Hypergrid Business has an article up about the rumor that a free VR Gear head set comes with the preorder purchase of a Galaxy S7. The headsets go for US$100.
See: Rumor: Free Gear VR with Galaxy S7?
Maria sends us to 9 to 5 Google for details.
Hardware
WiFi & Performance
Lindal Kidd has an article up titled Ay-yi-yi! WiFi! It is about getting better performance for Second Life. Most of the article is right on. I think she makes a couple of omissions and forgets a point. But, it is an article worthy of some time to read. I’ll try to add some perspective.
What’s missing is something we geeks tend to gloss over, I suppose we assume most understand a rather esoteric point in our digital age. Bytes, bits, MB’s, and Mb’s…
Oculus Rift Retail Pre-Order DELAY
Word is out that the Oculus Rift consumer version can be pre-ordered for a mere US$600. :/
What I find today is that if you order now, you MAY get your Rift by June… That is six months. If you have already ordered, you should see yours get shipped to you in the March 28th shipment, 3 months.
No one is saying how many were ordered. Lucky Palmer only said they sold in 10 minutes what he thought they would sell in hours… not very definitive. But, it does indicates sales were several orders of magnitude larger than expected.
We are told the online order system went down, it overloaded.
See: Oculus Rift Pre-Order ETA is Now June for New Orders. (Jan 8 – Road to VR)
At this point I am waiting for reviews of the Oculus Rift that compare its performance to other HMD’s. Is it really going to be worth $400 more than the competition’s HDM’s?
I’m almost due for a new phone. So, I may trade my S5 for a newer S7… and start with Cardboard.
Second Lifer: How to Prepare for Project Sansar
We have seen the recommended specifications for using Oculus Rift that came from the developers; 2 USB3 ports, NVIDIA GTX 970 or AMD 290, Intel i5-4590, and 8GB RAM. (Reference) That leaves a lot of us behind. The Sansar Beta should open up in early 2016. So, maybe it is necessary we start looking at upgrading so we can be Oculus ready.
If you followed the link and read the article, you know this is the requirement for ‘sustained’ comfort and presence. It is not the minimum requirement. My Duo-Core2 Quad and NVIDIA 560 will power a VR headset, Oculus or other. How well, is the question. Will its performance be such that it will be likely to induce simulator sickness? Probably.
New Intel CPU Released
Intel has released its 6th Generation iCore processor. You can read all the Intel® hype here: Our Best Processor Ever. I just cover the interesting stuff for Second Life™ users .
They say this CPU “…brings an immersive computing experience that will forever change our relationship with technology.” That sounds like Virtual Reality (VR).
3 Reasons VR is to Fail Challenged
The Road to VR has an interesting article challenging 3 common ideas about why VR will fail. Well written and with rational challenges to the 3 common ideas about VR. See: The 3 Most Common Arguments Against VR and Why They’re Wrong.
One common thought about VR that I think has some merit is ‘gesture based’ control like Kinect is going to fail because users do not have enough room/space… or patience.