Hey Palmer, a few of us have been pursuing software lens distortion correction in another thread. Emerson is making excellent progress, and I am curious as to how close he is getting. When you get a chance could you view this image in the Rift and tell us what it looks like?



http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=14970&p=74913#p74912

So palmer, If someone that lives in sweden wants to get in on that pre-kickstarter pre ordering, is there anyway of doing that? I can fix an adress for shipping in USA if that helps! I'm really exited about the rift! and looking forward for the coming years of development this will trigger.

Hello,

What is the status of the kickstarter since the June 14th target is gone ?

I am from Toronto and drooling over this device with Doom 3 BFG. Please take my money !!

From a few pages back:

viewtopic.php?f=138&t=14777&start=420#p74809

I am no expert in the area but I don't think it's just buzz. The smartphone market set off an avalanche of small high definition screens and Samsung is now one of few big manufacturers in that space. They've recently shown off flexible OLED screens and a few transparent ones for applications in augmented reality.

Due to volume of supply the cost of such screens have dropped significantly over the last few years. Samsung is surely looking at other markets for LCDs. Combine it with advances in OpenGL since version 3+. And it *finally* becomes the right time for VR hardware + 3D software to reach sufficient technological level at the decent cost to go mainstream.

There is still a lot of work to be done on both hardware and software fronts but it should no longer cost an arm and a leg to construct good VR visors and actually support them in software. I'm actually hoping that Samsung will target the VR market in the next year or two. Should be fun.

In other news, there is already a target date and references to "large quantities": http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Doom-3-BFG-Edition-HMD-John-Carmack-FPS,16055.html

Hmm, could indeed be Valve:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... n-hardware

Bear in mind that these high-resolution LCD/OLED panels are just bare panels. They're designed to directly interface with the SOC inside a mobile device, and often do so in an entirely proprietary manner. Purchasing one for a HMD is not as simple as buying the panel itself: you wold also need a driver board to take the TMDS signals from DVI/HDMI and turn it into whatever signalling method the panel needs to drive it. For custom panels for cellphones/tablets that do not use FPD-link (and even those that do, no two panel interfaces are completely alike or strictly compatible), this almost certainly means using an FPGA and designing the interface almost from scratch. The cost for putting them into the Rift is not so much the purchase of the panels themselves, but the design and manufacture of the driver boards.

Good point EdZ

@rajveer - thanks for posting that interview. It reaffirms my belief that John just, plain and simple, gets it. The next gen of consoles can beef up their processors and GPU's and ram all they like, but it's going to take much more than a graphical overhaul to keep video games fresh, unique, and interesting. Sequels on next gen consoles running in 1080p @ 60 fps with advanced particle effects and real time dynamic lighting (Unreal Engine 4?) will definitely look pretty, but it's essentially the same experience wrapped up in a sparkling, neon bow instead of a single colored, droopy bow. That's why all three big console devs are expanding and trying their hand at motion controls, and now taking a run with incorporating tablets with gaming (Wii U and the Xbox Smart Glass). But even so, I think mainstream HMD's and VR is what the video game industry really needs to take the next big step forward.

So before I stray too far offtopic ... The Oculus Rift seems to be one of the key pieces in doing that.

btw, in the interview, John mentions that Sony's taking an interest in this and a follow up - does he mean Sony's interested specifically in the Oculus Rift (as in, they know about it, they're talking about it, etc.) or is he saying that he doesn't know if Sony knows about the Oculus Rift, but is just interested in 3D HMD gaming in general? Oh, and Valve! So uh... the fabled Half-Life 3 and the Oculus Rift?

I've had word from Hillcrest Labs that their 250Hz firmware is indeed custom for John and not something ready to release into the wild. I would caution against buying a tracker and expecting the 250Hz firmware update to be available.

Palmer,

Is John acquiring the tracker with the 250Hz and providing them for Kickstarter? Are you working with them directly, and will the Rift Bundle have the 250Hz update firmware?

Wow, a week of missing posts and it seems so much has happened post E3. Great work to all involved.

I must say, PalmerTech, it's a damn shame these game 'journos' aren't doing their job and actually researching the product. If so they'd very quickly see that it's your baby and they'd give far more credit! At least they're getting the word out. And we still think you're pretty rockin'.

