Virtual World News

Oculus Rift Retail Pre-Order DELAY

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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 Life in the News Week 42

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Second Life is part of a presentation at the Burlington Performing Arts CentreI (Burlington ON, L7S 1T7). The performance calendar describes it this way:

Tottering Biped @ Burlington Performing Arts Centre - Oct 2015
Tottering Biped @ Burlington Performing Arts Centre – Oct 2015

The online virtual world of ‘Second Life’ stretches thousands of kilometers and millions of visitors. While searching for her lost sister, Jessica struggles to find out what – and who – are real. Life and its double are at stake in this multi-media exploration of loss in the digital age. The Second Life was devised by the company through workshops with light, movement, and text over a four-year period. The Second Life explores the increasingly fluid relationship between the real, the digital and the spiritual.

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How Virtual Worlds Will Take Over Real Life

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From a speech by by Philip Rosedale, former Linden Lab CEO – 28 minutes. Philip uses Second Life to show what is happening in virtual worlds and how it will affect society. His thinking is interesting and in some ways a bit scary.

The video is the basis of an NPR show TED Radio: Why Build a Virtual World? Follow the link to see the video. I can’t embed it, only the audio portion, which is 9 minutes. The video and audio have different content. Both are interesting.

NPR/KPBS presented a radio show titled Screen Time. Philip Rosedale was a guest for the show. The audio above is also here: KPBS: Screen Time. The video is where some of the sound track for the show came from. The video is more interesting than the audio. The radio show has more context and less content, the audio is only 9 minutes long. It is worth checking both.  

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Who is Winning the Virtual Reality Race?

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The financial people think it is Facebook and Apple that are positioned to win in the Virtual Reality War. But, it won’t be a fast war. It will last years.  Quoting Chris Ciaccia :

[A] Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster stated that virtual reality is likely the next key trend in technology, writing, “We liken the state of virtual and augmented reality today as similar to the state of mobile phones 15 years ago. It likely will take a decade before mainstream adoption as necessary improvements in displays and applications as well as lower pricing are needed to drive demand.”

Breaking bad$$$$
Breaking bad💵💵💵💵 by pokute Burt, on Flickr

They expect new virtual everythings to open up; gaming (obviously), live sports, concerts, immersive cinema and social experiences will have a VR version. The article, Facebook and Apple are Poised to Win the Virtual Reality Wars, gives us, at least me, some new ideas about VR can be used.

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Second Life & Virtual Reality

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We are getting closer to hands on. The Oculus Rift is to release in the first quarter of 2016. At this point I think the first round of pre-release technical challenges has been met. So, any possible delay would be from manufacturing and supply problems.

Now that the Samsung Galaxy S6 is in production the supply of display screens for the Oculus should be adequate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5XVq4NLnwk

Unity and Unreal, game engine platforms, are both announcing support of HTC RE Vive. This means game developers can move away from having to develop support for the various VR headsets and use the support provided by Unity and Unreal. This saves developer’s time and means new games will move through the development pipeline faster. 

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Magic Leap – Google’s World?

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Magic Leap

Yahooo is working on a virtual reality product. So, it should come as no surprise that Google (et al) is working on one too, or at least investing in one to the tune of half a billion dollars. To get an idea of what the investors are thinking check out this video. In the video below, you never see the scare, just the reactions.

In the video the people know they are in VR. Imagine putting on augmented reality glasses, a Google thing already, and having the scary monster in the room with you…

Cierra Anatine, at SLUniverse, points readers to an article about that project. The article has quotes from people in tech and entertainment. I think they have been reading the comments about Oculus Rift and are subconsciously quoting… all sounds very familiar. 

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