SPOTLIGHT ON TECH - September, 2018
Oculus Experience
An Interview with the Oculus Go Team
WRITERS: Jack Callaway, Lilah Richman and Kylie Sebastian. REPORTERS: Kyan Baker, Jack Calloway, Nathaniel Eves, Kylar Flynn, Eliza Gould, Ella Hyman, Lydia Kitzel, Sammi Dostart-Meers, Jane Merkle, Berta Muza, Lilah Richman, Kylie Sebastian, Eve Sloan, Zadie Winthrop
(FROM: International High School, Marin Academy, Marin Catholic, Marin School of the Arts, Redwood High, San Domenico, San Rafael High, St. Ignatius Preparatory, Terra Linda High, The Menlo School, Urban School of SF)
Picture this: You’ve just come home from a long day at school. The house is empty and you’re tired and lonely. You don’t have a TV and your laptop is dead. Grab your Oculus Go headset, snagging its controller on your way to the couch. Put on the headset and step into a new reality where you can travel anyplace in the world, watch movies with 360-degree sound, even play video games from the middle of the action. Instead of the same old routine you can spend the day blasting around the galaxy with your friends, catching up on some of your favorite shows, or, if you’re feeling adventurous, swimming your way to the ocean’s depths. These are just some of the experiences made possible by the new world of virtual reality, and Oculus, a brand through Facebook, has made VR more accessible with its newly designed headset.
Standard PC-tethered virtual reality headsets have to be connected to a specific computer, which in turn has to be powerful enough to power the headset. Oculus Go is significantly different from Oculus Rift, which was the first headset from Oculus. First, it’s completely standalone, which means you don’t have to drop in your mobile phone or attach it to a PC, or anything at all, making it easy to use.
The new device is also much cheaper—$200 instead of the $400 you have to pay for Rift. The hope is that Oculus Go’s affordability helps make virtual reality more mainstream instead of something only a lucky few have access to. It’s also smaller and lighter in size, offering 3 degrees of freedom tracking (versus 6 degrees of freedom), which allowed the team to build a smaller, more concise form factor.
When Oculus technical project manager Charmaine Hung showed us the new Oculus Go headset, it was like stepping into Ready Player One and preparing to enter the OASIS. “When we’re thinking about our products,” she said, “no matter how good the experience is, if we don’t make something that a lot of people will want to use and buy, we won’t get what Mark Zuckerberg talked about—a billion people into VR. And the other thing is innovation—we really want to also pack our headsets with exciting technology, new technology.”
As they were designing Oculus Go, the company’s engineers and designers had several priorities. First of all, they wanted to ensure that the headset was comfortable to wear. This meant making sure that it wasn’t too heavy or bulky and that the facial interface wasn’t uncomfortable. The headset also had to have high-quality graphics, and its picture couldn’t be blurry in any way. They also strived to avoid what’s called the “screen door effect,” which is when the graphics look like they’re being viewed through, yes, a screen door. In addition they made sure the Oculus Go would have the luxury of built-in audio, which means the sound comes through the headset’s strap and makes the virtual reality experience even more realistic.
Virtual reality offers people access to life-enriching opportunities. Play interactive games at a fantastic new level and make movie-watching an absolutely immersive experience. Be more productive as you work with team members in a virtual space or travel to faraway places real or imagined. Dying to go to an NBA game but can’t afford the $1,000 ticket? Put on your Oculus Go headset and you’re there with your friends without leaving home. As the Oculus Go slogan says, “Live every story, because when you learn to love a life different from your own, the world becomes a little closer.”