VR

A few years ago I signed a contract to generate 360 content but the contract ended after just a month because the company restructured or something similar. I then bought a 360 camera and played with it to film interesting angles.

I keep forgetting that I have this fantastic camera. It’s fantastic because with 360 videos you can either allow people to see what they want to see, or you can frame the shot just as you want it to be. With a normal camera you need to place it so that you can film what you want to film. With a 360 camera you film everything and then frame the shot.

People want us to see the Apple Vision Pro VR kit as revolutionary but it isn’t, for a simple reason. Several years ago I was going to the World VR conference and loved playing with various VR kits but they almost all had the same problem. They cost an arm and a leg to buy.

The HTC Vive was an alluring device because of how well it worked and how good it felt but it was made unreachable by its price. The same was true of the Oculus devices, except for the Oculus Quest 3. This had the best price of all. It came with a cost. The Facebook environment. If Facebook can mind duck us(intentional spelling) in two dimensions then imagine how much worse it will be in AR.

It’s Day 26 and today I was playing with 360 video. Specifically I went for a walk in the woods and placed the camera ahead of me to provide people with the opportunity to look around. Doing this is a risky strategy during the pandemic because if you cross paths with anyone there is nowhere to avoid them. I quickly went back to open space and retreated for home. One runner passed too close.

During the World XR Forum I had to carry six or more Oculus Quest devices from a car to the conference centre and then help with setting up at least one of these devices. At first I thought it was like most VR headsets where the phone is the display.

In reality, the Oculus Quest is a self-contained VR headset driven via an app from the mobile phone. Once the Oculus quest and the mobile phone are paired you can play with content and use it. This is great because it no longer requires a high spec computer, it has no cables and best of all it’s affordable. At 400-500 CHF it’s affordable within most geek budgets.

I was a volunteer at the World VR Forum again this year. I was in the conference room providing speakers with microphones before they went up on stage. As a result of this I was able to listen to many interesting speakers. They spoke about a diversity of topics of interest to various groups.

Google Earth and the HTC Vive

Dominik Käser presented Google Earth VR. He spoke about how Google had spent time thinking about how the earth sounds in different locations, from different altitudes and more. He spoke about how they thought about the sound of a dragging rock when the globe is spun slowly and a jet when it is spun faster. He also spoke about the considerations for how to move within this environment. An excellent demonstration of Google earth in VR is included with the video above. It would be a fantastic tool for journey planning.