Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I'm Roger Chang I'm Scott Stein oculus unveiled its let's VR headset the quest it is a sleek standalone headset with fewer wires and cables and full motion tracking Scott what do you think is this is this finally I get VR into the mainstream well it's gonna take more than that to get VR into the mainstream but I think has there been a lot of attempts but I do think this is a real exciting step if you want that ready player one feel in the real world this is finally the untethered and full motion VR experience we haven't had both of those before last year oculus go was it was a standalone but you had to stay in one place it was really oculus day and yeah I'm I guess I'm pressed by the fact that there are no wires at all even with the the handset controls the there there's no like power pack there's no like a wireless connection it's like this is full standalone right yeah and it looks impressive in that sense I tried an early version of this back in March before it was called oculus quest and it's the headset contains everything compared to something like magic leap which has a belt pack yeah and it's still pretty bulky um head gear it really does seem very self-contained and the controllers look very similar to the oculus touch controllers on PC they're full motion they have analog stick buttons they should allow what they call full hand feel or or motion you know it's like but that's important because it you can finally reach out and you could also move around in spaces yeah and and it can sense and map and track what your room's dimensions are huh do you know what the the distance of movement is is there like it's a couple feet or is it long well the distance of movement is is potentially infinite as far as like it will just keep mapping out I think they mentioned 4,000 square feet as you move through the actual range is probably going to be more like a couple of meters and we still have to see but a lot of those tend to be an a it can only really see a few feet ahead let's say but we don't know it's using for wide-angle cameras around the headset to do that inside out to do six degree of freedom tracking right and that's how it tracks the controller is kind of like Microsoft's VR headsets on Windows now and it's supposed to really kind of pick up the slack and have motion sensors and the controllers that can help when it goes out of range we'll have to see if there are any gaps in that tracking but it looks promising the other question is obviously the other big VR system the HTC vive they sort of made their names like the big full motion tracking system a lot of wires in that system fairly expensive what do you think will HTC respond or is this sort of you know does this put the vibe in a bad position I think everyone will respond HTC does have its own focus VR headset and a lot of these are using similar chips apparently the the quest is using I think a snapdragon 835 to find out more but it's a mobile processor again last year's Google Lenovo Mirage solo which is developing six degree freedom tracking is 835 the vibe focus is 835 so there's a kind of a class of mobile VR right that I think will start evolving oculus is gonna get through the gate first on this and has a really strong relationship with software developers in the library that being said only 50 games that launch for this apparently so you know naughty gigant I mean it's decent but it's not a gigantic amount how many of them will carry over from the rift will the port be easy what about all the oculus go titles which there are hundreds and what's the killer app right I mean there are some already out there but we have to sort of see if those are enough are there any killer apps really I mean I think you know I don't play beat Sabre but I think you know I think that like like rhythm fitness games are becoming really popular for people if you've used them I think tilt brush and and art games are art apps like medium or great but they hadn't really said they're making that but I think if you could create on the fly but I mean you really have to be into those particular things I don't know if those aren't necessarily drawing new customers just for those all right moving on to the iPhone 10 are you wrote today this is really the phone that we should be waiting for what why is that I think the 10 are really prefer so it's affordable it's a ittle more affordable it's it starts to 750 and everything we know so far I haven't haven't reviewed it and I don't have one yet but it uses the same processor yeah it uses the same image sensor and an isp all the camera tech that's in the 10s so that sounds like all the basic stuff you want the battery's supposed to be better so that's already been listed as having the best battery life so that all adds up to a great equation the LCD display is not OLED but apples LCD displays already look really good right and it doesn't have a dual camera but you know pixel two did fine and you know I think sometimes you just need a single camera is that enough to spend all the way up for just a dual camera on the 10s will there be any other surprises and there's no 3d touch but most people don't really use that anyhow right but it sounds like a perfect you know not too crazily priced new iPhone and that is something that I think a lot of people want alright we don't have time to dive in these topics