Head Mounted Displays
The $200 Headset Sega Killed for Being “Too Real
In 1993 Sega cancelled its $200 VR headset and blamed the product for being “too realistic.” The truth, per the Stanford Research Institute: it made kids sick. Decades later, the one game it was too scared to ship finally runs — on somebody else’s headset.
The $49,000 Goggles: How VPL Pawned the Future to a French Arms Dealer
VPL Research sold $49,000 goggles, coined the term “virtual reality,” and still went broke — after pledging its entire patent portfolio to a French arms company and missing the payment. The gear was real. The receipts went to someone else.
They Sold the Future for $9,400 in 1990. It Weighed Five Pounds
In 1990, NHK’s Today’s Japan strapped a nation into the future: Jaron Lanier, VPL’s EyePhone, and a $9,400 headset that weighed five pounds. The pitch hasn’t changed since — only the housing color and who gets to own your face.
Oculus DK2 Lens – Characteristics
The Oculus DK2 is a remarkable VR headset, producing a remarkably wide field of view with very inexpensive single element optics. VRtifacts was curious about the characteristics of the Oculus DK2 lens: what size, what material, and what focal length? The lenses...
The State Of Consumer VR
Two milkshakes make the whole issue of virtual reality motion sickness moot. There's not much more commentary to add here...
Why Sell Out? Oculus -> Facebook
A lot of people are fuming over today's announcement that Facebook would be buying Palmer Luckey's Oculus. Palmer and company produced two mainstream marketed development kit head mounted displays which became darlings of the grassroots VR/Gamer community. Starting...
W-Industries Unscripted
W-Industries (Virtuality) always seemed to have a PR person riding herd on any video material that was released about the company or products. Everything the public saw was tightly scripted and edited. But... here's a 1992 video from...
Virtual Reality (1991) – “Many Believe It Will Revolutionize The Way We Live”
ABC Primetime covers the VR scene in Sept. 1991. Although this news report conflates computer animation footage with Virtual Reality, it also features interviews with Jon Waldern, Fred Brooks, Howard Rheingold, Mike McGreevey, and C L Dodgson (virtually,...
Vintage VR-4 Head Mounted Display Teardown
Here's a much more detailed tear down of the Virtual Research VR-4 Head Mounted Display, done by one of the engineers at VR sometime in 1994. He shows us how to remove the back light inverter and the main PCB. 'Scuse the vintage VHS EP mode recording. I...
Digital VR Rehab
For years, therapists would attempt to treat smokers and alcoholics using real-life triggers. Let addicts see a lighter or an empty bottle, or even a photo of something smoking or drinking related, to trigger cravings, then teach them coping strategies. It was limited...
Awesome VR Optics for 1″ Class Displays At Less Than Ten Dollars!
Professional wide field of view Virtual Reality optics for less than the price of a couple of double lattes! A while back I demonstrated a design for Leep On The Cheap, a proof of concept for wide field of view optics on 3" to 4" display panels. Trouble...
The Cart Before The Horse, Once Again – Project Glass
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...
Sega VR – Mighty Barfin’ Power Rangers (we are the 40 percent)
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...
Seeing the Eye in a New Light
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...
Eyeborg – Seeing farther…
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...