One of the biggest surprise at Barcelona’s MWC 2015 is the announcement by HTC cooperating with Valve to create the Vive, a VR set. According to the Taiwanese company, the set is expected to be in hands of customers before end of this year.
“We believe that virtual reality will totally transform the way that we interact with the world,” Chou (CEO of HTC) said, “Virtual reality will become a mainstream technology for the rest of the world. Attending real-time concerts, learning history, reliving memories.”
The set will be paired with a Steam VR base station which allows wearers to walk around a virtual space minus the controller. A pair of these will be able to “track your physical location in spaces up to 15 feet by 15 feet,” according to HTC. Jeff Gattis from HTC boasted that the Vive will be so light that “you can wear it for a long time without feeling weighed down,” with wireless controllers which track player’s hands during a gaming session for manipulating virtual objects.
There is a 1,200 by 1,800 pixel screen in front of each eye with a refresh rate of 90fps. According to HTC, it eliminates the jitter which is pretty common in other VR headsets.
The set comes with a gyrosensor, accelerometer, and laser position sensor which will follow the user’s head movement for complete immersion into the virtual environment in natural manner. The company also said that when the system is combined with a pair of SteamVR “base stations”, the device will be able to follow your movement(s) as you walk around.
For more specfications and numbers, check out the official HTC site.
Besides the Vive, Valve also is working on a device called the Lighthouse tracking system and willing to share the technology with other interested manufacturers.
So far, scant details are available on the system but what we know is it brings “high resolution, high-speed tracking” for a seamless and problem free VR session. According to Valve’s Hardware Engineer Alan Yates, the system is affordable enough to be integrated with other systems such as TV, monitors, headsets and so on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eTITJSSRUso
So when is next Half-Life game coming, Valve?
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