Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Throughout the late 80s and 90s, dozens of companies tried to turn VR headsets
into commercial success. All of them failed hard. Some were too expensive;
most just didnt work worth a damn. Allof them were far too ahead of their time
(with components being far too expensive to source, and most home computers
being far too weak to power anything worth playing.)
Sourcing his collection everywhere from industry liquidation sales to government
auctions and carting himself out to the seller to avoid paying for shipping, hed
get his hands on headsets that once cost nearly $100,000 for less than $100. By
his own estimates, Palmer has the largest private collection of virtual reality
headsets in the world.
From all the hype that Oculus Rift got from E3 with the help from Carmack, it
stirred some interest from seasoned tech professionals Brendan Iribe and Mike
Antonov. From all the following meetups with these people, Brendan became a
CEO and Antonov as chief software architect. That helped the Oculus company
tremendously, as it allowed them to make a lot more HMDs than initially planned
for.
It sounded a little bit insane, but Zuckerberg wasnt joking. There are certain
things in the future that you know will happen, he continued. The real
challenge is figuring out whats possible now and how exactly do you make it.
(Oculus Rift)
In just a few years of tinkering, the teenage Luckey turned all of that on its head,
using existing parts to engineer something far better and lighter than any other
headset out there, all for under $300thereby creating the first virtual reality
device that could be a viable mainstream product. And he did it not in a lab but in
his parents garage.
Bibliography
Oculus Rft. (n.d.). Retrieved 11 17 , 2015, from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculus_Rift
Oculus Rift. (n.d.). Retrieved 11 17, 2015, from RiftInfo: http://riftinfo.com/oculus-rift-history-how-it-allstarted
Oculus Rift. (n.d.). Retrieved 11 17, 2015, from TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/26/a-briefhistory-of-oculus/
Oculus Rift. (n.d.). Retrieved 11 17, 2015, from smithsonian:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-palmer-luckey-created-oculus-rift180953049/
Oculus Rift. (n.d.). Retrieved 11 17, 2015, from Vanity Fair:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/09/oculus-rift-mark-zuckerberg-cover-story-palmerluckey
Formatted: Heading 1