Is there a FAQ yet? Would it be worth while setting up a community wiki in the interim to handle questions? It strikes me as something we could do to help that shouldn't step on any toes + take a way a bit of the administrative effort.

Waitta go optimus you jinxed it, now NO-ONE is replying

Yeah.. it's pretty quiet over here Was hoping some more teasers / information

Sorry if this info is already on the forum, but what is the agreed "end game" resolution for a high FoV solution like RIFT. In otherwords, assuming the screen resolution is optically warped to match retenal acuity + some eye movement, how dense does the screen need to be such that any pixcelation issues disappear?

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I wonder what Toshiba are up to. A 6.1 inch display at 2560x1600 that is too big for a phone and too small for a tablet . . . they wont want to have invested in this for nothing. Seems to me to fit pretty well with RIFT - especially if they could to slotted in as an upgrade.

As EdZ pointed out. Fab'ing the screens is only half the battle. Marrying those screens with the proper hardware and software to drive them from standard digital signals (ie. DVI) instead of custom embedded phone hardware is the other half of the battle. Unfortunately there is no real motivation for the manufacturers to do that.

Okay, first post after lurking in this thread for the last couple weeks.

I'm extremely excited about the Rift. I'm a software engineer currently doing primarily web development and am getting so reinvigorated into programming just thinking about 3D HMD stuff I can hardly stand it.

What's the best way to get my hands on one of these puppies? I opted out of the Paypal preorder thing because I'm leery of using Paypal, so is it just waiting for Kickstarter at this point? When will we know when it goes live? I have this thread and oculusvr.com permanently open in two tabs and refresh periodically, as well as searching Kickstarter.

Will there be some sort of notification to us eager beavers? I don't want to miss out on the first batch because I didn't see that it was possible to preorder until too late. I'm standing by, credit card in hand, ready once Kickstarter goes live.

I'm subscribed to the topic and check on it daily-- also hoping to get in on the ground floor with Kickstarter as I've got a game engine ready to be adapted to the Rift once I have a unit and/or enough specs to work from.

@losvedir: In the upper left corner you can subscribe to a topic and receive an email notification. There is also a newsletter you can subscribe to on the Occulus Rift blog, you need to enter the password you can find on this forum.

I feel just the way you do but I am sure once it is all figured out there will be a major post here or the newsletter will be notified.

I believe Palmer said the Kickstarter is already approved, and will go up in a couple of weeks time.

@losvedir: It seems to have invigorated a lot of people both within the gaming and VR communities as well as people on the fringes and has sparked a lot of software activity on this site directly related to the Rift and to related VR technologies. Check out the rest of the VR DIY forum.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I am subscribed to this thread now, and I entered my address in the oculusvr.com newsletter thing.

Palmer did say the Kickstarter is approved and it would be two weeks.

I just don't know the best method of keeping my ears out to get notified when he makes it live. Don't want to miss out. I guess I shouldn't worry as it's extremely likely he'll either post here or send out to his email list, but I dunno, I'm just too excited and getting antsy.

@brantlew: You're right. I was linked directly to this thread and have been refreshing just this thread. I'll take a look at what else there is. Good suggestion, thanks.

I'm in the same situation of trying to patiently wait for the Kickstarter to start.

Anyways, Palmer said before that it would be about two more weeks, and that he wanted to run it for 30 days. Previously I believe he (or Carmack) has mentioned that the Kickstarter should still be active during QuakeCon (2-5 August). The reason being that they will demo the kit there with Doom 3 BFG so hopefully there should be more people who want to join in on the fun afterwards.

So putting that together it seems reasonable to assume that it should start around 4th of July or perhaps a few days later.

I'm just guessing though, so don't sue me if I'm wrong. But I will at least personally not be wearing out my F5 button until about then. (I'll just rely on my subscription to this thread.)

I too have an engine I'd love to adapt to the Rift. Unfortunately I've been self-funding development on it for the past two years (a nice way of saying I'm unemployed...), so the money just isn't there. I'm following along so I know what's going on, and hopefully I'll ship in time (and enough people will like what I've done) to have funds for Rift v2.0.

