Daily Archives: March 4, 2017

As Ive been reminded many times this week, were coming up on the one-year anniversary of PC virtual reality, and both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive are shaking things up to celebrate. The Rift got a $200 price cut, the Vive got a brand-new financing plan.

If we chart the progression of video games from Spacewar and Zork all the way through to 2016, then the HTC Vive is the next logical step towards realism. Read PCWorld's full review

But HTC has much bigger changes on the horizon. One of my favorite aspects of the Vive has been HTCs willingness to experiment with the hardware, post release. The Rift and Oculuss optional Touch controllers have remained essentially the same since 2015.

The Vive, though? First came a new cable, which replaced the launch version's heavy tether with a slimmer 3-in-1 cable that resembled the consumer Rift. And in the future, two further additions are coming to the Vive ecosystem: the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap and the Vive Tracker.

HTC announced the Deluxe Audio Strap and the Tracker at CES, and even stuck a price on the pair earlier this week. Theyre $99 each, with the strap arriving in May and the consumer Tracker towards the end of the year.

I got my first chance to go hands-on with the pair this week at the Game Developers Conference. And while the Tracker is arguably the bigger news, at least in terms of raw potential, its the Deluxe Audio Strap Im most excited about.

Its so damn comfortable.

The Vives incredibly powerful, but its design was rudimentary even at launch. It was basically equivalent to Oculuss second dev kita bulky pair of goggles held on by a three-part elastic strap. Problem 1: Adjusting the straps is cumbersome. Problem 2: The Vive itself is heavy, so the elastic doesnt hold it as still as youd like. Problem 3: If you overtighten the straps so it moves less, it turns your face into mashed potatoes.

Compare that with the consumer version of the Oculus Rift, which uses a rigid plastic band to both offset the weight and keep the headset more stable. Andwell, HTC has borrowed that design for the Vive.

The Deluxe Audio Strap somewhat combines the more rigid designs used by the Rift and Sonys PlayStation VR. It slips onto the head like a baseball cap; the front portion folds down in front of your eyes, and thenand this is the real magicit tightens by way of a wheel in the back, like a bike helmet. No more Velcro straps.

The HTC Vive with Deluxe Audio Strap. It makes a major difference in usability.

It takes mere seconds to get the headset on and adjusted, and it stays adjusted thanks to the more rigid design. Looking down towards the ground is surprisingly difficult with the Vives current elastic bands, because the weight of the headset tends to pull it away from your eyes unless you overtighten. But with the new Strap, theres no movement at all. Its as good as Oculuss headband, or maybe even a bit better thanks to the generous padding around the sides.

And the Deluxe Audio Strap also matches Oculuss other killer feature: the built-in headphones. When Oculus first announced that the Rift would come with built-in headphones it seemed silly. Most people own better headphones than the ones the Rift is equipped with.

It soon became clear that built-in headphones remove a lot of the hassle, though. Theres less weight to deal with, less futzing around trying to figure out where you set them down, less steps between thinking about VR and being in VR.

So again, HTC borrowed an idea and the Deluxe Audio Strap draws its name from the built-in headphones. And again, the Vives seem a bit better than Oculuss solutionmore padding, a less scratchy material on the ears, and easier to move into place.

Now the downside is, of course, that the Deluxe Audio Strap is being positioned as a Deluxe item. An add-on. It doesnt annoy me as much as, say, Oculus positioning Touch as optionalthat has a direct impact on what games developers make and the health of the VR ecosystem. The Vives new strap is a somewhat superfluous item, at least as far as developers are concerned. A person with built-in headphones and a person without still have essentially the same experience.

Butand its a huge butI think the Deluxe Audio Strap will be a must-buy for most people. Even after my brief time using it at GDC, Im already dreading going back to my Vives old elastic bands and cumbersome adjustment process, plus having to grab headphones each time I use it for the next few months.

The Deluxe Audio Strap is more comfortable, more reliable, and probably what the Vive shouldve shipped with to begin with. Well have an actual review up when it releases in May, after spending a lot more time with it, but right now I think anyone who wants the best Vive experience is going to want one of these.

