And All That Hype, Game Systems, Head Mounted Displays, VR Companies, Where Are They Now?
In 1993, Sega stood in front of the world’s press, showed off a $200 virtual reality headset for the Genesis, and then quietly strangled it in a back room. The official cause of death — and I need you to sit with this — was that it worked too well. The...
And All That Hype, Head Mounted Displays, Position Trackers, VR Companies, Where Are They Now?
Before the future had a price tag, VPL Research printed one anyway: $49,000. That was the EyePhone HRX, the deluxe model. The standard EyePhone was a comparatively thrifty $9,400, and the DataGlove — the one that let you point at things that weren’t...
And All That Hype, Head Mounted Displays, VR Companies, Where Are They Now?
In 1990, NHK’s Today’s Japan aired a dispatch from tomorrow. Tomorrow, it turns out, looked like a man in beige goggles waving a gloved hand at objects only he could see, while a narrator gently explained “artificial reality” to a...
And All That Hype, Around the World
The Fuji W1 already hit shelves in japan last year, but it took a while untill you could see it everywhere else. Now i got my very own one and tested it a bit. OK it is not really directly related to Virtual Reality and also not really an artifact i used my good old...
And All That Hype, VR Companies, VR Publications, Where Are They Now?
1994 marks the peak of what many view as the first “Big Bubble” in VR popularity. There were literally hundreds of (mostly) entrepreneurial startups taking a wild fling and what seemed to be a game-changing technology. You could strike sparks anywhere! By...
And All That Hype, Around the World, Head Mounted Displays
Two milkshakes make the whole issue of virtual reality motion sickness moot. There’s not much more commentary to add...
And All That Hype, Cybersex, In the Movies
According to several women writers, a hot hi-tech hiring wave will be seeking: Teledildonics Integration Engineers and API Programmers (FAPs.) While porn has been trying to edge into Virtual Reality Sex, and VR keeps trying to penetrate the porn market, maybe the...
And All That Hype, Game Systems, Head Mounted Displays, In the Movies, On TV, VR Companies, Where Are They Now?
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, of course.)...
And All That Hype, Cybersex, In the Movies, Stereoscopic 3D
Speechless!!...
And All That Hype
2013 has brought much excitement to the VR world, especially the perception of great breakthroughs in Head Mounted Display products. Can we take a deep breath, then hold up a distant mirror to the cautionary history of VR from 1993-1998. Back then there also was a...
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...
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...
