General Computer Stuff

Oculus Rift Imaginings

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I came across this and thought it pretty neat. GameTrailers.com does the top ten thing pretty often. In this case they are imagining which games they would like to see/play via the Oculus Rift. They make some interesting observations.

Oculus and Licensed Environments?
Oculus and Licensed Environments?

I am seeing lots of people suggesting that exploration games and virtual worlds are going to be more fun with Oculus… I suspect that mostly depends on the user. But, I’m looking forward to it.

You may not have noticed but, Myst was in the opening section. It is at about 20 sec in that you see a glimpse of Myst.

0:30 Amnesia – Looking around for what is after you… scary real. 

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Oculus Has Competition – SpaceGlasses

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Indigo Mertel posted on Facebook about these SpaceGlasses. cNet has an interview with the developer: Meta’s Meron Gribetz and the rise of the natural machine. But the fun part is the video.

[youtube b7I7JuQXttw]

In an earlier article I pointed out the rush all the companies are in to capture a part of the mobile market. Oculus is in the race for mobile market share too.

 

Oculus Rift Surprise

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I think most people that know about the Oculus Rift know that just a few months ago this was a small startup company trying to get crowd source funding. Now I see an article where one of the titans of the game world has come on board as the company’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

The video here is an older video. 1 hour. It is NOT related to the article about John as Oculus’s CTO. But, it has a load of information about the people involved with Oculus Rift and their accomplishments.

[youtube 8gaqQdyfAz8]

The titan is: John Carmack. Type “John Carmack” into Google and you’ll get about 1.9 million hits. That’s about two-hundred times more than me. John is considered a gaming pioneer, visionary, and somewhat a legend among gamers and game designers. He was the lead programmer on Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and others. 

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Bits & Pieces 2013-29

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The Kitey grid is adding a Market Place. Daniel Voyager had a bit about it. You can get the details here: Kitely Market Info.  It’s doors should open  in early September this year.

Second Life™ on an iPad is a bit of news. But, don’t get too excited. This is just a case of the iPad being used as a remote terminal to a desktop computer. There is a short discussion over on SLUniverse.

If you missed my article on the Microsoft Surface Pro running SL, check it out: Mobile Second Life.

VWBPE or Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education is starting up in Second Life July 24 to 27. The Lab is featuring the event in their blog. See: VWBPE Second Life. There is a parallel event by the same VWBPE group in Cloud Party, the same days.

Hair Fair 2013 runs to the 28th. It is popular. Just getting into a region can require patience. Also, I’ve had problems in regions I think need a restart. Regions seem to get horribly slow at rendering textures. Some regions just refuse to render staying gray.

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Mobile Second Life

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Everyone wants to use Second Life™ on a mobile device. I can see at times it would be handy. But, for an experience, we are staying on the desktop. I am pretty sure Oculus VR is not going to work well with a mobile device. On a mobile device it would walk you into walls… literally.

Pixysticks
Pixysticks

But, pixysticks has posted an interesting account and pictures of her experience with a Microsoft Surface Pro. See: Truly Mobile Second Life -> The Geekgasm. She is running SL on her unit with 25 FPS in a reasonably dense area of SL.

She says she is getting good results with Neverwinter, Guild Wars 2, and even the new SimCity. That is the advantage of a mobile device with an Intel processor.

Check out the post. Do note that she does not have Advanced Lighting enabled.

While this is not going to replace the desktop units for a quality immersive experience, it is the best mobile experience I’ve seen to date.

Thanks pixysticks, for posting.