The Vive Trackers a bit more complicated, at least for home users.

I should say up front: Both of the Tracker demos I did during GDC were excellent. First I tried a pair of shooters brought to the show by VRsenal, and then a few rounds of boxing game Knockout League. The Vive Tracker is basically the top of one of the Vives wands, and is position-tracked by the same Lighthouse systembut it can be built into custom peripherals.

And that was the catch with these demos. VRsenal strapped me into one of MSIs backpack computers, put a Vive on my head, and then handed me a gun that wasnt real, but real-looking enough that you might not want to carry it down the street. It also was surprisingly heavy, mimicking the feel of an actual assault rifle.

Theres a Vive Tracker embedded where the rear sight would normally be though, and thus its fully position-tracked within gamesjust like a standard Vive wand. Aiming felt completely natural, and I had a great time crawling around on the floor, leaning over imaginary walls and sniping robots. You can even reload the VRsenal gun, since the battery is hidden inside the magazine. Press a button, pull it out, and youll see the MicroUSB port inside. When its done charging, you slam it back in.

Knockout Leagues Trackers were a bit more conspicuous, drilled and mounted on the back of standard boxing gloves. It worked similarly though, with my real-world boxing gloves mapping 1-to-1 with the boxing gloves I wore in virtual reality, allowing me to (poorly) bob, weave, and throw haymakers at my opponent.

Its really amazing tech and Im fascinated by all the approaches were seeing from manufacturers. There are a few problems though.

A glove with a Vive Tracker attached.

The first, of course, is the age-old question, How many peripherals do you want in your house? Im sure many of you have (or had) a closet full of Rock Band and Guitar Hero gear, and while its great fun in the moment, eventually its just a bunch of stuff you try to store out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

Related: How much are you willing to spend on weird peripherals? The Vive Tracker will be sold to developers for $99 each. Expect peripherals to cost at least $150 to $200, and given the quality of VRsenals gun, I bet that would be even more expensive. Sure, VR is a pricey hobby and some people are no doubt willing to pony up, but its going to be hard for manufacturers to get custom peripherals into peoples homes.

Arcades? Thats the real sell here, I think. HTCs made no secret it wants to expand into arcade-type settings, giving operators a subset of software and charging a flat rate for every hour played. With the bigger spaces afforded by arcades, and the need for a unique and impressive experience, it makes more sense for business owners to buy a few position-tracked guns, some boxing gloves, or whatever else manufacturers imagine.

That audio strap, though. Its so nice, and I cant say it enough. Hopefully there arent any glaring issues with the final releaseas I said, well need to spend more time with it before rendering a verdict or giving an official recommendation. Im excited though, with my Vive experiences this week being way more comfortable over long periods of time than anything Ive done at home.

Well just have to see what developers dream up with the Tracker. There are all sorts of potential applications, and I cant wait for some random genius to generate the next big wave of VR enthusiasm with a custom-built controller.

Read more:

Hands-on: The HTC Vive's new VR accessories make virtual reality even more immersive - PCWorld

We're live at the Game Developers Conference all week, with news, interviews and livestreams direct from San Francisco.

The key to virtual reality succeeding commercially on a global scale may lie in the hands of a team of volunteers working to create a royalty-free standard.

But the clock is ticking.

Were trying to do this as fast as we can, said Nick Whiting, who is the chair on the working group trying to come up with a solution. VR headsets are already out there and have been out there for a year. We want to do something as soon as possible, this isnt a long-term project.

The Khronos VR initiative is the latest effort by the Khronos Group, an American nonprofit that focuses on creating open standards for technology. The group, which was founded in 2000 by a collection of powerful tech companies, previously helped to create or oversee a variety of royalty-free, open-standard application programming interfaces (APIs) such as OpenGL, Vulkan and WebGL.

The group held a gathering at the 2017 Game Developers Conference this week to discuss virtual reality and its OpenXR initiative, which aims to create open standards for VR, augmented reality and mixed reality.

A key issue, though, is that there are already multiple standards being used that are tied to developing for headsets from Sony, Microsoft, HTC and Valve, and Oculus.

