360 rumors

With HypeVR's volumetric video capture, you can move inside a movie!  My friend Svend Even Hærra and I got to try it out at NAB Show 2017.  See the video! Hype VR consists of a 3D 360 camera rig comprised of RED cameras and a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) unit for depth mapping.  It can record a scene in volumetric video, which means viewers can not only look around, but they can also move around (with 6 degrees of freedom). HypeVR was demonstrated to the press at CES (I missed the presentation, darn it).  I finally got to see it for myself together with my friend Svend Even Hærra from NRK (Norwegian Public Broadcasting Station) at NAB Show 2017. HypeVR showed two scenes: a countryside scene from Vietnam and a football practice session.  The countryside scene looked particularly immersive.  To me, both felt similar to a VR game.  In particular, I think the Hype VR videos felt similar to  the Lab 's Postcards demo and Destinations , both...

Nolo VR (hands-on here) is a peripheral for mobile VR headsets that adds positional tracking.  They just posted a new video showing the system being used to run NVidia Funhouse, a Steam VR game for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift . Here's the video: In contrast to my hands-on experience at CES (where there was a lot of radio interference), the video appears to show only a little lag, if any.  Nolo VR said they used a Samsung S6 and Samsung Gear VR for the demo.

Nolo can add roomscale VR with motion controllers to any mobile VR headset, and it is also incredibly affordable. Current mobile VR headsets ( Samsung Gear VR ,  Google Daydream , and Google Cardboard) are limited to head tracking with 3 degrees of freedom.  You can move your head in any direction but it cannot track your forward-backward, side-to-side, or upward-downward movements.  Meanwhile, desktop VR systems ( Oculus Rift , HTC Vive , and Playstation VR ) have positional tracking with 6 degrees of freedom, but they cost much more. Nolo by LYRobotix helps to bridge the gap between mobile VR's affordability and desktop VR's more sophisticated tracking capabilities by adding 6 degrees of freedom to any mobile VR headset. Nolo consists of a base station, a head tracking unit and two motion controllers. It uses a combination of ultrasonic and optical tracking and RF signals to track the headset and two controllers in a space up to 13 feet by 13 feet (even larger than the ...

​​ At the Intel Development Forum 2016, Intel announced its new Project Alloy, a VR headset that I believe represents the next step in the evolution of VR.  A couple of weeks ago, Intel engineer Dmitri Diakopoulos tweeted an image of a modified HTC Vive headset that had a "unicorn" attachment to it.  The tweet was later deleted but not before the press picked up on it. Today, Intel​ revealed what it was really about.  Project Alloy is a VR headset that is totally wireless, has full positional tracking, and doesn't require any external sensors.  Moreover, it can track your hands and fingers, allowing you to interact with VR objects as you would with the real-world.  Intel calls it "merged reality," and it's made possible by two sets of Intel's RealSense depth-sensing cameras.  You can see from the press release that the prototype Project Alloy headset has two sets of vertically-oriented realsense cameras, just like the headset tweeted by ...

After much deliberation, I finally decided to get the HTC Vive the other day. Here is a preliminary review. I will cover these topics: Background and rationale Hardware and space requirements Where to buy Kids Components Setting up Using the Vive Games Compatibility with Rift games Photos and videos Disadvantages Preliminary evaluation TL/DR Executive Summary : For viewing 360 photos and videos, an HTC Vive is overkill, in my opinion, unless you want to set it up for a demo kiosk for a business.  But if you enjoy playing games (even casual ones), a desktop VR system will provide you with a unique gaming experience that you can't get on a non-VR PC or gaming console.  Among desktop VR systems, HTC Vive is currently the only one that is designed for room-scale VR, which makes it arguably more immersive.  Contrary to what I read about elsewhere, setting it up is actually simple and easy.  The Vive is also more comfortable than I expected.  Finally, low-...

Positional tracking is the holy grail of mobile VR because it is currently the biggest difference between mobile VR and desktop VR.  There have been many efforts to add positional tracking to mobile VR, such as the Stereolabs Zed system , and the Baofeng Mojing 5 . Vico VR is racing to be one of the first to make mobile VR positional tracking available to consumers.  Vico VR uses an external sensor but doesn't need a PC to control it.  Instead the sensor has its own processor that sends the 3D depth data wirelessly via Bluetooth to your smartphone. Here are some demos from Vico VR: Although the demos above show the VicoVR being used with a Samsung Gear VR (reviewed here) , VicoVR is also compatible with Cardboard, as well as any Bluetooth-enabled gaming platform such as AndroidTV or Apple TV. Vico VR is moving to market fairly quickly.  Theyv'e successfully completed a  crowdfunding campaign  recently.  The dev kit as available  now , and thus fa...