And All That Hype, Head Mounted Displays
Google has been tearing through the bandwidth over at the Patent Office in defense of Project Glass, April’s much touted announcement of Google’s entry into the world of augmented reality and head mounted displays. One especially clever patent covers their...
And All That Hype, Game Systems, Head Mounted Displays, Stereoscopic 3D, VR Companies, Where Are They Now?
Sega (all hail Sonic!): 1991 brought the announcement of Sega VR, a $200 headset for the Genesis console, a prototype finally shown at summer CES 1993, and consigned to the trash heap of VR in 1994, before any units shipped. Sega claimed that the helmet experience was...
And All That Hype, VR Publications, Where Are They Now?
Matt Novak, in Smithsonian’s Paleofuture blog, draws some interesting contrasts between Jaron Lanier’s 1991 Omni Magazine interview and his current book: “You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto.” While the Omni article portrays Lanier as...
And All That Hype, On TV, VR Companies
24 years ago Apple ran this advertisement predicting a tablet based voice assistant. The futuristic ad takes place in September 2011. With yesterday’s announcement of Siri, they missed their prediction by only one month (out of 24 years.) Wish all my engineering...
Head Mounted Displays, How-To; Teardowns; Tutorials
There’s been an enormous resurgence of DIY HMDs in the VR hacker community recently, some quite impressive. Understanding how the eye works is the key to these inventions. I found a really instructive 70 year old nugget which gives HMD designers the real...
Around the World, Head Mounted Displays
Rob Spence, had his eye replaced with a video camera after a shotgun accident. He then set out to make this incredible documentary about visual and limb prostheses. The concept of direct imaging to the brain and the incorporation of augmented reality has been much...
And All That Hype, Stereoscopic 3D
MAD Magazine, June 1954: DDD (3D) COMICS DEPT: By now you are familiar with 3-D Comic Books! You Know that some 3-D books enclose One set of 3-D glasses… You know some 3-D Books enclose Two sets of 3-D glasses! We are proud to announce that we of Mad are...
And All That Hype, Cybersex, How-To; Teardowns; Tutorials, Position Trackers
At the risk of overstepping any and all boundaries of propriety, here are complete do-it-yourself build instructions for an “incredible” haptic feedback interface for your Atari console. With a bit of soldering and epoxy, you can add force feedback into...
And All That Hype, Cybersex, Where Are They Now?
Harvey Newquist tires of waiting for the New York Post headline to scream: “Wife Dumps Husband For Cybersex Lover” or “Computer Casanova Seduces Virtual Valerie.” Money quote: Does the average person get to see or use any of this stuff? Can you...
Head Mounted Displays, How-To; Teardowns; Tutorials
From 1993: “Now you can go to Radio Shack, buy what you need, and build it yourself.” Robert Suding and the Virtual Reality Special Report provide specific instructions for building a stereoscopic HMD for $435. Interestingly the optics and prisms are quite...
And All That Hype, Game Systems, Head Mounted Displays, VR Companies
“Inside Jaron Lanier is a precocious eight-year-old who got together with some friends and built a spaceship,” wrote Howard Rheingold in his 1991 book, Virtual Reality, the definitive history of VR to date. “Now he wants us all to take a ride in...
And All That Hype, Around the World, Where Are They Now?
VR pioneer, Mark Pesce discusses the relationship between Virtual Reality and psychedelic substances. MAPS: Do you ever use psychedelics for problem-solving tasks? Where you have a specific question in mind, and then you take psychedelics in search of an answer? Mark:...
And All That Hype, Around the World
“Don’t shade your eyes; plagiarize!” (Tom Lehrer) Why VRtifacts matters. “I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would...
And All That Hype, Head Mounted Displays, In the Movies
From the 1995 made for TV B movie Evolver, check out their head mounted display of...
And All That Hype, VR Companies, VR Publications, Where Are They Now?
I wrote this for a 1991 Meckler conference presentation. Still smiling at my naivete! It’s tough trying to manage one of these businesses. Every time one of my vendors/bankers/landlord/ etc., asks what we do, and I say “Virtual Reality,” their...
