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Google WorldSense

Google have recently announced a standalone Daydream VR headset that will utilise the Tango Augmented Reality system, the way it does this is not with cameras around the room like with a HTC Vive, a head on camera like the Playstation VR but with camera’s built into the headset itself.

Calling this tech ‘World Sense’ it allows users to walk around in AR/VR worlds without the fear of walking into walls or falling down the stairs.

“The idea is that you have everything you need for VR built right into the headset itself, there’s no cables, no phone and certainly no big PC. The whole device is designed just for VR……..World Sense enables what’s known as positional tracking and with it your view in the virtual world exactly matches your movement in the real world. It works by using a handful of sensors on the device that look out into your surroundings, and that means it works everywhere, there’s no set-up and no cameras to install.”  (Head of Google VR Clay Bavor)

It does support the Daydream controller but it won’t be visible in the VR world nor will it interact with things that are in the Virtual world like much of the other VR systems available today.

Play Super Mario in real life!

The Microsoft Hololens isn’t out commercially yet but Abhishek Singh has shown what can be done with the ‘mixed reality’ headset. He has re-created Super Mario. Yes you read that right, he has re-created Super Mario in real life.

He has designed the classic 1-1 level from the original NES version of Mario. The video below was recorded directly from within the Hololens so we see exactly what Singh was seeing when he demod it.

See below the amazingness unfold:

 

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

Episode 197 Lucy Hedges Part 1

VR Only Job

Geekzonia a ‘Social VR platform’ is advertising for a job that is full time and based entirely in VR – A VR Events Host! You’ll be able to work from home, with all the necessary VR hardware supplied.

You’ll apparently be living in  “a 24/7 virtual reality comic-con filled with the latest geek content from movie studios, games publishers, TV networks and geeky brands.”

Geekzonia  is due to launch this summer.

Here is the FULL job description.

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

 

Microsoft Hololens

Ortis spoke in depth about the Microsoft Hololens in his interview with us, check out the video below to see him checking it out on the Gadget Show

 

To hear Ortis speaking about this with the guys please click here!

 

Episode 161 – Netflix Snobbery

VR Models!

An incredibly detailed piece of art was created recently entirely in VR and printed out via a 3D printer and the results are incredible.

Oculus Character artist Giovanni Nakpil posted an image of an amazingly detailed 3d printed model of an ogre that was modelled entirely in Oculus Medium, a VR Sculpting App. The model had exquisite detail and subtle colur graduations that left people stunned and some questioning if it had indeed been made entirely in VR on an app.

Nakpil said to Mashable:

“I did not do any sanding or any post-print work whatsoever,” says Nakpil, when asked if there were any post-3D printing touch-ups or sanding. “The smooth nature of the print comes from the resolution of the Medium model as well as the high-resolution settings from the 3D printer.”

To achieve such incredible detail Giovanni had to use a state of the art 3D printer, the Stratasys J750,  that is described as being one of the best in the world. It produces up to 350,000 colours and the company Stratasys have stated that it is “the world’s first full-color, multi-material 3D printer”

Apple AR Glasses?!

According to Tech Journalist Robert Scoble Apple are working on an AR set of smart glasses with German lens specialist Carl Zeiss to bring AR to the masses in 2017.

Scoble has written of Apple’s VR plans before back in November he said that Apple were planning on building a PrimeSense sensor right into the TV and into the iPad/iPhone to create some sort of mixed reality.  Primesense are a 3D sensing company, the same company who created the original Xbox Kinect – Apple acquired them in 2013.

Tim Cook has spoke of AR in the past calling that AR will be bigger business in the long term than VR,Cook told Good Morning America in Septembe:

“There’s virtual reality and there’s augmented reality – both of these are incredibly interesting…….But my own view is that augmented reality is the larger of the two, probably by far…..Virtual reality sort of encloses and immerses the person into an experience that can be really cool but probably has a lower commercial interest over time. Less people will be interested in that.”

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

Picture of Marcus Bronzy from the How To Kill An Hour Podcast

Episode 155 Nintendo Joy Con Chargers!