A NEW RUMOR SUGGESTS THAT OCULUS (OWNED BY FACEBOOK) AND SAMSUNG ARE SHARING TECHNOLOGY TO BUILD THE FUTURE OF VIRTUAL REALITY HEADSETS.
On June 9, Engadget reported that Samsung was making a virtual reality headset. This week, that report has been fleshed out with a lot more detail, including an interesting partnership: Apparently Oculus--the VR headset maker that was just bought by Facebook--and Samsung have agreed to share technology in order to each build a better headset.
Oculus Rift is the first headset to provide a true real-time virtual reality experience. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Samsung is giving Oculus access to high-resolution OLED screens (that will make video displays feel more indistinguishable from reality). Oculus is giving Samsung its software technology--a way to build games and entertainment experiences for 3-D headgear. And together, they’re going to develop a new interface to control this display that covers one’s face. (The two companies are each still building headsets of their own--Samsung's will hook to a phone, and Oculus hasn't canceled plans to make a video-game-related rig for PCs.)
Google Glass are augmented reality glasses that display real-time information in a smartphone-like hands-free format. (Click Image To Enlarge)
But why should you care about any of this? So far, every big company like Google, Sony, Microsoft, and Oculus has been developing their headset technology in a bubble. They’ve been building hardware and software that won’t be interoperable--imagine if a Sony television couldn't watch Comcast cable, and you’ll understand the state of virtual reality hardware today.
Sony's Project Morpheus is a prototype headset for the PlayStation 4 that would allow players to fully immerse themselves in 360 degree virtual worlds. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Now, it appears that two companies--very big, powerful, companies--have joined forces for mutual benefit. Together, they’re building standards to the experience that could echo across the industry at large. There could be one common platform on which to design virtual reality experience. And for Facebook/Oculus especially, this is a good deal. If they can own the software-end of the experience--sort of like Google owns Android--and they can license several hardware manufacturers to build hardware for it.
Microsoft's Xbox One, a.k.a. Project NEO, is the company's foray into the world of virtual reality. (Click Image To Enlarge)
As for what that hardware experience will look like, we’re not so sure. Engadget describes a scenario that Samsung is testing now, in which you wear a Samsung headset that plugs into a phone. The headset is the monitor, and the phone is the computer. You can watch movies or play games this way, but the phone’s camera can be used to feed environmental video to the headset and actually show the wearer where they’re walking.
Could be trippy. Literally.
COMMENTARY: You get the feeling that Mark Zuckerberg has always believed that the next evolution of Facebook had to provide the user with a completely new user experience, and that it had to be in real-time. The new user experience had to be more than just the small, incremental changes we've become accustomed to (e.g. Timeline), but truly out-of-this-world, spellbinding, visual and monumental. It had to be a huge leap in the user experience.
Bringing the social experience into the world of virtual reality met that requirement, but Zuck's team lacked sufficient knowledge and experience with virtual reality technology so they acquired Oculus VR for $2 billion in March 2014. Oculus VR was the only company that truly understood virtual reality, and had developed the headset, albeit somewhat crude, and VR software, that gave users a real-time VR experience that was so realistic, that they often got motion sickness.
Facebook's acquisition of Oculus VR allows Facebook to leverage that knowledge and experience in both VR games (the intended goal of the Oculus team) and bringing the social media experience into the VR world The partnership with Samsung allows Facebook to leverage Samsung's experience with mobile phones and wearable devices like Samsung's experimental VR headset and smart watch. Samsung gets to use Oculus VR software to improve the performance of its VR headset, and Facebook gets to merge social media into the world of virtual reality. It potentially means a licensing deal with Samsung, and with nearly 650 million Galaxy smartphones already on the market, the payback could be huge for both companies. Facebook has over 800 million monthly active mobile users, so you have to wonder how many of them will opt for a VR social experience and be willing to pay for it. It's a win-win for both companies if they can pull it off.
Courtesy of an article dated May 30, 2014 appearing in Fast Company Design
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