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Fans of Oculus may have seen CTO John Carmack’s fabled “unscripted,” keynotes. It continues to be a feat of oration to stand in one spot and talk for 90 minutes straight, most of which is an impassioned take on VR best practices.
The latest rendition happened at the recent OC4 conference, where the signature freestyle address covered mobile VR, standalone VR, optics, video compression and the limits of Moore’s Law. Altogether, it held a theme of interplaying hardware and software.
Oculus Go specifically is an important topic as it will be the vanguard of standalone VR. It will not only have consumer appeal through lower price and less wires, but also dedicated hardware. It’s tuned for VR, rather than sharing functionality with a phone, as mobile VR is.
In other words, the hardware and software for Oculus Go will be optimized and dedicated for VR’s unique needs. Carmack describes a personal anecdote (direct link) from his beta testing, in which Oculus Go’s plug and play functionality contrasts Gear VR’s disjointed experience.
“It’s the same software, but [without] the trouble of starting it up, docking it, launching an application, and getting through that,” he said. “The standalone that can sit there as a device that really is just ready when you put it on: That is a significant change in experience.”
See the full address below as this week’s featured video. But because we don’t expect everyone to have that kind of time, there’s a succinct alternative. Along with the keynote, we have a lighter-hearted clip that features Carmack explaining VR to various age groups.
It underscores the challenge that the industry faces in having to educate several types of consumers to get excited about (or even fully understand) VR. Access both videos embedded below and stay tuned for lots more commentary on Consumer VR’s direction.
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Disclosure: ARtillry has no financial stake in the companies mentioned in this post, nor received payment for its production. Disclosure and ethics policy can be seen here.