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Why do you think the bulk of the Oculus innovation is deep in the stack? Is there much custom hardware in the Quest 2 or is it similar to a phone in a different
by ghostpepper 6y ago
Why do you think the bulk of the Oculus innovation is deep in the stack? Is there much custom hardware in the Quest 2 or is it similar to a phone in a different form factor?
How much of the accuracy of the sensor fusion algorithm comes from the inherent accuracy/calibration of the underlying sensors?
Has anyone tried bringing up a stock android distribution on the Quest 2?
- someperson 6y agoJohn Carmack does several hour-long sessions at every annual Oculus Connect event (now called Facebook Connect). [1] [2] He has often spoken about deeply optimizing virtual reality by peeling back all the software layers. From his annoyance at the Android's process scheduling on the GearVR to writing custom microcode for the Qualcomm chip's Digital Signal Processor to try and optimize playing PC games (over Oculus Link streaming) by encoding and transmitting video per scan line (instead of per frame). He said that up until a few months before the original Quest launched they weren't even sure whether they could get inside-out optical tracking working to sufficient quality, but that they just continued to iterate on the algorithms until it worked well. It's clear that most of Oculus' innovation are deep in the stack, seemingly pushed forward by the legendary John Carmack. Now that Carmack is merely the "consulting CTO" rather than working on these problems full-time there's real questions about whether Oculus' deep stack innovations will continue. Oculus Quest is effectively a smartphone in many key ways, but it has several monochrome wide-angle cameras for tracking. Also unlike smartphones it has active cooling fans for improved thermals. It seems there's a million little things than come together to make Oculus Quest standalone VR way better than any phone-holder based virtual reality platform that I've used. As far as an open-source custom firmware for Oculus Quest goes, I am unaware of any project that has yet cracked the bootloader to run unsigned code and then booted stock Android. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMIDaomx0GA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMIDaomx0GA [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXmY26pOE-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXmY26pOE-Y
- numpad0 6y agoGoogle and HTC both independently failed to match Oculus. I don’t think an open source implementation at this stage would work at all.
- someperson 6y agoIf not now then when? Given the top-notch specifications, Facebook appear to be selling at least for the 64GB Quest 2 at a significant loss. The advantage of an open-source custom firmware is it will leverage all the work that the Oculus hardware engineers have done, and the subsidized price. Or do you believe standalone VR headsets are doomed to being closed forever? It does suprise me that Google effectively gave up investment in VR and effectively handed the entire industry to Facebook. Though Microsoft's efforts with Windows Mixed Reality headsets haven't made a splash at all (except maybe the HP Reverb G2).
- Mindwipe 6y ago> Or do you believe standalone VR headsets are doomed to being closed forever? I think they're doomed to being closed until quite a few patents expire.
- numpad0 6y agoMaybe I was too far into some denial. I retract some of my words. A rooted Quest 2 is going to be sizzling device in some ways, I admit.
- ghostpepper 6y agoHow hard did google really try, though?
- moron4hire 6y agoThey convinced Lenovo to make the first standalone 6-DOF headset and a 180⁰ camera for building content to go with it.