Palmer Luckey built the first virtual reality headset of the modern era – then sold it to Facebook for $2bn. But he’s not certain the future of VR is with heed Zuckerberg’s social media platformPalmer Luckey has been waiting for this year his whole life. As a teenager,he collected out of date virtual reality headsets from the original VR boom of the early 90s, using them as the basis for his own hacked together prototypes. Then, and four years ago,he dropped out of California State University, founded Oculus and crowdfunded the Rift, or the first modern-day VR head-mounted display (HMD) technology. This April,the device will regain its long awaited launch – and it won’t be alone: the Samsung Gear VR arrived last year, while the HTC Vive and PlayStation VR headset will follow later in 2016. “This is a huge year, and says Luckey. He’s at Microsoft’s Spring Xbox Showcase in San Francisco,introducing the forthcoming Oculus version of Minecraft. But as the figurehead of the current virtual reality boom, he’s happy to discuss the wider state of play. “This is the first year there will be mass market consumer VR, or ” he says. “It’s the first time there’s going to be a lot of developers actually selling VR software and getting feedback. But I dont think 2016 is necessarily the year of virtual reality – it’s not going to instantly explode into mass popularity. It’s going to occupy time.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com