buzz but please check out our site an explainer piece I wrote on 5g we've got a look at how NASA is reinventing itself after six decades and we also wanted to wish lastly a happy birthday happy 20th birthday to Google alright for more of these stories you've seen it I'm Roger Cheng I'm Scott Steiner thanks for listening really a minute okay I lost track of my tracking here you go I lost my six degrees of freedom track you hear that chat only a minute and a half over that's not that we're saying we're talking in the chat about how it's good to be above average because M somebody's asking what the runtime was and like oh it's it's three minutes and 59 seconds often times more than that so I'll take it but yeah keep sending in your questions and comments we'll get to those here in just a second James wants to wish Scott well after his what looked to be painful fall yes thank you how you feeling my knees are fine for now good for now it starts to get rainy we'll see oh yeah feel it in my knees all right so let's talk about VR and maybe a little bit of AR since they're just kind of you know caddy corner yeah each other yeah Michael Brown says I wasn't really sure what the oculus quest headset was I think VR is forever going to be a specific community I don't see it becoming more what you take away in that guys that's a really interesting thought about I don't know what it was I kept thinking about this afterwards and I was thinking is it starting to get really confusing you know you're gonna have to oculus headsets available one year after the other oculus go in oculus quest those sound pretty similar to me yeah what does everything go and quest and they're both standalone so in the differences that there has not been a standalone headset that's allowed you to really move around and control things like a PC VR headset but you're right in essence a lot of the equation and even the games are gonna be similar way again on PC so for people who've already made up their mind about just the idea of VR is not for them I don't think this is gonna change things but the price at 399 sounds great it's like it's a game console normal not too crazy price compare that to magically won it you know $2,000 so you know that's like that's a big gap in terms of what in that same for developers magically that's a totally different proposition but still you're you're now at a point where VR headsets used to be $1,000 $800 now you're an all contained 400 but I don't know I don't know if it's too many things too quickly and there's still a lot more to come that these things still want to be so we're not even at a final point yet right the look that the issue has been the issue from the beginning is selling VR is impossible unless you're there in the store trying it out for most people they kind of read about it but it's you don't really get to experience it and I don't really it's also kind of a for me it's a novelty like I spend 15 minutes in it I'm like I'm good good I don't I don't know if I need to spend a thousand even four hundred dollars for system like this yeah yeah it's two hundred is like I thought last year with the go or this year time is moving fast yeah at or slow time with the go is a $200 Amazon echo type price so it kind of gets into this like impulse purchase not really but I feel like it just slides in the door $400 is not an impulse purchase no and also there is a question for me about battery life we don't know about that yet and you know the thing about the go is it's a lot of quick five-minute things try it a video you're done it sits on the shelf for a while maybe you try something else but a lot of the games that they're talking about for our rift games for the quest Moss great game on psvr and other platforms they also mention the climb they mentioned a robo recall these are games you may want to play for a while and if the battery life you know on the go is about two hours if the battery life on this is about two hours or less then you're suddenly gonna say oh I need to recharge and is that gonna be weird you know so that's another thought too yeah a lot of thoughts yeah you're full of them full of it a quick disclaimer we know that there's been more than a few people who are having a hard time getting the right notifications from YouTube we don't really have any answers on that so we do apologize on behalf of YouTube but this is kind of out of our hand it's an algorithm thing why our loyal subscribers aren't getting notifications about when we go live is completely beyond us but we keep pressing them for answers so either way thank you we love you thank you for your patience we'll keep trying to figure this one out on two more questions Gabriel is asking how much is this quest doohickey 399 yeah so you know more expensive than your average game console more expensive than a Nintendo switch these are things you might randomly spend money on for entertainment I think we'll go random I feel like if I'm buying a switch I'm like I'm intend to buy a console yes so you said this is not an impulse purchase at all no but I mean random in the sense that they're not like if you buy a phone if you buy a computer these are things that you use in your have a purpose you know you're getting sort of a gift for yourself in a lot of ways yes which it's great but you go like I'm gonna spend money I'm gonna get it I'm gonna get a thing it's gonna be fun so in