Apple doesn’t have gamers in mind when choosing components for its latest Macs, but PC maker Digital Storm has proven that it’s possible to build a beastly gaming rig into the iMac’s gorgeous all-in-one form factor.
Check out the company’s stunning new Aura PC, which puts NVIDIA’s latest GTX 1080 graphics card behind a 34-inch curved display.
Thanks to headsets like Google Cardboard and Gear VR, the virtual reality experience is already pretty portable. But on a smartphone, you’re only getting a watered-down version.
That’s why MSI decided it would be a good idea to build a PC into a backpack, allowing you to enjoy high-end VR on the go.
Apple hasn’t shown much enthusiasm for diving into virtual reality in the past, but all signs are pointing to a renewed interest. With Tim Cook mentioning VR in the latest Apple earnings call, I got to thinking more about it — as I’ve never personally given it a go.
Being immersed in a 3-D world that tracks your head movements is becoming a mainstream reality. At the moment, VR is heading full-steam toward gamers in particular — the user is immersed in a virtual world where they can look around without the 16:9 constrictions of a standard TV or monitor.
So in this video I’m looking at a $30 VR headset and seeing how well it works. Or, if it just sucks. Check out the video after the break.
We’d play this game in a heartbeat, especially if it can bust video games into our living rooms in such a realistic way.
Putting on a typical virtual reality (VR) headset like an Oculus Rift can be disorienting at first, as VR tends to shut you out of the real world and into a, well, virtual one. Augmented reality, like you might find with Google Glass, for example, tends to place the digital world into the real one.
This Sulon Q looks like a VR rig, but lets you see the real world through it, with some digital overlay to make the fantasy of a video game look like it’s in the same place as you are.
In the video below, you’ll see a demo of a Jack and the Beanstalk game which starts out in the Sulon offices, but then things get fantastic fast as the giant beanstalk finds its way upward to the sky.
Check it out and thrill along with us.
Mac users needn’t bother pre-ordering an Oculus Rift headset because they can’t use it. According to Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, that’s because none of the machines Apple offers are powerful enough to meet its recommended specifications.
They’re not powerful enough to play the latest games at high-settings, either. Even if you spend thousands on a high-end Mac Pro, you’re going to be disappointed with its gaming prowess — especially if you want to drink in some of those sweet, sweet 4K graphics.
So, is it about time Apple built a Mac that’s good for gaming?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over this and more!
Oculus Rift most likely won’t be coming to Mac any time soon, according to Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey, who says an Apple-compatible version of the virtual reality headset won’t arrive until Cupertino decides to “release a good computer.”
For all that is written about virtual reality, most of us have never donned a funky headset to experience it. The sensation behind the VR viewer might be cool, but it remains to be seen if the hardware will find its way into every home.
The founders of a startup company called Shot might have an idea that could bring VR to the masses with an iPhone lens attachment and app that lets your record, share and watch virtual reality photos and video.
Virtual reality had its coming out party Thursday morning with a live-stream presentation from the Oculus Rift team. VR is coming ever closer to becoming a true platform, with games that you can stream from Xbox and PC as well as those that will run directly on the Rift itself.
VR is a fledgeling technology with its share of quirks, even though it’s been a topic in computer science and gaming circles for decades. Just like Star Trek’s holodeck, we’ve all wanted to immerse ourselves in our gaming and fantasy environments and VR holds that promise. With early reports of nausea and other motion issues, the newly-improved devices have a lot to make up for.
The Oculus team is hard at work at doing just that, with improvements to both the hardware and software to ensure a fun, comfortable experience for most gamers.
I can’t wait for the virtual reality future to finally go mainstream, but with company’s like Oculus talking about charging people over $1,500 for an entire Rift package, VR is virtually out of my price-range. Thankfully, Google is coming up with an easy-to-use VR solution that’s not only as cheap as a piece of cardboard, it works on Android and iOS too.
Oculus Rift headsets might become the next big thing of the future, so to make it easier for Mac developers to actually get their apps onto Rift, Oculus is finally making it possible to compile Rift-compatible apps on a Mac.
When my kids and I walked into a coffee shop one sunny day last month, we were greeted by a row of tables holding laptops with gaming demos.
My son gravitated toward the biggest display, a huge TV screen with a giant, face-obscuring set of goggles set in front of it. This was the Oculus Rift, the latest fad gaming device that places two stereoscopic images in front of your eyes to simulate virtual reality.
He slid the massive black eyewear onto his face, picked up the connected Xbox controller, and started moving his head around. The rest of us could see the game on the TV — an abstract shooting gallery in three dimensions, with my boy at the center, first-person style.
After about five minutes of waving his head around and pressing buttons on the controller, my son pushed the goggles up and off his head and said, “Dad, I think I’m going to be sick.”
Could Apple’s revolutionary re-imagining of Apple TV not be a set-top box at all, but rather an Oculus Rift style headset?
A patent published Thursday hints that this might be the case, as it refers to a head mounted display (HMD) capable of providing a personal media viewing experience for users.
The patent describes how data processing circuitry could feature optical component capable of adjusting left and right images to display 3-D media, or else to account for a user’s eyesight limitations.
When Facebook acquired Oculus VR for $2 billion, Mark Zuckerberg said virtual reality was the natural follow-up to mobile as a platform. And while Apple might have missed the boat on Oculus, has Cupertino really missed out on virtual reality?
There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Apple has been investigating this area for the better part of a decade — well before the Oculus Rift gaming headset appeared on Kickstarter.
Following news of Facebook’s surprise acquisition of Oculus VR for $2 billion, Mark Zuckerberg shared some impressive numbers regarding the social network’s sustained mobile growth. Facebook has an “active” mobile user base of 1 billion, Zuckerberg announced, while the Facebook-owned Instagram has 200 million active users of its own.
This means that Instagram has added 100 million users since Facebook acquired it back in April 2012. Under Facebook’s control the Instagram iOS app has been regularly updated, much like Facebook’s own iOS app.
In the fourth quarter of 2013, Facebook had 945 million active mobile users, out of a total of 1.23 billion users.
One of the potentially coolest gadgets unveiled at CES 2014 so far is Sony’s virtual reality headset.
Named the HMZ-T3Q (a follow-up to last year’s HMZ-T3W), Sony’s new Oculus Rift competitor is designed primarily for movie fans and gamers, and offers a virtual screen reaching up to 750 inches.
