Oculus Gear VR

Hello~ I am a student at Billy Blue and this where I will be discussing the Oculus Gear VR. Please help me complete my assignment by following and interacting with me!

[flaubilly-blog]

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[newsvi]

Virtual-Reality Headset Coming to Consumer Market

Consumers soon will be able to watch a movie, chat with friends or ride a roller coaster, all from the comforts of home. The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Kofsky takes us inside the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset, set to hit the market soon.

http://bit.ly/1bbwhJ2

[fell4]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4Zt3JZejbg)

[mikeshouts]

HTC dives into virtual reality, collaborates with Valve to develop VR headset.

Tech Culture and Lifestyle Stuff.

[flaubilly-blog]

I’m loving how so many of these headsets are being made. Can’t wait till most people can get their hands on them :D

[tondoeston]

Sony is developing a virtual reality headset  called Project Morpheus. Looks like I’m gonna have to get a PS4 cause it’s gonna get all .Hack//SIGN  / Sword Art Online up in here!

[flaubilly-blog]

Ohh another VR Headset to get excited about.

[flaubilly-blog]

My experience with VR

One word. Disappointed. Read on to find out why.

A few weeks ago I attended the Sydney Royal Easter Show only to be surprised that they had a VR goggle booth there! I was there mostly for the rides, show bags and animals so I had no idea they even showed tech, hence my excitement when I saw that booth. I was super excited and hyped to try the goggles on only to be disappointed with the experience.

I understand that it was not the Oculus Gear I was trying on, but it was similar as the goggles worked with a Smartphone. As soon as I put them on (thank goodness they worked with glasses) I was disappointed with the screen resolution. I wasn’t sure what phone they had in there but you could see every single pixel plus the home, back and menu buttons were still visible on the right side of the screen. I was expecting to see some pixels, but at least hide the menu bar! Also the field of view was just lacking. It did not feel like it had a wide field of view at all, it was just like seeing a large rounded square that was really close to your face, but magically, was still completely clear.

Talking about the demo they were showing, the goggles I got had a demo of a motorcycle game, and due to the game limitations I was not able to look around the environment which I was hoping I could do. The game was controlled by my head movements and tilting my head to the right would turn the motorcycle in the same direction. Now I’m not the best gamer out there, but I do play games once in a while and it was rather difficult to control. After a few tries I gave up (I would have tried longer but there was a line behind me), but I can imagine that it would be rather fun once you got the hang of it.

The movement of tilting, however was definitely awkward. At first I though you controlled the motorcycle by turning your head, but instead you tilt your head which in turn tilts the phone. It was pretty much like how you would play a racing car game by tilting the phone from side to side in order to steer the car. Maybe I was just expecting a lot of hi tech stuff but it felt no different from using your hands to tilt the phone except this time, it was strapped to your face.

Overall the experience wasn’t the best for me, I think it was either me being too hyped for VR, or they just didn’t use the right apps for the demo. The VR experience wasn’t as immersive as I would have liked due to the low screen resolution and a poor field of view and the game they chose was not the best either. This doesn’t stop me from being excited for VR though! Although I was disappointed, I’m sure that as VR becomes something that’s more main stream, there would be more devices out there providing better immersive experiences.

[fleshcoatedtechnology]

You Can See Them, They Can’t See you

Wearing a VR Headset on the Plane

You can turn on a pass-through camera on the Gear VR by holding down the button on the side of the headset if you’d like to see out, and this leads to strange interactions. I had a conversation with my wife while she was taking this picture, and it caused a few people around me to pull a double-take. Once it becomes clear that you can see someone through the hardware, even though they can’t see your eyes, people don’t seem to know how to react. I was very aware of how small my personal space was on the plane, and I didn’t want to make anyone else uncomfortable. Looking around in that manner, and being in constant movement, could have made my seat mates uncomfortable or have made it harder for them to relax. I stuck to Oculus Cinema, a program that allows you to watch your own video files in a sort of empty movie theater. 

 the plane fell away completely. My slight claustrophobia left me immediately; my brain thought I was in a large, completely empty movie theater. I was able to lean back, fold my hands in my lap, and watch movies on a giant screen by myself. It was relaxing.

the experience of being in virtual reality in an environment I often find very stressful? It’s magical. The Gear VR is now a mandatory piece of equipment for me when I travel.

