Fool me, this is real good shit ! [the VR thread]

[gumboot]

I'm told the guiding principle in US retail is "don't get sued"; which makes a lot of retailers behave in a very consumer-friendly way. Normally you walk back into a shop and say "meh", and they take it back. They only ask whether or not they'll be able to put it back on their shelf to sell or if they should send it back to the manufacturer. It's pretty much all John Lewis, here, but cheaper.

But that's retail. I can't speak for this situation at all.

Also in retail I have been able to say "I know you don't have a legal obligation, but I'm asking you to use managerial discretion", and people roll over simply because being a dick isn't good business.

Could you stomach a restocking fee? Or at least a waiver for the ebay ban?

[seibu]

I'm told the guiding principle in US retail is "don't get sued"; which makes a lot of retailers behave in a very consumer-friendly way. Normally you walk back into a shop and say "meh", and they take it back. They only ask whether or not they'll be able to put it back on their shelf to sell or if they should send it back to the manufacturer. It's pretty much all John Lewis, here, but cheaper.

But that's retail. I can't speak for this situation at all.

Also in retail I have been able to say "I know you don't have a legal obligation, but I'm asking you to use managerial discretion", and people roll over simply because being a dick isn't good business.

Could you stomach a restocking fee? Or at least a waiver for the ebay ban?

Thanks. That's really good advice.

The ebay ban isn't enforced, and in any case there's a subreddit for offloading Rifts. I'll try the 'managerial discretion' angle though. They've got quite legalistic in their responses now, pointing out that the first point of their sale agreement, in bold, is "no refunds". Of course, that isn't necessarily legal. But I get the impression Oculus really do *not* want to take hardware back.

It's funny really, when the Rift was a multiplatform device there was a waiting list and they couldn't manufacture them fast enough. Now it's Windows Only you can have one by return post, and they wont take them back!

[gilesgoat]

I DO NOT know if this COULD be true or not but I SUPPOSE they don't want their HW back because they don't know what to do of it.

However, ok is NOT the solution you are looking for if you expect a full refund but you could get still a pretty decent price if you ebay it ?

Certainly opens a question, to be honest never checked the disclaimers/etc. about "an experimental/prototype device", I suppose that if I'd be them ( OR ) I would have made a thing like "every support for this product ends as soon as the consumer device is out".

That to protect my arse I would have otherwise to suppoer an "experimental" device for too long ..

[edit] - and to be honest I don't think the thing had to do that much with the multi plattform, I think it was more about timing.

I don't know super much , Dio should know more about this, BUT I STRONGLY susepct that "multi plattform" for a thing like VR been a bit too much of a strecth, the problem is not in the OR itself, the problem is the OS side.

Now - SUPPOSITIONS - I don't think they got "that much support from Apple" nor from "Linux" itself that is a far more fragmented reality ( has ever Ubuntu or Debian or SuSE or the fuck know what ever been directly involved with OR ? ) .. knowing a bit about the type of stuff you need for making VR "work properly" I don't know how they could possibly do it THAT WELL on those machine without a "Proper support" OS side as well.

I mean in essence you need to do "pretty good real time data processing" in OSes that "none of them is done for that" and you may need quite a bit of "Hooks & trick & all the best" from device drivers and such.

I know there are quite a few things theorectically possible one could do but ONLY if there is some support "the other side of the things" without it gets close to impossible to do things right.

I wish I would have seen some of the new VR ones to make a comparision ( with the new Morpheus ) but knowing some of the "good shit" they had to do to make it work I think it's AMAZING VR can actually work quite well on a non-specific machine with little to nothing "extra help".

[_o0o_]

If anyone decides to off load a DK2 I might be interested.

[pogo]

Virtual sex. Probably NSFW.

Via Boing Boing:

A young man with a VR headset does not want to part with an inflatable torso dressed up as an anime character.

I interviewed Robert Anton Wilson for bOING bOING (the zine) in 1988 and he told me he was not concerned about virtual reality sex because people who favored it over real sex would be weaned from the gene pool.

[gumboot]

Maybe this'll help...
http://www.researchgate.net/publication ... n_sickness

[pogo]

Electrocortical stimulation ! Sure it can be added as an option for those who need it.

In other news Sony are now calling their device PlayStation VR.

[pogo]

“More than $350”

[gravy]

That's probably the low end of what Sony were hinting at for their VR

[pogo]

It makes sense. Focus on getting it right at launch as any problems could have long term consequences for the platform. Like any new platform it will initially appeal to adventurous early adopters who are less price sensitive. The price can come down to a more mass market one over time.

[Jamesac]

The Rift is a monitor you strap to your face with all sorts of fancy bells & whistles to make it do what it does. $300-$350 would have been nice, but I won't cry too hard if it clocks in at $400. More than that may make me think real hard before saying "Fuck it" and buying it anyway, though.

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

Wouldn't a reasonable guide be however much a (GearVR + Cost of phone) + a bit more for the 2xOLED screens and better tracking tech is?

[pogo]

The difference with the Gear VR is it’s selling to people who already have a phone. Sure some people may buy a compatible phone over another but it is still primarily a phone, and the Gear VR is a phone peripheral. A rather expensive one too. You can pay a lot less, such as this one for under £10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00UT30ZU8

or one of the many Google Cardboard variants.

I’m sure VR devices like Rift will get cheaper. The display technology is the same as goes in phones and that pace of innovation in them is fierce. Other components like cameras, sensors are getting cheaper even quicker: the 4K cameras inside the iPhone 6 not long ago required bulky, expensive and specialised equipment. Eventually such VR devices will cost little more than other expensive gaming peripherals, so around £100.

[pogo]

You can now buy a Hololens, to ship early next year (first quarter 2016). For $3000 which will probably strictly limit the take up.

http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2015/1 ... -for-3000/

Good that they are getting it out there, but remember how long it’s taken for Oculus to get from first public version to consumer release. Also the price is very high. As that article notes Google Glass was expensive and cost only half as much. I’m sure MS would charge less if they could; it’s supposed to be one of the key platforms for Windows 10, and getting it into the hands of as many developers as possible must be part of that. So it probably costs about $3000 to make, and it may take a long time to get the price down to where consumers will buy it in any number.

[gumboot]

Does anybody remember CRTs? Apparently if you make horse noises at them (specifically, do that flappy-lip thing I don't have the proper word for, and I don't even know the name of the noise when a horse makes it) it shakes your head at such a rate as you can't compensate, and it makes CRTs look weird. It doesn't work on LCDs because they're so damned slow.

Has anybody been horse-noising inside their occulus? Do they get any strange effects?