that sense in your in your fun bucket you have that is there we go that's a messy sounding fun bucket you got you gotta think about $400 for the for that and I also don't know there's another big question how integrated is the VR ecosystem with all the ACEF in VR that's out there it's a part of the VR is the idea is you want all be on the holodeck together and we don't really know how much that's gonna be the case or even how much Quest is going to be connected in an easy seamless way to rift and go owners even from oculus as eco system it's a little bit quite a little bit I know quest owners be connected to other questions yeah then you have to like you know quest owners support group yeah thank you fine a quest owner oh this like this like high class middle class low class here that's either dating after that there might be come up we got a club yard right now vendor vendor I mean there I think there are not a ton of dating I've not certainly not explored any dating apps in real life or well actually one of our one of our former interns Rose story about VR VR dating service yeah it was creepy yeah it was creepy so actually side note I went into I watched the keynote yesterday in VR did you yes I didn't write about it although someone who I saw in there wrote about it in VR maybe I will also do that it it was for the first time it was streamable in venues which is oculus --is mobile attempt to mix a live stream with an audience of avatars hmm so when you sit down I tried it out it was like being it kind of feel like being in a virtual press conference the stage was very nicely blended which was video and then there were these 3d risers all around me that I was sitting in and they're all these little cartoon goofy avatar me type things so there's a 360 cam or 180 cam like at the front of the event so it's like watching a stream but with the added peanut gallery so you could change your seat and I hopped around people were muttering and talking you could you could really yeah you could mute that or you can keep that in or change the level so I kind of enjoyed it and then someone goes to the virtual audience like you couldn't you couldn't actually see the like the live audience behind No so total replaces the live audience and you cannot interact at all with what's being streamed so there's no future of like a comedy show that we're like take audience recommend right right we're raising questions right over less sure they had not conquered that but someone next to me said Jett Scott and I was like hey and it was so Oh someone else in the virtual conference yes someone else next to me the avatar was a writer for MIT tech review Oh Rachel mat-su yeah great yeah yeah great yeah we were chatting for a bit she wrote a whole story about her experience streaming it and mentioned running into someone which was me and she mentioned you the story she measured me by name she's probably being generous about that and just saying like I met a fellow tech journalist pal and we talked a bit but she was saying her eyes got very fatigued I had a problem which was that I'm covering for breaking news on Quest the moment the breaking news happened you've got kidnapped an offer I couldn't file I have no actual laptop yeah so what am I gonna do I'd take it off and then it disconnects and actually threw me bazzetta you ran into the other office to look at the the other feed yes yeah yeah and I was scrambling and yelling and and yeah for for journalists it's actually like the worst thing to immerse yourself in Essex yeah stay in this where you have no ability to quickly respond or tweet Shockers would love that in our system forever don't don't do anything where you can respond or react so that is the downside the biggest downside to me with the VR right it's actually not that bad for a quick peek but it is fatiguée yeah there's a little bit to that point like yeah that's why I mentioned like 15 minutes and I think because that's kind of the max for me because my eyes do get tired yes really quickly on these things then uses worth a try if you have a gear VR an oculus go it's entertaining it's an interesting step I think they do a couple of interesting things but it's clearly like very beginning of trying to figure that out for those of you requesting an episode of the 359 TVR no go to hell who did that no we did 360 that's kind of you or no it's not it was it calls 359 360 no no I'm either way editing that kind of thing awful awful so yeah we're not doing that what kind of games are available on the quest said I had a pretty robust launch list like 50 titles right Scott yeah but they didn't say what ones yeah but they said it should be 50 ones they've listed I think they're only a handful that I know about I mean they had a tennis demo on the floor I was not at oculus connect colleague Ian share it was and got to demo stuff and there'll be more hands-on experiences from that but they announced robbery call moss the climb were three notable games and the ILM xlab announced Vader immortal is the name of it it's like a Star Wars series set in the kind of rogue one shadows of the Empire type of my conflating things now it's definitely road one ish period yes I think over lap with rogue one no so I'm thinking about there's a name of the voice it's so points of your experience as much time but I believe it takes place on the planet that Vader like that's where his