| Author | Message | ||
     Steve@IIS Rating: N/A |
Hi All, I wanted to respond to a couple of the comments from this string. Palex, I apologize if there was a delay in responding to your e-mail, in the future, it may be easier to get service from the reseller in Spain that sold you the product. They are authorized repair centers as well. Michal wrote: "The only thing witch is necessary now is a cheap HMD with stereo - hi resolution display, 6 DOF headtracking + wireles connection with PC." -I do not know of anybody that will ever make an immersive Wireless Binocular HMD. The problem is people will get really involved in what they are doing and wander off, fall off a cliff, walk into traffic etc. The technology actually exists right now to make them wireless, Bluetooth might be a good option. Unfortunately, the legal liability is too high. Steve | ||
| Eric Lindstrom Rating: N/A |
Legality an issue? Last I checked, we have things like guns and cars here in the US, as well as skateparks and ski resorts. A wireless HMD would be signifigantly safer. I think in the terms of such a device, that the liability issue falls upon the end-user, rather than the manufacturer. It is assumed that the guy will not be walking through rush-hour traffic while wearing his HMD, unless: a) The user is a major dumbass or b) he has taken the neccesary steps to make it safe (i.e. a Merged reality or Augmented reality system, which allows pass-through environments superimposed on the actual environment) or possibly some other kind of safety system. I would think that the user would be smart enough to use the wireless HMD in a safe area designated for it's use, such as an empty room with a padded floor, or an empty, vacant lot (for applications like "virtual location walkthroughs") to tour a non-existent, planned structure of some sort. The user may want to use it like any other wired HMD, only without the added encumberance of the cabling. Wireless, light HMD's would definitely make VR more immersive. Just my thoughts, -Eric L. | ||
| Michal Husak Rating: N/A |
Hi Steve It is me Michal. When I was talking about wireles HMD I had in mind a device for use in rooms. The mentioned 6DOF of headtracking could be made for acceptable price only in the room becouse the only one price accptable device for X,Y,Z position tracking is now the 3 point ultrasonic system. The ultrasonic system needs 3 fixed IR transmiters and ultrasonic spekers for navigation , it is suitable mainly for using inside rooms ... I know that the price is the problem and none company have up to now make a HMD with the requested futures. Your product is the best compromise according price/performance on the market. I still thing that in the future will come wireles HMD (just only for more comfortable communication with the PC) with higer resolutins displays. Some time agou, I was giving some consulation to people from US Army about HMD. The wireles communication with the PC was one of the main requests for theyr application . They were forced to use a wearable PC just for the luck of such type of HMD. I do not know if the Bluetooth have enought bandwitch for video signal sending but it is probably the right direction for future development. | ||
| Steve@IIS Rating: N/A |
All True. I was not necesarily thinking of all the "Dumbasses" out there, but maybe kids, who don't know better and get carried away in the moment. If you think that people will not sue the company that makes the appliance that killed their kid, think again. We do live in America, where litigation rules! If you could control the environment I think that would be awesome, for a wireless app. I think the Army ended up looking at an RF solution for the wirless thing. Steve | ||
| Eric Lindstrom Rating: N/A |
Like I said, Merged Reality will be the next big thing. Multiplayer games would be like a shared hallucination. Rally drivers could superimpose 3D renderings over real objects in the environment to see the road better, as well as race information and auto gauge displays so his eyes never have to leave the road. Some of the projects in MR (also known as Augmented Reality, or AR) that I have seen online look impressive. In fact, most Cyborgs (Wearable PC users) use MR to a certain degree, because their display is superimposed over the real environment. See-thru displays will be the big thing, like the glasstrons are able to either be fully immersive or transparent. Perhaps even a fusion of technology. Imagine playing a game where you are a star pilot, where you fly the ship to a planet in an immersive VR environment, and when you land, and exit your ship, the display becomes semi-transparent, and you enter an area where the user can explore the environment, which is partly rendered in a MR environment. the room could be set up with obstacles & what have you, and CG aliens and active volcanoes & such would be rendered by the PC. NASA may use similar technology to explore distant worlds hands-on withouut actualy having an astronaut there, similar to what they currently use telepresence vehicles to do. If anything, this technology has the potential to make many things safer, rather than more dangerous. And as for a kid walking unsupervised with a HMD strapped to his head, that has about as much logic as a kid waking unsupervised into the street with his dad's $5000 laptop PC. Niether of these posibilities is very likely. My point is this. This technology has the potential to be incredibly bennificial to the human race as a whole. Someone WILL manufacture it and someone WILL distribute it. Being that most kids out there can't afford one of the current HMD models IIS makes (hell, I can't even afford one, and I make close to $30K annually) it's not bloody likely a kid can afford the next-gen devices. The question is not wether you can do it, or wether you should do it. it's a matter of whether or not you're going to stand on the sidelines while someone else makes it and patents the technology for themselves. Your argument about lawyers getting involved is weak and spineless. We'd still be getting our dinners with stone axes and cooking over bonfires if we all thought that way, or worse, we wouldn't have fire or axes either because the lawyers would say they're dangerous. If your worried about lawyers, put a dislaimer on your package, or make the device child-proof (it worked for the drug companies). -Eric L. | ||
| Michal Husak Rating: N/A |
Hi Eric I hope that things will go in the way you describe ... My poin of view on this problematic is not from the "game player position". Game based VR aplication could boost the interest in this technology, but for me is more interested another aspect of VR. Computers have big trouble to solve some specific range of problems for witch human brain is more suitable. Typical example is image analysis. None of the existing computers can truly identify what is on a picture. Identical problems occures for several other similar data structures analysis. I thing that this is one of the areas in with the VR colud grow upp - help the computers with tasks for with they are not suitable. |
