IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 36
Fun Fact: In 1968, Ivan Sutherland creates the first head-tracking virtual
reality display. It's so heavy that it has to be suspended from the ceiling.
The time began for Luckey
in 2009, at age 17, when he
started tinkering with the
head-mounted displays then
available. Many of the key
challenges in creating virtual
reality, he realized, had
been solved by the makers of
mobile phones and handheld
games: Powerful mobile
processors, high-fidelity
graphics software, and precision motion trackers were all
available. The missing link, he
thought, was the right optics.
The solution he devised
was to build a headset with a
single screen and two lenses.
The low-cost lenses provided
the necessarily wide field
of view. Although they
introduced some geometric
distortion, Luckey knew
this could be compensated
for with modern graphics
hardware. "In the VR heyday
in the '90s, computers didn't
have that," Luckey says.
"This lets Rift be as cheap as
it is using parts off the shelf."
*Honorable Mention*
take two apps
and Call Me
in tHe Morning
Prescription-only smartphone
apps arrive at the doctor's office
this year, patients
throughout the United
States will begin
downloading the world's
first doctor-prescribed
smartphone app.
BlueStar, an app that helps diabetics
control their blood sugar, has been cleared
by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,
and some insurance companies will
reimburse users for its cost. The FDA told
the app's developer, the Baltimore-based
WellDoc, that a doctor's prescription
is necessary because the app doesn't
simply track the user's activity, it also
recommends actions based on the
doctor's treatment plan. -emily Waltz
Read the extended article about this
prescription mobile health application on
IEEE Spectrum's website.
By 2011, Luckey was
in the perfect place to
refine his research: as a
head-mounted-display
designer at the University
of Southern California's
Institute for Creative
Technologies. The institute
is a U.S. Army-funded R&D
facility in Los Angeles that
uses Hollywood talent to
create high-end training
and education simulations.
Working with the VR pioneer
Mark Bolas, Luckey learned
the nuances of how people
perceive VR environments
and began building headmounted displays. One of
them was FOV2GO, a barebones project that uses a
cardboard mount to hold an
iPhone in front of the viewer
while rendering a scene.
But his biggest break
came early last year when
he received an unexpected
e-mail from Carmack. The
celebrated coder had come
across some of Luckey's
online postings, and he
wanted to know if he
could buy one of Luckey's
headsets. Carmack had
been fascinated by virtual
reality since seeing the
Holodeck on "Star Trek:
The Next Generation" as
a teen, and he had been
chipping away for decades
at the technology needed for
VR as he helped create Id's
first-person shooter games.
Carmack said a decade
ago that he considered it a
"moral imperative" to create
affordable virtual reality for
games. Luckey, a huge fan of
Carmack's, immediately sent
him the only prototype he
had. "You're John Carmack,"
Luckey recalls thinking at
the time, "you can get what
you want."
Carmack asked if he could
demo the prototype to some
people, and Luckey agreed.
But Luckey had no clue just
how many people Carmack
had in mind until Carmack
presented the Rift at the
biggest gaming convention
in the country, the
Electronic Entertainment
Expo (E3), in Los Angeles.
One popular game site
heralded that the "Rift could
be the closest we've come to
Star Trek's Holodeck" and
another describing it as "a
gaming experience with a
level of immersion genuinely
unlike anything else we have
ever encountered."
The positive press didn't
just generate interest; it
brought in cash. Following
the E3 splash, Luckey
sought backing on the
online fund-raising site
Kickstarter, hoping to raise
$250 000. Less than two
days later, he had more than
$1 million (by the time the
30-day funding campaign
closed, $2 437 429 had
been pledged). "Kickstarter
ended up being the only
way I could get funded,"
Luckey says. "When you
have a project with no
proven market and [with
a technology that's] failed
so many times in past,
it's kind of crazy to go to
traditional investors."
Game developers have
already been buying
Oculus Rift development
kits to build titles that will
support the Rift. While the
larger companies aren't
icon by
Greg Mably
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum January, 2014
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - Cover1
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - Cover2
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 1
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 2
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 3
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 4
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 5
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 6
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 7
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 8
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 9
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IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 11
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IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 13
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IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 16
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IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 21
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IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 26
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 27
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 28
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 29
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 30
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IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 33
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 34
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 35
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IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 37
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IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 70
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 71
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 72
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 73
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 74
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 75
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 76
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - Cover3
IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - Cover4
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