my birth cry will be the sound of every phone on this planet ringing
August 3, 2016 7:10 AM   Subscribe

 
The music for that VR lobby is terrifying. Is that what it feels like to be inside of David Lynch's mind?
posted by Fizz at 7:20 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


Outstanding title choice.
posted by Artw at 7:25 AM on August 3, 2016 [6 favorites]


I wonder how people will react when their virtual hands start moving just a little differently than their real hands.
posted by adamrice at 7:28 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


Don't distract from my dream of becoming a chrome plated skeleton-bot!
posted by Artw at 7:29 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


When I am an old man I shall wear purple remotely hack kids' VR sets so their virtual hands run amok and keep slapping them in the face while their own voice shouts at them, "Stop hitting yourself! Why are you hitting yourself?"
posted by Naberius at 7:41 AM on August 3, 2016 [9 favorites]


Manus: The VR Hands of Fate
posted by bstreep at 7:42 AM on August 3, 2016 [24 favorites]


I wonder how people will react when their virtual hands start moving just a little differently than their real hands

No kidding. In game, your brain would adjust after a while, and your arm positions would begin to feel natural. The mindfuck would be when you take the helmet off and your real hands are in the wrong place.
posted by CaseyB at 8:09 AM on August 3, 2016


Look, this is not new. You must realize that nothing they are doing is new. They haven't been tapping into new areas of the brain -- they have just been awakening the most ancient. This technology is simply a route to powers that conjurers and alchemists used centuries ago. The human race lost that knowledge and now we're reclaiming it through virtual reality.
posted by maxsparber at 8:12 AM on August 3, 2016 [5 favorites]


I wonder how people will react when their virtual hands start moving just a little differently than their real hands.

I prefer it the other way round. VR hands obey perfectly, it's the real hands that are starting to... do things. The more time you spend in VR, the less your meat obeys you.
posted by Leon at 8:15 AM on August 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


"I love the PowerGlove. It's so bad."
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:15 AM on August 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


Tested did a little in-depth report on the technology behind this. It actually seems pretty low-tech, using resistance bands to detect movement and extrapolating from that.

So the software knows your exact location of your head and forearm from the Vive sensors and so can make a pretty good guess about elbow, shoulder etc , but something like a shrug therefore wouldn't be mapped into the VR.
posted by Static Vagabond at 8:15 AM on August 3, 2016


...using resistance bands to detect movement...

I can't watch the video with sound on; do they mean resistance bands as in flexible potentiometers? Because that's exactly how the PowerGlove worked.
posted by griphus at 8:18 AM on August 3, 2016


Yeah, no sound here now either-- so just from memory, it's just a ribbon/membrane potentiometer on each finger (so just one reading per finger, not one per finger-knuckle), so I don't think you could just bend your secondary-knuckles (is that the term?) that are closer to your nails and it would register that singular movement-- it would actually render a closing fist.

Adding one for each first/secondary knuckle doesn't seem overly hard though, so maybe that's their long-term plan.
posted by Static Vagabond at 8:41 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


Very excited for this. Hoping we soon get some timelines for game implementation.

I have to say, even without finger tracking in VR, the experience is still nearly wholly immersive. I'm interested to see what level of depth this tracking can bring.

The future is arriving, and pretty damn quickly.
posted by Twain Device at 8:46 AM on August 3, 2016




So the software knows your exact location of your head and forearm from the Vive sensors and so can make a pretty good guess about elbow, shoulder etc , but something like a shrug therefore wouldn't be mapped into the VR.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by Kabanos at 8:56 AM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


The next stage of virtual reality will simulate wearing dorky black virtual goggles that obscure your vision, and through them you can see the actual world.
stares at arms, hands
oh maaaaaan

posted by zippy at 9:10 AM on August 3, 2016


Slap on some house music and speed it up a bit, add some dirt and boom, party dome at Burning Man.
A whole bunch of other disembodied arms waving around would make it seem like a real party.
posted by boilermonster at 9:13 AM on August 3, 2016


One anonymous user has bankrolled the "customize size of your virtual hands" feature.
posted by idiopath at 9:26 AM on August 3, 2016 [8 favorites]


What they need for real immersion is force feedback into the fingers so you know when/if you are grabbing onto something, which would be do-able with small servos or (wand wavy explanation) other currently available technology. Not sure how you'd ever supply feedback into the actual motion of the hands through space, though. (for example, pulling a lever, or holding a heavy object in a game)
posted by Mr. Big Business at 10:46 AM on August 3, 2016


I think like about a decade ago I read that they got haptic feedback down to the extent that, holding a vibrating stylus, you would be able to "feel" spheres and cubes in empty space.
posted by griphus at 10:50 AM on August 3, 2016


Meh. The ring finger's not tracking correctly, unless he has a problem with this ring finger, but then whey would he be demo'ing the gloves? Also it doesn't show any fine motor control such as grasping things of different sizes or writing a letter and the hands are never brought together and the fingers of each hand aren't interlaced or interact with each other, so no great technological strides here. Also Johnny Mnemonic would like his incidental music back plz&thx.
posted by Zack_Replica at 11:17 AM on August 3, 2016


of course the first 4 minutes of virtual hand demo includes punching, but not grasping a virtual object.
posted by JoeBlubaugh at 1:31 PM on August 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


it's just a ribbon/membrane potentiometer on each finger (so just one reading per finger, not one per finger-knuckle), so I don't think you could just bend your secondary-knuckles (is that the term?) that are closer to your nails and it would register that singular movement-- it would actually render a closing fist.

This is useless to me if I can't do a kung-fu stance and beckon my opponent with a proper straight-fingered "bring it on" gesture.
posted by CaseyB at 2:12 PM on August 3, 2016


3 or 4 Kinects, a broad Leap Motion (or two or three stradling the FOV) and a camera passthrough.

The only thing missing is the full body glove using thin-film metalic variable friction sheets/ strips.

Damnit! I saw a video a while back where the tendon/tension was provided by just a few sheets of metalic material which had a variable friction between them when sliding over each other dependant on the electrical current applied. Now I for the life of me cannot google-fu find that.

Basically it was a few interleaved sheets/strips of metal and as they slid, you applied electricity to change the friction between the sheets/strips. The perfect candidate for VR haptic feedback ...

An internet cookie (or bisquit) to anyone who can find what I'm talking about :(
posted by MacD at 3:15 PM on August 3, 2016


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