Because there will be a v2.0.

DM

Unemployment is a great opportunity to start or join an open source project with a public website. If you do something important it can land you a job to do what you love doing anyway. Also, you can file a patent application in your own name while being unemployed which is not always possible while being an employee.

Along the same lines, if this Palmer guy can deliver on his first RIFT project, I'm afraid we won't see the 2nd version. It's very likely that someone will buy him out.

Nobody is going to buy me out unless it is on terms that benefit the VR community as a whole. I turned down a job offer from a Fortune 500 company (In the top 100) to do this on my own terms.

Stupid, maybe, but it felt like the right thing to do at this point in time. Maybe I can work with them in the future if we prove that VR can be great!

I've contributed to two different large open source projects and created a small one of my own (a GKrellM plugin, now obsolete). There are no employers on this part of the continent who hire developers because they have open source street cred.

And software patents are illegal. Or should be. You can't patent math. Even if they're technically legal in the US, I consider them immoral and severely damaging to any industry that depends heavily on software. Incidentally, John Carmack was a member of the IGDA patents committee that opposed software patents in general and game software patents in particular, so you should be ashamed to show your face in this thread, talking like that.

DM

If you can deliver on the RIFT project then it was likely a right decision. Your value should go up.

In addition, Carmack was right. You guys are so idealistic sometimes that it can damage your goal. Your idea of "no profit" is one of them. There is nothing wrong with being incorporated and making profit. "Company" or "patents" are just tools. It's what you do (good or evil) with these tools that matters. Not every company and not every patent is used to troll or vulture.

For example, you can sell above cost and use this "profit" to hire someone else to help you. In fact, startups rarely have profits. They reinvest all their cash flow into their own people and products to accelerate the project because it takes too long to accomplish anything working alone. If your goal really was to help the VR community, wouldn't it make sense to use your skills designing advanced VR hardware and have someone else, without those skills, spending their time over that bath assembling it?

In addition, have you thought about a possibility that some jaskass will sue you over RIFT with some spurious claims? If you are incorporated with limited liability, the company will take the legal and financial hit. Otherwise, it is your *personal* responsibility. He/she can go after your personal assets. In an ideal world you can trust people not to do that crap over a prototype kit like RIFT. In the real world, there are always jaskasses. How will the VR community benefit if you are swamped by legal paperwork?

I'm wondering if Carmack and ID software would be willing to help you with legal issues.



I am also against software patents but I live in the real world. And in the real world there are other important uses to patents:
+ VC funding is a lot easier to obtain if you have a patent (even provisional).
+ Patents can be used defensively, i.e. discourage others from suing you.
+ You can donate your patent to the free software foundation to prevent others from patenting something similar.
+ And last but not the least - I didn't say it should be a software patent. There are hardware patents, you know?

I don't see why I should be ashamed of the above. For example, if Palmer comes up with a great idea to improve his RIFT hardware, he should definitely patent it. I personally know an entrepreneur who didn't do it and paid dearly for it: his business partners (a large corp) stole the idea, patented it behind his back and then killed his business through courts. Do you want the same to happen to your projects or RIFT? It may happen if Palmer is not careful.

Perfect example of why most of the world (and soon the US) is completely backwards on the fundamental purpose of patents. First-to-file patent law is an atrocity and has nothing to do with protecting inventors and everything to do with simplifying government procedures and satisfying corporate lobbyists.




I think it should be valid to patent software and algorithms. The problem to me is that almost all software patents are derivative ideas. Patent regulators should be strict, hire knowledgeable reviewers, and only grant a handful of software patents a year that represent truly innovative ideas. But they continue to grant software patents for all manner of obvious, derivative, and useless dreck. I am personally listed on a couple of US patents that I can honestly say are just completely laughable and ridiculous - basically a few dozen if-then statements masquerading as "AI". In fact I argued with the CEO when they were being filed that the software in question was utterly devoid of anything novel. But again - the meaning of patents has been completely distorted into a corporate tool instead of an individual property right. First-to-file law just makes this worse.

