
01:17:21,600 --> 01:17:24,960
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Tumbler or Twitter. Our handles tech Stuff hs W.

1411
01:17:25,479 --> 01:17:28,960
Speaker 1: When we come back, we will be running new episodes. Uh.

1412
01:17:29,040 --> 01:17:32,479
Speaker 1: This for interest of full disclosure. If you were wondering

1413
01:17:33,360 --> 01:17:36,120
Speaker 1: why are you doing updates, well two reasons. One, we

1414
01:17:36,240 --> 01:17:38,960
Speaker 1: wanted to update these episodes. They really did seem like

1415
01:17:39,160 --> 01:17:41,320
Speaker 1: interesting news stories that we wanted to tell you guys about.

1416
01:17:41,520 --> 01:17:43,680
Speaker 1: And too, uh I was, I was, I was not

1417
01:17:43,760 --> 01:17:46,000
Speaker 1: in the office, so we had to we had to

1418
01:17:46,040 --> 01:17:47,960
Speaker 1: do something since I wouldn't be able to record. Yes,

1419
01:17:48,080 --> 01:17:51,559
Speaker 1: podcast hosts our humans too, um, I mean I mean

1420
01:17:51,640 --> 01:17:54,479
Speaker 1: most Okay, I'm gonna quote most of the time. Right, Yeah, no,

1421
01:17:54,640 --> 01:17:57,960
Speaker 1: there there are times where I doubt my own humanity,

1422
01:17:58,120 --> 01:18:00,000
Speaker 1: not to mention the humanity of some of our coworkers,

1423
01:18:00,520 --> 01:18:04,120
Speaker 1: but we do in fact enjoy taking vacations, and then

1424
01:18:04,800 --> 01:18:08,040
Speaker 1: at least the taking part the preparing for could be

1425
01:18:08,160 --> 01:18:11,320
Speaker 1: somewhat of a toil, but no, we of course love

1426
01:18:11,360 --> 01:18:13,679
Speaker 1: all you guys, so let us know what you want

1427
01:18:13,720 --> 01:18:16,719
Speaker 1: to hear and we will talk to you again. Released

1428
01:18:19,520 --> 01:18:21,920
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics because

1429
01:18:21,960 --> 01:18:23,200
Speaker 1: it how staff works. Dot com