I'm not Palmer, but I know some answers:
LikeMike wrote:1. As I understand it and see it in the videos, the screen is basically divided in two halfs showing basically the same thing - doesn`t that mean, that we have an about half as wide field of view than we would have on a monitor? And basically a larger vertical field of view than a horizontal? To me that seems kinda odd...
1. Only if your monitor is really really really huge or you are sitting really really really close. Your head needs to be exactly a quarter the width of the screen away from your monitor for the monitor to be (almost) twice as wide as a Rift. Yes, it's a larger vertical field of view than horizontal. Yes it's a bit odd, but that's not a bad thing. The Rift is really huge horizontally, and really really huge vertically. And I for one, am perfectly happy with that.
If you are talking about the game camera's field of view, rather than your real eye's field of view, then the Rift still has a slightly wider horizontal field of view than most (if not all) games normally use.
3. For people that have already tried it - how immersive is it? Do you really get the feeling that for example this knight is physically standing right in front of you - or is it like great 3D really close to the screen?
I haven't tried it, but I've watched videos of people who have. Very immersive. Yes. Some people verbally apologised to him for bumping into him, others jumped when they saw him. It's better than great 3D really close to the screen, because normally in 3D the screen edges look like they're overlapping things that should be popping out in front of them, which destroys some of the 3D effect, but the Rift has a much bigger FOV so that doesn't happen, it feels like there's no screen. Also the scales are all wrong in normal 3D, but on the Rift everything is exactly life size and the right dimensions.
6. ... I know you`ve built stuff in your garage and are an enthusiast, but I imagine it is very hard to meet the right people, persuade them and get the funding, material and also knowledge to get a thing like this running - and seemingly make all the big studios look stupid...
He met the right people right here in this forum.