Reddit reviews Sex, Drugs and Tessellation: The Truth About Virtual Reality, as Revealed in the Pages of CyberEdge Journal

The stream is posted elsewhere...

It was a giant, fancy SVVR meetup. Highlights for me.

STEM prototypes are starting to come out.
The Nimble Sense guy(s) were there, practically glowing... :)

Samsung was there demoing Gear VR.. Same experiences as Connect I think. Except now it's a buyable product. It got kind of steamed up for me but.. it was a super warm room on a rainy, wet night.. so not really a good test case.

Keith Kaisershot got Tron Light Cycles working on Windows now.. that was huge (for me... as I'm not a Mac guy). Remember that name. He's going to big things in VR.

CastAR was there showing their developer protos. Rumor is 4-5 months until release. I'm a backer.. but I'm still unsure about it. It's cool, but, AR is just different I guess.

Seebright is shifting to the AR space from pure Mobile VR (probably a good idea). I love these guys. They are so positive. Another nice thing is that they are open source/open idea/free access model. So, as they say 'no walled gardens'. Give them a look if you haven't yet. Simon Solotko SPOKE. That guy doesn't even need a microphone. I want to drink his brand of coffee though, he's amazingly energetic.

Jaunt was there and are about to release a bunch of stuff. New camera coming, more deals... I think they've really 'broken through' at this point and will start getting a lot of attention from the big names. VR Cinema is probably the first major consumer killer app. We all thought it was games, I think it's going to be movies, at least at first. Of course, I could be wrong.

EleVR was there. Open source VR video. I guess I'd say it's not as polished as Jaunt but with good reason but it's pretty good over all and it's open so.. what's not to like? Not sure how they afford to work on this full time but it's a good thing for them to be into.

Tactical Haptics was there showing the Ghostbusters demo which is a lot of fun. Basically, it's a Hydra with their Tactical Haptics grips making you feel the pull and shake of a 'slimer' ghost that you take down with a Ghostbuster gun. It's very compelling.. I really want them to get integrated with Stem, or have Oculus buy them, or something.. They really have a good, practical and SAFE solution for hand/grip haptics. I even think their tech could work on a glove if they could shrink it down a bit.

UploadVR is doing a big event in January in San Francisco. 1500 people geeking out over VR. Good times.

We all got a free Google Cardboard for showing up. (yay!) That was very nice.

I bought a really nice book about VR history from a VR pioneer. It's called: Sex, Drugs and Tesselation. I paid the guy $65.. it's available on Amazon for $30. I feel a bit put out by that!

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Drugs-Tessellation-Revealed-CyberEdge-ebook/dp/B00OMGG5BG/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418418869&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=virtual+reality+sex%2C+drugs+and+tesselation

EH.. I'm over it.. :)

Speakers:

Alt-Space was there, no big developments to announce so if you're up to speed on their beta, that's where they are at. Very polished IMHO... still trying to figure out how the java integration will work but it's extremely promising.

Ethereon was a great little talk.. he got a bit drowned out by the rabble rabble of the crowd, but, he had some really valuable game play/game design tips in there... I'd like to pick his brain a bit more.

VRChat was there and dared a huge, complicated demo. It took balls of stone to attempt that and I give them a solid A... Here's why.. The presentation glitches are not their fault... but, a two man team is REALLY developing a great platform for an early metaverse. They are going to release a new SDK that will let devs 'easily' create a connected virtual world. I don't want to gush.. but, although this is rough around the edges still, it has all the hallmarks of something that could catch on and surpass all the big team efforts that are going on out there....

STEM: Amir spoke..for a while.. and presented the first STEM to Karl. Good times. I like the STEM guys.. all of them. I even told Scott (our hero community tech support guy) that they deserve to win in VR just because of how committed they have been to the community. What they are trying to do is hard. I don't know (yet) if it will catch on or if they can solve all the hardware/manufacturing problems they will face. But, let me tell you, if you haven't done the Lightsaber demo with STEM, you haven't ever felt like a Jedi. Star Wars Kid (tm) would blow his gourd over this. Keep working those long hours SixSense Team! I want my STEM!

Stomps was there.. doing stompy things. I've done that a bunch so I didn't visit them.

Notably Missing: Any of the 'deck based' motion setups.


There was one thing missing and I think we need to give some thought to next year. SVVR is a really great community and I think we should maybe step up next year and do something FOR the VR community. Either raise some money, get VR gear into schools, donate to Child's Play, give Karl, Nana and Bruce a little thank you... I have seen how much they put into it, and yes, they have a lot of recognition in the industry but that doesn't pay the bills.

Oh, I didn't see Crescent Bay this time.. the line was long and I had seen it at OC.. Tried to jump in at the end but got shot down by Security. I did talk to first timers coming out.. they were practically in tears. Tears of joy. :)

Lastly; it was a good time. Worth hydroplaning all the way up 101 during the NorCal "Rainpocalypse"

Any questions? I will expand or answer if I can. Sorry that I missed many people... I'll add as I remember.