Edward Mason of GameFace Labs talks about his mobile virtual reality HMD, and the mobile trends of increased processing power and requests for technology that’s better suited for VR devices. He talks about building the customized GameFace prototypes to provide a proof-of-concept for what will be possible with untethered, mobile VR experiences.

He discusses using Android as an open platform, and how they’re using Bluetooth as the interface for bringing in input into VR experiences. Some of the more compelling ones are things like VR chat to be able to have cross-platform interactions with other people within VR, as well as 3D movies and VR movie theaters.

Finally, he talks about the changing VC landscape since Sony and Facebook have gotten into virtual reality and some of the future technologies that will help mobile VR experiences such as battery power improvements and foveated rendering with eye tracking to optimize the use of processing power.

Reddit discussion here.

TOPICS

0:00 – Intro to GameFace Labs untethered VR experience.

0:37 – Mobile: VR needs to be untethered. Mobile tech is advancing so that it will eventually provide an immersive experience with presence and low-persistence. Intent is to put together a proof-of-concept of what’s possible with today’s technology

1:28 – Limited by mobile phones? Collaborating with phone manufacturers. After Sony & Facebook getting involved, then there’s more interest from phone manufacturers to develop hardware more suited for VR, such as 4K mobile phone screens.

2:56 – Will people use their own phone or will GameFace Labs have custom hardware? Going with custom hardware.

3:22 – What is differentiating GameFace Labs from other mobile phone HMDs? There’s a number of customizations

4:04 – Going with Android’s open platform. No one company should own the metaverse. Should be able to interconnect to the metaverse regardless of VR HMD

4:57 – Removing glass touch screen

5:22 – How do you get input into GameFace Labs? Bluetooth-enabled devices

6:05 – What type of experiences do you see with mobile VR HMD? Will eventually have AR with the onboard camera, but the latency isn’t low enough yet. Don’t recommend walking around yet.

6:53 – What should you be able to do with an untethered experience that you can’t do with a tethered one? Full 360 turning with a swivel chair.

7:27 – What about crawling around? Working with PrioVR. And getting data via Bluetooth.

8:00 – What will be different with mobile games? Usually think about simple games. Hardware is improving quickly, and will be generate immersive environments with higher graphical fidelity.

9:21 – Would you see any type of causal VR experiences? Could use it anywhere.

10:21 – What about causal VR content? Horror demos. 360-video experiences or virtual cinemas. Emulate old school games. Content will be king.

12:04 – Will be porting content? Have been porting some PC VR content to be able to use with GameFace, like VR Chat.

12:49 – Using the phone interface to be able to connect to others in a telepresence call? VR Chat experiments

13:18 – How to bring your body into VR? Presence if important, and you can have custom avatars. Eventually have high-res 3D scans for avatars.

14:31 – Are you fundraising for GameFace Labs? Not yet. Releasing a dev kit first.

15:03 – How have Facebook and Sony changed the funding landscape?

16:09 – What’s the potential of VR? So many unknowns and lots of exploration to be done. Battery power and foveated rendering with eye tracking to optimize the use of processing power.

Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio