I can't help but laugh with glee a little when watching the video at <a href="http://www.oculusvr.com/dk2/" rel="nofollow">http://www.oculusvr.com/dk2/</a> , specifically at the part where John Carmack comes on.<p>I'm <i>still</i> so excited that he joined Oculus VR. When I see him in a video like this, it's like a giant "100% Guaranteed" stamp that this whole thing is going to eventually be everything we could possibly hope for.
A (likely terrible) idea that just occurred to me-<p>How cool would it be to use a VR headset to help you navigate a vehicle? Yes, I mean to say wearing this while driving essentially.<p>Given a fast/good enough sensor/input system, you could scan your environment, know the dimensions of your vehicle (I'm mainly thinking boats and huge trucks here) and be able to "see through" massive blind spots on your vehicle to enable for tighter maneuvering.<p>Imagine a boat. Sometimes with a large enough boat it can be hard to see all around it. And frankly, its almost impossible to see under it. But given depth finding/scanning and sensors, you could make it so you could see the virtual hull of the boat and anything under the water, making navigating through areas with dangerous stumps or other things under the water much easier.<p>Anyway, this is kinda silly... but neat to think about. Also, ordered one :)
Awesome news... on a related note, John Carmack had a couple of recent, Sony-related Tweets with regard to their Project Morpheus announcement:<p>"Trivia: I had suggested to Sony that they try to hire Palmer Luckey before the Oculus kick starter." [1]<p>"Calibrate PS4 VR expectations: a game that ran 60 fps on PS3 could be done in VR (stereo 1080 MSAA low latency 60 fps) on PS4." [2]<p>[1] <a href="https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/446122463747776512" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/446122463747776512</a><p>[2] <a href="https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/446271995668217857" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/446271995668217857</a>
Fresh new Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 FAQ is here:<p><a href="https://support.oculusvr.com/hc/en-us/articles/201835987" rel="nofollow">https://support.oculusvr.com/hc/en-us/articles/201835987</a><p>Here's an excerpt:<p><pre><code> Q: What is the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2, its features,
and what does it come with?
A: The Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 (DK2) is a development
kit meant for developers that want to create virtual reality
content for the upcoming consumer version of the Oculus Rift.
New features:
- Positional Tracking
- Low Persistence OLED Display
- Built-In Latency Tester
What’s included:
</code></pre>
[...]
Tested.com got their hands on one at GDC 2014. They interviewd Nate Mitchell and did a short review in this video
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d3Wli7s6KY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d3Wli7s6KY</a>
For those that have the first dev kit, how appropriate is this for a curious engineer who wants to play with Alpha titles? It is hard for me to imagine a scenario where I would actually have the time to develop something, but man, playing with it seems well worth $350.<p>Am I going to be disappointed in what is available?
Does the latest versions make people sick after prolonged use?<p>How similar does it feel to looking at real far away objects? Is it easy to tell it's not 3D and the screen is flat?<p>If I tied a passed out "friend" up and put on the Oculus Rift glasses and played a movie of them being thrown out of a helicopter from 1st person, would they be able to tell that it was fake or is there a perceived feeling of it being real?
Ordered! Being as this is a developer kit and I am a developer I guess I better develop something for it :-)<p>Just super happy to be getting my hands on one... I think this thing is going to change the world.
No doubt it's going to be fantastic.<p>I used my DK1 to death, tried every demo I could. Palmer is a pretty frequent poster on Reddit (they even got an early DK2-order heads up, before the e-mail went out), and it became fairly obvious a big announcement was coming at GDC. On that, offloaded my DK1 for $500 here in the UK just last week.<p>The positional tracking and the low-persistency display have what we've all been screaming for, and IMO is what's made, most people I've seen, feel sick.
Maybe a stupid question, but: I'm not a game dev nor even a gamer, but I kind of want to buy a dev kit. How well will it work with a rMBP, and are there lots of fun demos already available?
Generally not an early adopter, but after backing, using and being blown away by the original kit this was an easy decision.<p>Interestingly, the checkout page reflected my Oculus Store Credit discount, but the confirmation email I received did not.<p>Can't wait.
It's beyond commendable that Palmer et.al. seem to have no problem at all employing people smarter than he is wherever they can be found and enticed away from what they are doing. I've gotta wonder, though, if he's looking up at everyone around him and seeing not only stellar talent but stellar ambition and ego how he'll stay on top of it.<p>I've got a DK1 and had a whole lot of fun with it despite its laughable resolution but as much as I want to play with the DK2 and follow application development (which is all I'm capable of) I'm going to await the store shelf version. I think. :-)
My dream device:<p>Take the Razer Edge - a little 10" gaming tablet. Create a keyboard peripheral that can be attached to the Edge at any angle - it can be used as a laptop or a tablet, or:<p>Put the keyboard <i>next</i> to the tablet, laid flat. Then emulate a mouse-input with the touchscreen - a full 10" mouse-pad-like area for your fingers to simulate a mouse - your middle-finger is the mouse-position and you can l-click and r-click with your ring and index fingers a-la magic trackpad. Boom, we've got a lapboard keyboard/mouse.<p>Then use the Rift with that. The ultimate <i>portable</i> PC gaming experience.
Dev Kit in the news: <a href="http://techwatching.com/page.php?i=22975" rel="nofollow">http://techwatching.com/page.php?i=22975</a><p>vs Sony: <a href="http://techwatching.com/page.php?i=22780" rel="nofollow">http://techwatching.com/page.php?i=22780</a><p>Oculus' focus is on latency; Sony's looks like its on packaging. At least Sony has cut its lead time on cloning other's products, compared to Sony's "Move" following the Wii.
Does anybody have experience using the Rift with the Ibex window manager[1] (esp. on OS X)? Or another similar solution? I'm very interested in using it as a gigantic monitor!<p>[1] <a href="http://hwahba.com/ibex/" rel="nofollow">http://hwahba.com/ibex/</a>
> <i>"you now connect the headset to your computer using a single cable that includes an HDMI and USB connection"</i><p>My computer only has a mini-displayport port. Does anybody know if a minidp->hdmi adapter would be suitable for this HDMI/USB pairing?
I don't know what the center of gravity is for that thing, but at a glance, what about the idea of less (or less tight) strap, more counter-weight on the back?<p>P.S. Although that would represent more mass to accelerate/decelerate with head movements...
Am I the only one who thinks the motion sickness is something good? Like, "it feels so real that you get motion sickness" and that the new version feels less realistic. I hope I'm wrong though!
any particular languages that you should be good at to deal with this dev kit? my dad codes a lot in c/c++, i want to buy him this as a surprise gift
So is selling stuff before it actually exists the new norm?<p>I get it when you have a kick-starter, but when you're already established doesn't it come off as a bit shady and scummy?<p>Are they low on money and desperately need to cash-in asap?
Are they worried their product will be poorly reviewed b/c they aren't confident in the quality - so they're trying to lock-in buyers?<p>EDIT: I'm just putting out the question "Why do they have a preorder system? What's the rational behind it? Why just announce it when it's available?"<p>Preorders are a way of locking in buyers. You can trick a few people into buying it, that may have otherwise not bought it when it was actually released (maybe due to negative reviews, or a change in their financial position). Except... why would you ever want to do that with developers? So why are they trying to do that? I don't get it