Silicon Valley Virtual Reality holds its second Meetup
The second Silicon Valley Virtual Reality meet up took off to great success. More than 95 developers, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts filled a conference room at Hacker Dojo in Mountain View California. The event was filled with hardware announcements, new product presentations and the oh so sweet Rift demos everyone was excited to try on.
THE HIGHLIGHTS
-Philip Rosedale the creator of Secondlife and his team presented a new software application that has Oculus Rift support. His website highfidelity.io has a good description of what this new software is intended for; “We’re building a new virtual world enabling rich avatar interactions driven by sensor-equipped hardware, simulated and served by devices (phones, tablets and laptops/desktops) contributed by end-users”.
During his talk Philip announced that any developer interested in contributing to the source code of his latest VR project can directly access it here
“VR needs to be an open system- the code that we’re working on is on github.com” Said Rosedale during his talk.
-Professor William Provancher from the University of Utah demoed his Tactical Haptics Reactive Grip hardware technology. From his website :”The objective of this company is to commercialize haptic feedback technologies, including several technologies developed in his University of Utah Lab, the Haptics and Embedded Mechatronics Laboratory. The company’s initial focus is on commercializing the use of Reactive Grip™ Tactile Shear Feedback in the field of gaming”. I had a chance to try out the tactil feedback prototype and can personally vouch for the potential this technology has in the future of VR.
For more information on professor Provancher’s work you can follow the link below:
– Sixense wowed attendees of the first Silicon Valley Virtual Reality meetup with a demonstration of their MakeVR software. This time around Sixense announced that they are working on their newest wireless controller paired up with a mobile positional tracker a device so small you can clip it on to your belt so that games in the future can track your torso (or whatever body part you decide to clip it to). They demoed their controller prototype running Left for Dead 2 and in speaking during the QA, CEO and President Amir Rubin mentioned that the controllers would have as little latency and would be as precise as a computer mouse.
Some interesting points that were brought up during the discussion were the use and implementation of biometrics, haptic feedback and the potential applications for the clip on mobile tracker. For more information on Sixense, you can visit their website here.
-ConditionOne, demoed a film making and video application for the Oculus Rift. The company’s goal with this application is to create film experiences in which you will be surrounded at 360 degrees by the movie you are watching.
Visit ConditionOne’s website for more information on their projects. ConditionOne.com
-A small group developers at Hacker Dojo developed and demoed a ‘Virtual Tours’ application. Once you strapped on the rift, you found yourself in a white space with a few bubble type windows floating around. If you stared at the window long enough, the window would expand and transport you to the environment on the other side of the bubble. The environments were created using dslr cameras and I am personally really excited for what this software will look like on an HD Oculus.
Unfortunately I was unable to find a website for this up and coming group of developers, but rest assured I will be keeping track of where these guys take this exciting piece of software at the next VR meetup.
The meetup featured many more demos, a small group of enthusiasts brought their Rifts along with them and queues were being formed all around to try out the different Rift demos on display. Cymatic Bruce himself was letting people try out his own googly eyed Rift from his Youtube Channel.
CONCLUSION
The event went really well. The people were friendly and excited about the technology, the presenters had interesting things to say and display. Being there felt like you were part of something big, perhaps something historical? It’s a sensation that is hard to describe but you can sense something special going on in that room.
Huge thanks to Karl Krantz, Nana Usui and BJ Wooden for organizing and hosting the event. You guys are doing amazing work.
For more information on SVVR check out the meetup group site here.
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