[By Ben Kuchera, Polygon]

[samsungmobile]

The next wave of innovation starts with Gear VR.

http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/gearvr/

[mashable]

Samsung just revealed an awesome 3D camera for it’s virtual reality headset, the Gear VR. The camera can capture and live stream a gigapixel a second to the Gear VR. Amazing? Yes, yes it is. [via]

[flaubilly-blog]

Lazy Eye

People with Lazy Eye don’t fret! The cure for you is near and in the form of Virtual Reality :D 

So, during my research on the Oculus Gear, I came across this article on The Verge which looks at what the future of VR could possibly be. On the site there are two videos which I found immensely interesting and it talks about how VR is used to solved real life problems. The video about using the Oculus to help people with 'lazy eye' is what caught my attention because here we have a use of VR that is not just for entertainment, but for a medical purpose and it can potentially be implemented into the Oculus Gear for mobile use.

As the video explains, people with 'lazy eye' or Amblyopia are unable to perceive depth in their vision due to one eye being weaker than the other which forces the brain to only 'see' out of the good eye. In order to combat this problem most children who are diagnosed are forced to see out of the weak eye in order for the eyesight in that eye to improve. However, adults are unable to have this problem solved as their brains have matured and has already gotten used to seeing out of one eye. This is where VR comes into play.

The user sees the same object on the two screens inside the Oculus Goggles with the object seen in their good eye slightly darker so that the brain can focus on the brighter object that the weak eye sees. This allows the user to then see out of the weak eye and allow depth perception which they were unable to see before. The brightness of the object seen by the good eye can be adjusted until the user is able the perceive depth with both objects at the same brightness.

I think that this is great implementation of VR that is extremely helpful to people. Not only is it simple, but if it was accessible to users of the Gear VR, it could potentially no only be portable, but many people will have access to it. This is a great step into the future for VR and I'm excited to see it evolve even more.

For those who are interested, here's a link to the video I was talking about.

http://www.theverge.com/a/virtual-reality/video

[flaubilly-blog]

Full Immersive Virtual Reality

So I recently came by this piece of technology called the Virtuix Omni and it is pretty amazing. This is what I hope mobile virtual reality will eventually turn into. Take a look here: 

https://oculusvrgoggles.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/full-immersice-vr-experience/

[flaubilly-blog]

Oculus Gear DEMO

Here’s detailed video by Tested on Youtube who demo some apps and games available for the Gear VR. Go check it out!

[flaubilly-blog]

What came before the Oculus Gear VR?

If we want to talk about what came before the Oculus Gear VR Goggles, we need to first talk about what makes up the Oculus Gear. The device itself is essentially a pair of goggles that requires a smartphone to work. The smartphone snaps inside the goggles and together they allow the user to immerse themselves into virtual reality. The backbone of this system is the smartphone. The smartphone acts as the both the screen and computer to power the device. So strictly speaking, the Oculus Gear is just an extension of the smartphone.  Hence, to answer the question what came before the Oculus Gear VR Goggles, we need to find out what came before the smartphone.

A quick search on Google with “What did the smartphone replace?” brings up a whole page of articles listing a whole range of devices that your smartphone has replaced. Most obvious on these lists is of course the phone, but there are so many more. Torches, GPS, maps, notepads, calculators, photo albums, music albums, camera, timer, watches, alarm clocks, newspapers, magazines, portable gaming systems, voice recorders etc. Also with the installation of specific apps, the smartphone is also your bank, wallet, teacher (education apps), and possibly even your friend (hands up who converses with Siri). The smartphone has become a multipurpose device that merges all of the above technologies and more into one hand held device and the Oculus Gear brings it one step further to make it a virtual reality experience.

Of course virtual reality itself isn’t a new concept, in fact virtual reality can simply be “an artificial environment that is created with software and presented to the user in such a way that the user suspends belief and accepts it as a real environment. On a computer, virtual reality is primarily experienced through two of the five senses: sight and sound. “ [http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/virtual-reality]

The Oculus Gear VR Goggles takes this definition of Virtual reality further and allows the user to interact with their smartphone in 3D space.

[flaubilly-blog]

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