While that's true, the implication running through all of Palmer's comments concerning the price point of the Rift has been that all of his predecessors have been overpriced. And they have been. $30,000 is a ludicrous price for a piece of equipment with basically no software support and definitely no established market. Even the $750 price of the Sony HMD is ridiculous. When you're trying to invent an industry, so to speak, there's a serious chicken and egg problem. You can't sell the hardware because there's no software to support it but you can't create the software to support it unless you sell the hardware. This has been a problem since the dawn of the VR concept, and it's still a problem.

Palmer is seeking to correct that problem by shaving his margins to the very thinnest and getting as many units as possible into the hands of tinkerers and developers. The best way to do that is to minimize the price. Not all of us have the kind of deep pockets Mr. Carmack has that lets him play with rockets as a hobby. On the contrary, this project attracts mainly hobbyist developers operating on a shoestring budget, precisely because Palmer has gone out of his way to minimize the price. And it's working. It's attracting interest and getting press attention. From there, chickens happen. (Or possibly eggs.)


He has. If you read back (many pages back), you'll see him lamenting the costs of establishing an LLC. He knows the value of it and he's done it. No worries there. I'm under the impression that Kickstarter specifically encourages it.

• I don't want VC funding. I see no reason whatsoever to give the lion's share of my revenue, forever, to somebody whose sole contribution is being lucky enough to already be rich. If I wanted to do that, I'd get a damn job. That's practically the definition of a job.
  
  More to the point, it's blindingly obvious that Palmer doesn't want VC funding either. Hence, Kickstarter, and its very attractiveness in the first place. Kickstarter is a formalized way of soliciting donations, not investment, in order to implement a project. If Palmer succeeds, he retains total ownership of the Rift. If he fails, the donaters are out their money and that's too bad. But the point of Kickstarter is specifically to solicit donations small enough that even if a given project fails after achieving its funding goal, none of the donaters are significantly affected financially.
• Patents are only useful defensively if you a) have a lot of them; and b) have enormously deep pockets capable of funding a multimillion dollar law firm to defend them. Without both a) and b), you're a paper tiger, and the trolls know it.
• Donating to FSF does at least obviate part b) above, since the FSF has lawyers on staff, and if enough people do it, FSF qualifies under part a). But that doesn't help me (or Palmer) all that much.
• Last, you were addressing me, so I answered. I'm a software guy. Software is my response. If you meant to include Palmer in that bit of advice, it might have helped to say so.

That isn't an appreciable risk, for me. Nobody is using patents for hostile takeovers of games. The trolls won't bother me unless and until I have enough money to be an interesting target.

On the other hand, that's definitely a risk for Palmer. Especially now that the US is First to File, even when Palmer publishes the full specifications of the Rift as part of the project, those published specs no longer automatically torpedo a patent that claims what's in his specs (and it wasn't actually "automatic" before; it still cost a fortune in legal fees).

Unfortunately there's no cure for unethical and immoral business practices such as those you describe, short of shooting the perpetrators in the back of the head. The US courts have failed. They enable a thief in lawyer's clothing to bankrupt you, before or after the fact. Don't patent, and they'll patent ahead of you and bankrupt you. Patent, and they'll sue you with one of their patents and bankrupt you. Your only hope, as a lone inventor, is to not create something that a rich bully wants to own. The patent system is an utter disaster and has failed to achieve the goal of advancing innovation and the useful arts as stated in the Constitution. The cases where a lone inventor patents something new and successfully defends his patent are vanishingly rare, and cases similar to the one you described are legion. Better to save the filing fees and make more Rifts.

I'm just glad Palmer isn't afraid, and is innovating anyway, even though he's not only doing it without a net, he's doing it with a permanent looming threat out on the horizon. More power to him.

DM

DM,

I believe you somewhat misunderstood my post. I am not disagreeing with you on many of the items you talk about. My point was to explain that it doesn't make me EVIL or SHAMEFUL only because I propose that you or anyone else may consider filing a patent. Do you agree with this?



That's true. However, I don't believe that hobbyists will make a big difference (no offense to anyone on this board). Hobbyists have been tinkering with VR for a couple of decades already with no significant progress. It's the entrepreneurs that make a difference. What Palmer really needs is a small commercial market to start out small but profitable. Then, he can use the proceeds from that niche market to reinvest into improved hardware and higher volume production if possible. IMHO, until the *commercial* market picks this up, VR will remain a niche market.