Whiting said that the key is that all of the systems already require a relatively similar deep tech stack to work, and that the OpenXR working group hopes to create a royalty-free, open API that will be common to all the headsets.

A bunch of us on the software and hardware side realized there is a lot of common group and that people are reinventing the wheel, Whiting said. There is this gigantic web of dependencies. So we decided it would be a good idea to create a single API.

Those involved, like Oculus, Valve, Google, Nvidia, AMD, Unity, Epic and Samsung, agree that the API shouldnt be owned by a single company. Two notable companies not listed as members are Microsoft, which recently floated its own API, and Sony. Weve reached out to both for comment.

The group of those involved seem to realize that the market is so relatively small right now that they need to come together to ensure that it is as easy as possible for a developer to create VR experiences across all existing platforms.

The big concern we see at Epic is that the VR market is a little nascent, said Whiting, who is also the technical director of AR and VR at Epic Games. Its not necessarily large enough numbers to support a big game team.

Were hoping through standardization that might change.

The group announced the Khronos VR initiatives name last week, along with a call for standardization.

VR and AR have experienced a boom of interest recently, and with that, a flood of hardware and software companies have begun spinning up efforts in the field, Khronos said in a news release. While variety is great, the growing number of devices, each with their own incompatible APIs is increasing fragmentation.

The key issue now, Whiting said, is timing.

The group has to move fast, but before it can create the API, it needs to make sure everyone can agree on what common bits of the software should be included.

Once it rolls out, Whiting believes it will be a large component of virtual realitys commercial success.

Coming from Epic, the biggest thing I see is developers trying to decide which device or market they should target, he said. They have a game or an experience to make but dont know where to bring it.

Were trying to make the market more viable by combining all of these smaller markets.

Link:

Virtual reality's success could ride on a new initiative discussed at GDC - Polygon

Photo: Kai Wiechmann/Getty Images

As virtual-reality headsets make their way into the mainstream, a new wave of VR pornography allows viewers to embody porn stars while they have sex with one another. But making this porn presents new challenges starting with the fact that few male performers can maintain erections through stupendously difficult VR-porn shoots.

For this weeks Sex Lives podcast, I watched VR porn for the first time and was, well, horrified. But Vocativ staff writer Tracy Clark-Flory has a more optimistic view. Shes been hanging out on VR-porn sets, and testing VR porn, webcams, and interactive experiences for years. As she tells it, one of the biggest surprise of VR porn is that viewers dont actually want the horrifying stuff they want to be cuddled. Listen to Tracy explain the paradoxes of virtual boners, or read a few tales from the wild world of virtual porn, below.

This is a partial transcript of New York Magazines Sex Lives, edited for clarity and length. To respond with a voice message, call 646-494-3590.

Youve written that the demands of performing with this technology are having some crazy effects on whos able to perform, and the way they perform?

A major issue for people who have ventured into this new territory is theyre finding that tried-and-true male performers who have been in the industry for decades who can literally perform under the craziest circumstances, like, standing in a pool of cold water, perched on a rock in the middle of a baking desert, no problem! but you put a VR camera rig in front of their face, and you tell them that they cant make eye contact with their co-star, and that they cant kiss their co-star, and that they cant touch their co-star with their hands, and they cant maintain an erection. Understandably, because youre totally taken out of the experience and you sort of become this sexual object that someone [else] is performing on. So directors are finding that guys who had been reliable in other situations are no longer reliable. Theres only a handful of guys who are actually able to reliably do this kind of shoot.

Its the ultimate objectification, except the point of the objectification is that they arent an object, right? They become an invisible body, for anyone to project onto.

Its a weird turning of the tables for men in the industry, because theyre used to being the actor. And the women in porn not always, but often are used to being a little bit more passive.

What is it doing, do you think, to the story lines or the type of fantasies that we get from porn?

Everything that Ive heard from directors who are doing VR is that male viewers, in particular, really want more of a girlfriend experience with VR. So they want it to be very intimate. They want eye contact. They want close faces whispering sweet nothings. They want, even, cuddling. I was on a set recently where at the end of the shoot, the director had the woman cuddle up on the guy just lay her head on his chest for a minute and just cuddle.

