With 500,000+ Units Shipped, Google Just Got Serious About Cardboard
...they’ve made a big round of updates to their entire Cardboard project and presentation today, starting with a total revamp of their official Cardboard site—and they’re hiring.
For developers, Google has launched a Cardboard SDK for Android and Unity. They say it takes care of the following items, allowing developers to get started on game and app creation rather than toiling with VR-specific necessities:
- User head tracking
- Side-by-side stereo rendering
- Detecting Cardboard-only user inputs such as the magnetic trigger
- Automatic stereo configuration for a specific Cardboard model
- Distortion correction for Cardboard lenses
- An alignment marker to help center the screen under the lenses
- A settings button that links to the Cardboard app for managing headset parameters
“We’re keeping the hardware and software open to encourage community participation and compatibility with VR content available elsewhere,” the company notes on their SDK page.
Google is laying the groundwork not just for Cardboard, but for plenty of other VR smartphone adapters that are already available. It’s clear they they want Android to become the place for mobile VR. What will be interesting to see is how the relationship between Cardboard and Gear VR pans out. Both run on Android, but neither are compatible with one another.
See the full story here: http://www.roadtovr.com/google-just-got-serious-about-cardboard-500000-units-shipped/
Virtuix Closes $2.7M Investment, Finalised Omni Design to be Revealed at CES 2015
To date, the Omni has sold 3,500 units and expects to reveal the finalised product ahead of their Q1 2015 retail push at CES in January.
See the full story here: http://www.roadtovr.com/virtuix-closes-2-7m-investment-finalised-omni-design-revealed-ces-2015/
Dolby Launches Dolby Cinema
[Philip Lelyveld note: THX is a service that calibrates theatres for a quality audio experience. Dolby is looking to raise the quality of the entire in-theatre experience from walking into the space through the A/V experience.]
The projection system will deliver high dynamic range images. This new proprietary HDR technology with enhanced color uses two newly designed high-frame-rate-capable Christie 4K laser projection heads that feature a highly customized and unique light path. Combined with Christie’s 6P modular laser light sources, this technology delivers high-contrast images and ultra-brightness, which define Dolby Cinema. ...
Nimble Sense Nears End of Kickstarter Campaign, Reaches First $120,000 Stretch Goal
Nimble Sense, the hand tracking controller designed to work with head mounted displays, has surpassed its first stretch goal of $120,000,...
Now that the Kickstarter campaign has eked past its stretch goal, Nimble VR is expanding the device’s functionality (without overclocking it) and opening up the camera’s settings up to make it “a hacker/developer/computer vision-friendly camera.”
To keep within a nominal operating levels however (i.e. not lighting your head on fire) they’ve opted to keep the same power settings. To accommodate this limiting factor, they’re exchanging a lower frame-rate for a longer camera exposure time which will effectively give the device a longer viewing range. The team plans on supporting three specific ranges; 2.3ft/70cm, 3.25ft/100cm, and 4.92ft/150cm — most likely pushing the little USB device’s capability to the very edge of usability.
See the full story here: http://www.roadtovr.com/nimble-sense-nears-end-kickstarter-campaign-reaches-first-120000-stretch-goal/
“Nanobuds” Could Turn Almost Any Surface Into a Touch Sensor
Touch screens are usually made by overlaying a display screen with a transparent sheet of indium tin oxide. This material is brittle, however, and can’t be used on anything other than a flat surface.
Carbon nanobuds are better because the ball-like appendages are particularly good at emitting electrons, which improves those electrical connections.
Canatu has 40 prototype products in the works. It recently built its first full-scale manufacturing equipment, which can produce enough film to cover hundreds of thousands of smartphone touch screens every month. Next year the company plans to install enough machines to supply millions of smartphones.
The material isn’t a good fit for all applications, though. The conductivity isn’t high enough for very large screens, for example.
Inside Look at 3DRudder, Feet-Controlled Navigation Device Headed to CES 2015
And although it’s intended to be used while seated, the fairly compact USB device introduces a novel way of navigating 3D environments that could help bridge the divide between passive gaming and the ultimate ideal of full-body tracking in VR.
The 3DRudder is meant to entirely replace the mouse/joystick/WASD paradigm, and utilizes its flat top and rounded ‘weeble wobble’ base so the user can position their weight in any direction, allowing for 3D navigation through a virtual environment. Walking is as simple as lightly tilting the weight of both feet in the intended direction of travel: forward for forward and right for right etc.—to run, you just shift your weight a little more. Turning (yawing) is equally as simple, requiring the user to pivot the device, which we’re hoping doesn’t lead to any uncomfortable positions considering many of us sit in wheely office chairs that could negatively impact its usability.
The device also boasts several other degrees of freedom including up/down elevation and pitch (nosing up or down) and is probably where the ‘rudder’ part comes in.
See the full story here: http://www.roadtovr.com/new-feet-controlled-navigation-motion-controller-heading-ces-2015-3drudder-device-preview/
See it, touch it, feel it: Team develops invisible 3-D haptic shape (w/ Video)
The method uses ultrasound, which is focussed onto hands above the device and that can be felt. By focussing complex patterns of ultrasound, the air disturbances can be seen as floating 3D shapes. Visually, the researchers have demonstrated the ultrasound patterns by directing the device at a thin layer of oil so that the depressions in the surface can be seen as spots when lit by a lamp.
The system generates an invisible 3D shape that can be added to 3D displays to create something that can be seen and felt. The research team have also shown that users can match a picture of a 3D shape to the shape created by the system.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-12-team-invisible-d-haptic-video.html#jCp