Let me give an example of a small commercial market that may potentially work:
What: Hazard and accident training for oil rig employees.
Problem: When emergency happens people often panic, don't know what to do, or get lost. For example, after a BP oil rig explosion in Gulf of Mexico 11 workers were never found. You can't just give the workers a bunch of instructions and expect them to remember it when an accident happens.
Goal: Teach employees what to do and how to react when accidents happen, in the way that they can easily memorize their way out. Note that many of these employees are not computer guys. They are blue collar workers.
Proposed solution: Create a VR training program that emulates several different accidents. The oil company already has schematics of its rigs. All they need to do is to construct a 3D world of it and have workers *experience* accidents and find their way to lifeboats starting from different locations. Such experience is a lot easier to remember and follow when real accidents happen.
Cost: Compared to the cost of lives lost, lawsuits filed and monetary damage, $600 or $1200 for a RIFT hardware makes no difference for the oil company. There are also open source OpenGL engines that can be used to model accidents. Palmer + some OpenGL guy can sell this packaged system (software+hardware) to simulate oil rig accidents. Would that make them evil, greedy or shameful? I don't think so. Such a project can save lives of innocent people.

P.S. If anyone patents this idea I will use the Dragon's method detailed above to "shoot the perpetrators in the back of the head". Just kidding.



If the Kickstarter project gets successful funding it may be worth it for Palmer to spend some time with patent attorneys. He and Carmack can probably consider sitting down and discussing which hardware decisions can be patented by enemies. IMHO, a couple of weeks now can save him months or years of litigation down the road.

I don't, no, and therein lies the crux of the matter. I see absolutely no redeeming value in the patent system. I question whether it ever had redeeming value, even historically. Certainly the quality of patents has neither improved nor degraded in the past 200 years. You've only to look at historical patents for examples of that. Often humorous examples. It's as bad now as it's ever been. It's also as good now as it's ever been, and that's pretty stinking foul.

The utility of the patent system rests on the assertion that an inventor will come up with something substantially unique. This has never happened, in the history of the world. Precisely the opposite happens--people tinkering around with the same problem at about the same time in history will always generate convergent solutions. I'll go even further. The moment in history leads people of an inventive nature to tinker with the same things at the same time. The combination of the popular zeitgeist and physics practically guarantees these results. Consider for a moment how we got here. Yes, right here. John Carmack and Palmer both took a look at the state of the art in electronics manufacturing and commodity computer components and, independently, decided that now is the time to take another run at this VR thing. This is not a unique occurrence. So the most fundamental claim about the patent system is nonsense, and all the rest is flimflammery and legal terrorism.

Patent litigation is solely a mechanism to provide employment and enrichment to lawyers. It does not and has never succeeded in fostering innovation. On the contrary, it stifles and crushes innovation at every opportunity, leaving behind it a trail of broken dreams and smashed hopes. Nor do I see any way to correct it. You are allowed precisely as much justice as you can buy, and no more. Giant corporations will always be able to buy more justice. Therefore patents filed by small business, the proverbial entrepreneur, range from a minor useless expense to a nightmarish bankrupting expense. If you are exceedingly lucky, someone wealthy might like to gently co-opt your invention, tossing a little money in your direction (very little money), in order to use it as a weapon against someone else. If you're unlucky, you will receive a legal punch to the face and still lose control of your work. More often than either of these scenarios, you will simply be ignored.

I could go on, and pile up citations, but we're wandering rather far afield from the point of this thread. I'll close with one final observation. I am supposed to be one of the people sheltering under the rubric of the patent system. I have an engineering degree and 15 years of experience and a fairly decent imagination. And after 20-some years of reading tech news, I believe the patent system is a trap. Doesn't that mean the patent system has failed to achieve its nominal goal, practically by definition? Admittedly it's somewhat circular logic, but there's a kernel of truth in there.