And gaze up into his eyes? Or the cameras eyes, I guess?

Yeah, exactly, gaze into the cameras eyes. Ive heard porn performers, especially porn performers who are doing like webcamming, and that suddenly their fans are going, Wow, youre a real person. It changes their perspective entirely.

As youve been watching this industry take shape over the years, how has it changed? Have there have been interesting trials and errors or surprises?

In terms of VR, its so new that youre still seeing a lot of trial and error right now. Like, one example, on a shoot I was on, a female performer, without prompting by the director, decided that she was going to experiment with trying to French kiss the camera. So she went up really close to the camera and French kissed the air. And it looked like very bizarre and required a lot of commitment on her part, to really do it. And afterwards she asked the director, Was that weird? Did that work? And the director is like, I think maybe? But so much of it is waiting to see how viewers actually react.

I watched VR porn from a female perspective recently, and there was a blow-job scene. So like, the female performer was performing a blow job, but its so incredibly disorienting for the viewer, because all youre really seeing is the male torso thrusting. And that didnt work.

I dont even enjoy that in reality-reality, when its a male torso coming at you? Why would I want to replicate that in virtual reality? Although I guess one womans nightmare is another womans turn-on, if I have learned anything from doing this job.

[Laughs] Right.

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She claims no one could hear her screaming over the music.

A new Paris exhibit recalls how he captured models as complex social beings in the 1950s.

Giorgia Tordini makes monochromatic dressing so stylish.

The LAPD confirmed the investigation this afternoon.

How the new technology is testing everyones stamina.

She went into labor just days before the Oscars.

She made a grand entrance to the Rick Owens show.

Surprise, endorphins and politics dont mix.

Designer Maria Grazia Chiuri chose to focus almost exclusively on navy blue for no apparent reason.

Clinton spoke at a Wellesley College event that was closed to the press.

Nicki Minajs sunglasses, platform sneakers, acid yellow.

Plus: Ashley Graham, Emily Ratajkowski, Jourdan Dunn.

Long-sleeved, short-sleeved, or tank top, theyre the best basics.

Give me your tired, your hungry, your stoned and looking for Cheetos.

And it doubles as a blush.

Experts reveal whether it really can help treat and prevent these uncomfortable infections.

And they may be engaged by the end of summer.

2017, New York Media LLC.

Original post:

Virtual-Reality Porn Is Killing Boners - New York Magazine

Atlanta Business Chronicle

Atlanta looks to become Virtual Reality hub Atlanta Business Chronicle ... of Trick 3D, whose tool Floorplan Revolution helps developers take more. Joann Vitelli. A group of companies, academic institutions and government agencies have united in an effort to make Atlanta the hub of the burgeoning virtual reality industry. and more »

Read more:

Atlanta looks to become Virtual Reality hub - Atlanta Business Chronicle

Nvidia at the Game Developers Conference this week announced a new frame capture analysis tool for virtual reality. Dubbed FCAT VR, the utility is designed to help VR developers, reviewers and enthusiasts analyze the quality and performance of a virtual reality experience.

Traditional benchmark utilities arent all that practical when it comes to virtual reality. Zvi Greenstein, general manager of Nvidias GeForce team who also leads business development for VR at the company, notes in a recent blog post that traditional measurement tools like FRAPS only measure whats happening on the desktop monitor instead of whats happening on the VR headset.

In other words, they focus squarely on frame rate and dont take other important metrics into account like latency, stutter and hitching all of which can have a big impact on the virtual reality experience. If stutter and latency fall below a certain threshold, for example, they can cause motion sickness not fun.

FCAT VR, which supports the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, is said to provide a comprehensive performance measurement for frame time and stutter on the headset without requiring special external capture equipment.

The tool captures four key performance metrics:

Nvidias new utility should be available to download by mid-March.

More here:

Nvidia's new FCAT VR tool will help quantify virtual reality performance - TechSpot