We were unsure if this day would come. Primarily because Classroom Aquatic is a virtual reality game about a class full of dolphins cheating off each other, and the Kickstarter project was asking for $30 thousand. Dolphin-game lovers like me surely recall the cruel fate of the ECCO the Dolphin comeb
It seems Google is aware that their newfangled augmented reality eyewear has a public image problem, with privacy issues surfacing around facial recognition software and the fact that early adopters are basically positing themselves as geeky, walking camcorders. So the tech giant has put together a
“Into the Frame” is a project by researchers at Middlesex University on display at the Red Gallery in London’s Shoreditch neighborhood. The futuristic installation allows viewers (or rather, experiencers) of a painting to immerse themselves in the work through touch and sound, extending past the typ
We knew that affordable, consumer-level virtual reality would take us to places we’ve never been. We didn’t know that it would be to the front row of a swanky fashion show in London. However, that’s exactly what clothing retailer Topshop plans to do for its Autumn/Winter 2014 line, which they’re sho
Sometimes you can go home again, at least in virtual reality. A guy going by Dark Akuma is recreating Link’s happy boyhood village from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Oculus Rift. The software allows you to explore the quaint woodland clearing from the Nintendo 64 game in all it’s bloc
A confused little article posted on Forbes seriously suggests that virtual reality will become the next China white. The argument is that videogames trigger the release of dopamine in the brain, which puts them in the same category as cocaine. Though Tom Bissell’s Extra Lives may have something to s
Carlos Montero, the project lead on Black Mesa, the HD Half-Life remake, was one of the few who were invited to go face-on with Valve’s virtual reality helm, which is apparently the next best thing to lucid dreaming. So what do the lucky ones who tumble down the rabbit hole in Gabe Newell’s personal
The Witness—Jonathan Blow’s Myst-like puzzler that set on a deserted island that is, yes, professionally landscaped—will be playable in virtual reality, the Braid-creator posted on his blog. But it wouldn’t be a Blow post without a dash of vitriol: Last year I was pessimistic about VR systems in the
There was a lot of hype around virtual reality at CES last week, but don’t overlook the fantastic possibilities of augmented reality. You can see what they’re capable of in the video below: namely, very-impressive holograms projected out in front of you. While this pair of CastAR augmented reality g
We recently learned that Oculus Rift—the guys who make the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset—are bulking up to develop their own games. They’ve already have brought on FPS-forefather John Carmack, although it was suspected he’d just be working on the technical aspects of thing. Not so! Now, they’r
If you’ve been following the tech and gaming blogs this week—and you have, or else you wouldn’t be here—you are aware that a pretty huge trade show known as the Consumer Electronics Show has been going down in Las Vegas. It can be a lot to keep up with, as this year we’ve got some big gaming news. W
One very cool gadget among a sea of very cool gadgets at CES is this pair of noise-canceling virtual-reality headphones. Yes, that is a thing. The Glyph by Avegant, as seen above, looks like a pair of ordinary headphones, until you tilt them down to wear them over your eyes and viola: virtual freaki
Probably not. But the other day Aeon Magazine published a pretty creepy article, 3,500 words in length, speculating on the possibility of an afterlife which is entirely computer-simulated. So, basically, the singularity. The author’s thought process flows from the old question: if we could upload th
A new category has appeared on Steam, bearing the words “VR support.” Now that virtual reality is a separate entity in the database, maybe this means we’ll be seeing some made-from-scratch VR games soon. When the current wave of virtual reality first gained momentum with the Oculus Rift, it was ver
The future has gotten even rosier for virtual reality, as the Oculus Rift headgear has just received a whopping 75 million dollars in financial backing from the investing firm Andreessen Horowitz. Oculus had previously raised just 16 million. This will undoubtedly propel us into the virtual future
Virtual reality continues to show that man will go to great lengths to supplant himself inside the world of Grand Theft Auto. A batshit but impressive tech demo of one devoted man strapped into every virtual reality peripheral there is makes that evident. In the video, he’s using a locomotion device
Palmer Luckey, the outspoken, young entrepreneur behind the Oculus Rift, says the reason we won’t see his revolutionary virtual reality headset on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 is because consoles can’t keep up with the pace of technology. “Consoles are too limited for what we want to do. We’re tr
Pseudologia fantastica, we like dying a lot, Cormac McCarthy 101, invisible kittles, Museum of Design Atlanta, pitch drops—confirmed, and do bars really trust drunk people not to spill Sierra Nevada on this expensive-looking touch screen game?
Power has a funny effect on the human mind. History is positively filthy with powerful leaders who turned into total jerks or went paranoid after the power went to their heads. Apparently, superpowers are a different story entirely. Discovery recently posted about research done at Stanford’s Virtual