I believe hobbyists and tinkerers will make a big difference for two reasons: 1) Sony, giant megacorporation that it is, has a polished, assembly-line-pretty HMD available right this minute. And nobody cares. The tech news sites dutifully regurgitated their press releases and then it sank without a trace. Commercial activity is no guarantee of anything. 2) Palmer is a hobbyist and a tinkerer.

However, once again, refer back (many pages back) in this thread, and you'll see that Palmer has decided that the Kickstarter should buy him manufacturing equipment, so he can make the parts for Rifts himself. That's commercial activity, of a sort. It puts his feet on the road to continuing to make Rifts, refine and improve the design, and further cut the cost of the thing.

But he isn't going to try to write the proverbial "killer app" too. Someone else will probably do that. These things are notoriously unpredictable. The only thing we know from history is that it takes more than one person tinkering to generate the requisite snowball to get things rolling.


Another fine example of why the patent system is useless and broken. What you described is in no way worthy of a patent to begin with. The concept is blindingly obvious to anyone who has seen a few episodes of Star Trek, or a whole slew of bad '80s movies. Yes, I know, it was an example, and the remark about patenting it was tongue in cheek, but it was too good of an example... to pass up the chance to pillory it. Implement what you propose and copyright it, if you like, but don't think you have a right to have the only oil rig instructional VR program in the country for the next 20 years.


And I say it's a waste of time and money. Even if he follows your advice, even if he successfully isolates some rare bit of genius in what he's done, if a well-heeled commercial bully decides they want it, years of litigation is precisely what he can look forward to. Hell, I strongly suggest he be very careful NOT to do a patent search to find out if what he's doing now has already been patented. Because it probably has. Years of litigation is bad enough without triple damages for willful infringement.

DM

As doom 3 BFG Edition will incorporate native stereoscopic 3D HDTV support for XBOX and PS3, will it be possible to connect the Rift directly to a console, or is the Rift only availble for PC?

@ DragonM, NickK

While this discussion is quite relevant for the forum, as there are people working on innovative stuff, and there are several aggressive companies reading, and quite possibly major companies lurking... it really isn't relevant for this thread. A lot of people have email alerts for this thread waiting for news about the RIFT, so maybe a mod could break off the patent/legal discussion somewhere else?

If I am not mistaken, the "open-source" nature of the project means that no company can own the rights to employing PalmerTech's approach. I would hope that once there is sufficient adoption of Palmer's "standard" that large manufacturers will fall over themsleves to deliver their version of RIFT. Perhaps we will finally see the VR I (we) have been dreaming of since the '90s. I just hope Palmer gets rewarded for his efforts somehow.

Will the Rift be compatible with glasses? I've seen someone asking about it on oculusvr.com, but unfortunately there is no reply. My astigmatism is mild, but for obvious reasons I'd rather see sharp image.

It has been discussed previously in this thread. But the short answer is that there will be possible to adjust diopters on the lenses. So it should work if you wear glasses to correct for myopia. I'm not sure if it will be able to correct astimatism though.

A possible work around is to add padding and distance to the goggles so you can wear glasses underneath. I'm sure there will be several other people in a similar situation who will want to make that possible.

@PalmerTech:

Are there any news about the 250 Hz custom firmware for the headtacking sensor? There were several questions about it but I've not seen a clear statement about this (sorry if I just missed it).

At the E3, John Carmack said he added additional sensor code from his rocket company Armadillo Aerospace to a custom firmware which lower latency just written for him directly from Hillcrest Labs.

PattrickRedeck told us here, that this custom firmware software (which is the base for JC's work) will NOT be available for the public.

So, where will it come from then? Will the RIFT just be shipped with the stock firmware (the high latency version)?

Maybe a FAQ about the project would be a good idea.

Keep on the good work and best wishes!

spyro

I just noticed that 10 hours ago a newsletter was sent from OculusVR.com but it went to my gmail spam folder.

In case you missed it, here is what it says:

He did not say it would be unavailable to the public, he stated that it was "not something ready to release into the wild." Note the "ready" part of that, which implies that it may become available in the future.

I know it is exciting times but there's really no point sweating the details right now and picking apart every little bit of information. The kickstarter hasn't even begun yet, at which time we will be getting a lot more information just by virtue of being a kickstarter. It's just one more week or so.