Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen people use the Oculus Rift to simulate beheadings. BeAnotherLab used the virtual reality headset for something less morbid but no less interesting. The organization’s The Machine to be Another was an “artistic investigation” in which the Rift was used to give participants first person views from actual people.

In one experiment, participants were told to direct the movements of a performer – if they moved their hand, the performer would move their hand as well, if they walked, the performer walked etc. The participant wore an Oculus Rift, through which he or she saw real time footage from a camera mounted on the performer.

The participant could also make the performer pick up objects scattered throughout the experiment area, at which point the performer would say something about the object they picked up. It was like a first-person video game, except you’re controlling an actual person and exploring the real world.

In another experiment, two participants – one male and one female – became each other’s performer. The pair had to synchronize their movements, which is why you can see them being slow and tentative in the video below. The idea was to put the participant in the body of the opposite sex. Note that the video below contains nudity:

Amazing isn’t it? Perhaps studies and experiences like this will be a lot easier to pull off when computer graphics become more life-like. Imagine you’re a browser and head to The Machine to be Another website for more information.

[via The Verge]

There’s a bit of chatter surrounding the Valve event series going on this week inside the virtual reality landscape, starting with what’s called SteamVR. This system was introduced in beta … Continue reading

I’ve had a few opportunities to play with the Oculus Rift head-mounted VR display over the last year or so, but most of the demonstrations I’ve tried have focused on gaming applications. On the other hand, Ford is using this technology to help designers visualize the interiors and exteriors of new vehicles.

The demonstration, which used a combination of a rare full HD prototype of the Oculus Rift goggles, along with VRED industrial design software from Autodesk allows wearers to sit in a full-scale virtual model of a vehicle.

When wearing the Rift, your can sit inside the vehicle and look around to see every minute detail of the car or truck’s interior, and you can also look at it from outside.

While the demonstration I tested out didn’t let you actually walk around the vehicle, the version being used at Ford’s Design Center is capable of this.

Even if virtual reality doesn’t provide the tactile feedback of working with clay models or prototype vehicles, it does permit designers to test out vehicle layouts at very early stages, as well as to quickly test modifications. As the Oculus Rift continues to improve, and gets closer to a final commercial build, I can only imagine these sort of simulations getting more and more realistic.

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So the Oculus Rift is fantastic. If you’ve used it in its original incarnation, you know that it’s incredible. It’s virtual reality done better than you’ve ever seen it before. It’s revolutionary. And it’s nothing compared to what’s coming next. I mean Oh. My. God.

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