Tag: Virtual Reality

Virtual reality headsets use your eyes and ears to make things seem real, but the future of VR is all about incorporating the other senses. Researchers at Stanford University have our hands and fingers covered. They have come up with a way for you to virtually feel virtual objects, with the help of a weird robot. It’s called ShapeShift.

If you’ve ever strapped on a proper virtual reality headset like an Oculus Rift or an HTC Vive, you know how truly immersive today’s VR experiences can be. But there are still some things that break the illusion, like not being able to truly walk around, and the way things FEEL versus the way things LOOK.

What you’re looking at here isn’t some sort of torture device. It the ICAROS VR, a unique piece of exercise equipment. It will help you get fit and make you feel like you’re flying at the same time.

I’ve never been to New York City for the holidays, but I have seen plenty of movies over the years where kids have their noses pressed up against the glass store windows checking out all the displays.

There’s a good reason that most virtual reality is designed to be played while seated. Check out this video of some guy demoing the virtual reality rock climbing game The Climb for the Oculus Rift. It’s probably a lot of fun if you aren’t faceplanting super hard. It’s a good thing that Oculus Rift headset was on his face to break his fall a little bit.

If you visit the Kennedy Space Center you now have the chance to check out the surface of Mars, courtesy of Microsoft HoloLens tech. The augmented reality experience uses real images of Mars captured by the Curiosity rover, along with a guided tour by astronaut Buzz Aldrin and Curiosity driver Erisa Hines of Jet Propulsion Laboratories. The Destination: Mars exhibit grew from a scientific tool created by JPL and Microsoft that is used by international researchers.

Back in the ’80s, there were a bunch of places where you could go and play laser tag if you were so inclined. For kids of the future, laser tag will be replaced with sweet virtual and augmented reality games where you can shoot and run until your heart’s content.

PlayStation VR is Sony’s virtual reality headset that is set to compete with the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. They have been working on this VR system for a while and many are already set to buy it no matter the cost, but there has been one problem that we all have.

Kingspray is an upcoming game made to be played with the HTC Vive that will let you be a graffiti artist with all the conveniences of digital art and minus the law-breaking part. The game is still in development, but as you’ll see in the trailer below it’s already very promising even in its current state.

Last year, Tested co-founder Will Smith left the successful geek website to test the viability of virtual reality as a media platform. Now we can see his vision come to fruition. Will’s new show The FOO Show is a virtual reality show for the Oculus Rift (and soon for the HTC Vive as well). Will says they’re “using a suite of tools let us quickly and easily capture performances in VR using off-the-shelf hardware, like the HTC Vive and Oculus Touch (when it’s available).”

I’m not sure what to think of cats. I’m pretty sure as a species they are quite insane. I once saw my brother’s cat jump from the top of a massive pine tree just to spite the dog who had chased it up there.

With the arrival of the Oculus Rift and other virtual reality headsets, we’re going to get more and more experiences that fool us visually and aurally. But motion remains unconquered. A company called vMocion claims it got its hands on the technology that will bring the rest of our body to virtual reality. vMocion’s 3v platform is based on the work of the Mayo Clinic’s Aerospace Medicine and Vestibular Research.

A dude from Hong Kong has done something for his daughter that he might regret right about now. Dad of the year Newman Chan put her on her little pink push-bike, put a helmet on her, and proceeded to lift her up.

I’m not sold on virtual reality gaming just yet. It’s interesting to think of the potential, but I want to see some cool games before I spend my cold hard cash. If you are a PS4 fan and have been wanting to get in on the VR action early, today is the day when pre-orders for the Playstation VR Launch Bundle kick off. Launch bundle pre-orders start today, March 22 at 7am PT.

We’ve seen examples of virtual reality being used to project two-dimensional displays for a single user’s work or pleasure. A new company called BigScreen has come up with an application that enhances the social elements of virtual 2D displays by letting participants see each other’s computer screen. Currently in open beta, BigScreen lets up to four people share a virtual space and see what’s on each other’s computer screen.

Amsterdam is getting a unique and very cool theater that will have movie fans giving up stadium seating and a big screen for rotating chairs and goggles. The project is called The Virtual Reality cinema and it will use chairs that can swivel 360-degrees, Samsung Gear VR headsets, and surround sound via Sennheiser HD 201 headphones. The big screen will be replaced with Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphones.