Oculus Rift + Touch controllers drop to $399

The biggest problem of the Oculus Rift is its price, but fortunately Facebook is fixing that with a Summer campaign that offers the Rift VR heaset and Touch controllers for just $399.

Oculus Rift and Touch get the much needed price cut

Oculus/Facebook has finally adjusted the price of the Rift set and Touch Controllers, shaving a hefty $100 from each.

Oculus Rift pre-sales start today for $599

We're just a few hours away from the beginning of a new virtual reality era: the much awaited Oculus Rift is about to become available to all who want it.

RiftCycles use Oculus Rift to transport us to the Tron Universe

If you're a fan of Tron, you'll certainly fall in love with this RiftCyles project, made by my country fellow Luis Sobral (a.k.a. The Arcade Man) and that made a huge success in this year's Codebits Edition - the biggest geek/tech event in Portugal, which I attended of couse - and that is making it's way around the internet, being featured in sites such as Gizmodo and Cnet.

Luis Sobral is well known to all those that are interested in arcade and pinball machines. He can bring those classic machines back to life and make them look brand new; but his craft goes well beyond that, as this RiftCycles shows.

He created two Tron Light Cycle from scratch, which, whem combined with the Oculus Rift, transported two players into a digital Tron universe where you had to beat your opponent in a light cycle game.

For even greater immersion, the 90º turns were done by physically tilting the RiftCycles, instead of simply pressing a button like in a console game. Something that some of you may remember from those old motorcycle racing arcade machines with a motorbike replica.

During Codebits I had the chance to talk with Luis for a while, but whatever he is working on next is still kept under wraps. Though you can count on us to let you know about it as soon as he allows it.

If you want a arcade or pinball machine, fell free to contact him.

Facebook buys Oculus VR and dives head first into Virtual Reality

Can't say I was expecting that: Facebook had bought Oculus VR, the creators of the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset that is making everyone believe that we're finally on the verge of achieve the virtual reality reality we've always hoped for.

It may sound a bit crazy... but once you consider the amazing potential virtual reality has, not only in gaming but in all kinds of other scenarios: health, education, work, etc. it's easy to understand why they would be interested - though for now the priority will continue to be games. If you imagine a future where a headset can transport you to a believable "reality", you'd no longer need to buy a large screen TV for your home, you  could have a screen as large as you want inside your virtual home - heck, you could even have your own private IMAX cinema, to which you could invite your friends and share a movie together, even though each one of them could be in different continents.

And what about schools and education? Being in the far reaches of the Earth wouldn't keep you from attending a class in the best Universities of any country in the world, in a way that would make you actually like you're there - instead of just watching it on a screen.

It's an amazing tech, and FB now holds a very important asset that allows them to be in the front row for this revolution. Sure, this acquisition won't be welcomed by all (Minecraft's creator has already cancelled the Oculus Rift version of his popular game because he "doesn't trust Facebook"), but... no one will be able to stop the virtual reality revolution. Just you wait and see.

Oculus Rift [First Impressions]

I usually keep most of my longer writing to my main tech blog (in portuguese), but in the case of the Oculus Rift, I think many of you might be as curious as I have been since the day I first saw it and immediately decided to back them on Kickstarter. Yes... after so many months of waiting my Oculus Rift have finally arrived!

There will be a lengthier and more detailed review later on, but for now I just wanted to share how it feels do be inside a virtual world with the Oculus Rift. Keep in mind I didn't even took the time to properly calibrate everything, I just plugged it in and jumped right in into the Tuscanny demo they provide (also played a little Team Fortress 2 since then. :)

The Oculus Rift really are in a class of their own - no other VR goggles I've tried before comes close. While other VR googles felt like you were just peeping through a couple of camera viewfinders, with the Oculus Rift you actually feel like you're in there! It really is a dream come true, and just like you would "think" virtual reality is/should be.

The response time to our movements has no perceptible lag - in great part due to the motion sensor being developed in-house specifically for the VR task at hand - and... it's simply amazing. For the first time, VR can be all it can be!

Unfortunately, there are also some disappointments... While I always complained about how old VR Googles had little resolution (back in the day you'd be lucky to get VGA 640x480 resolution), I was hoping the Rift's 1280x800 screen (split in half for each eye) would make that a non-issue. But unfortunately it doesn't. While those older goggles had lower resolution, you often had a display for each eye, and it occupied a lot less of your visual field. With the Rift, each eye's 640x800 view is spread a much wider field of view - like we want - but in the process it makes you see much bigger pixels than what I was anticipating.

Even tough it's the best you can have right now, the Rift is a "pixel fest" where you can easily see individual pixels (and even subpixels if you're picky about it - like I am). That really annoyed me a bit for a while... until you forget about it and once again feel like you're in different world! :) I can't tell you enough just how strange - in the good sense - it is to climb up to a second floor and look down!

For a mass market version, I think they really need to use higher resolution screens (it won't be difficult, as we know have 5" Full HD screen). The issue is... I think that even a FullHD panel may not be enough - if I had to make a guess, I would say the Rift would need at least four times the actual resolution/PPI in order for "regular people" to use it and be happy with it. With the trend in displays going precisely into high-ppi screens, I hope that can be put to good use into making a suitable display for the Rift v2.

Well... I'm already saying more than I wanted to - or I'll have nothing left to write about in the final review. So... that's it for now! :)