Hands-on: Augmented and virtual reality come together in Sulon Cortex
[Philip Lelyveld comment: The Sulon Cortex is the first publicly displayed prototype to demonstrate that the line between virtual and augmented reality storytelling is going to disappear as technology advances. Virtual and Augmented are the two ends of a continuum of possibilities.]
If you thought VR headsets like the Oculus Rift and Gear VR looked funky, wait until you see the Sulon Cortex. On the front, it looks a lot like those headsets, but then it adds a bulbous growth on its backside. ...
But that bulb-like structure on the back has an important purpose: it houses multiple sensors (the specifics of which the company is staying tight-lipped on) that can map your surroundings. The team tells us that the headset can detect details about your environment – including how far away walls are and what other objects (like furniture) lie in between – and incorporate them into the virtual/augmented world that you see on its display. ...
In our demo, after strapping on the Sulon Cortex, an ordinary meeting room looked almost the same as it did without the headset, including the Sulon reps who were there chatting with us. But – what's this? – on one end of the room sat a swirling and glowing portal. This is, of course, demonstrating the augmented portion of the Sulon Cortex.
As for the virtual part? Well, after being egged on by the Sulon team, I walked through the portal and watched as augmented reality turned into virtual reality. Suddenly I was on a platform in the middle of a fiery pit, with no remaining signs of the meeting room. I could walk around freely (which, unlike with other VR headsets, means physically walking), but the edges of the platform designated where I could go without crashing into walls. ...
Walking through the portal again brought me back into the meeting room, and, while chatting with the Sulon team, I began to take the headset off. "But wait," they warned me, "what's that behind you?" Holy shitballs, the portal was still there, and the not-quite-slain Hydra suddenly emerged and enjoyed a crunchy Gizmag writer for a mid-afternoon snack (an unfortunate ending to a fascinating demo).
Soon a vicious Hydra emerged from the flames, and I was challenged to defeat it using hand gestures (the headset senses hand position and movement, down to the individual fingers). The gesture tracking was pretty clunky in our demo, but, again, this is a prototype and still a ways off from being a ready-to-roll consumer product.
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It can go full-on virtual, it can go augmented or – like in this demo – it can cleverly transition from one to the other, and back again.
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The completely wireless Sulon Cortex dev kit will be available in Q1 or Q2, and will cost developers US$500 a pop. You can read more at the company's page below.
See the full story here: http://www.gizmag.com/sulon-cortex-augmented-virtual-reality-headset/35485/