fortresses for Mustafar yeah so I dunno Star Wars I swear I just don't much of the I don't know what you the extended universe to be fair with all the rules about Canon and continuity now it's tough to keep up yeah I know the main movies so that is gonna be coming but it's like a three-part like it's unclear whether that's a game or a movie or a series ish thing it's like episode 1 is that gonna be like each piece is an hour or half an hour of content is it like kind of a I don't know croaking up in a chapter yeah I'm a little skeptical of serial type things like that because I don't know what the long term play value is but I mean ILM is always doing AR and VR things so there they have their ex lab has its its feet and a lot of emergent technologies its cooled see as a presence it's unclear what that what that means but that'll be there too and I just think you need to throw a lot of games at it that's why speaking of the switch if you're in my game call total game console anytime a new emergent technology comes out you just got to keep funneling it with games I mean it's as simple as that the switch is great because it has amazing games that they keep bumping into it so they're gonna need to put a lot of great games and apps in a quest at a at a crazy rate I think to make it appealing so speaking of games what have you been digging lately what do you hope is gonna come to the quest just curious so there's a few people who have tried games in the chat they're kind of like yeah look warm - an op-ed any any good recommendation Scott to really kind of hook somebody I liked what what was it called hot something hot super hot super hot yeah I perhaps a green light into the matrix I think if it hasn't already been announced I bet that's going to be and I'm sorry if I haven't seen that if it's been listed yet that seems like an easy one to bring on board in the sense that a NRO just seems that go be well designed for that in fact I tried a bullet time type game demo for four when it was called Project Santa Cruz that was along those lines that would be great I think again any of those Fitness rhythm games there is one that's been announced as well that is coming that is was the name of it I'd feel terrible job stalker who is is the creator of it is working on this whole fitness platform I think that Fitness games would be really interesting because you're untethered yep you could put this on and you could do all sorts of cool exercises and there are people who have lost a lot of weight and found that to be a really good cardio C option you tried the Santa Cruz prototype like how bulky was it on your head could you move around was it yeah not bulky at all hood like flop around your head cuz that would be my concern with no I was very impressed by the by the demo that I tried the headset and it looks similar from photos I saw a connect the head side is a little bit bigger it's a little bit bigger than an oculus go right but it's not giant it's it's along the lines of the rift I don't know I don't think it's any bigger than vibe certainly well yeah but the vibe is v is big it's big yeah it's much smaller I think than the vibe it's more compact with the head straps it types an audio through the side holes that are like oculus co actually provides some really nice headphone free spatial audio the controllers that I tried did not have the full analog button okay implement they mentioned there was a transition to that originally they were touch pads which were not nearly as useful so now I think that there are they moved to much more an oculus touch type thing but the controls and everything else felt great I tried it in a room that clearly was best lit for this demo right and I saw the even on the show floor not - it's not conspiracy it's just kind of like wandering I saw markers and things on the ground like like taped up zones mm which certainly could help tracking I mean that's still an unclear thing they said they tested it in lots of conditions but Microsoft's VR any of those camera based tracking especially when it's in the headset sometimes it can lose the thread yeah sometimes the tracking can get a little funky and the difference you know any small hiccup will not be a fun experience so that still remains to be seen but you know I so far it looks like the real deal and it is the most exciting I think it's the most exciting development I've seen in VR since the rift hmm and the vibe because it's finally thing you could put on and really move right right right it's not yeah you don't have cables dangling and techno we were around you and again I want to say last year it wasn't last year it was May of this year that I tried out oculus Scott what made of March to May oculus go and Google's Lenovo Mirage solo if you're a Google person in your student VR that's an in-between zone right now Mirage solo was one standalone headset that's bulky and also $400 and the thing there is that it was only three degree of freedom not full tracking Google is developing experimental six degree of freedom tracking for that I think what's gonna happen is that come next year whether it's a full real Google product or another company makes it they'll be there as well Slater with full-motion in VR because they're basically illness there it's just that I think that they're building it out so if you're interested in these types of things just know oculus won't be the last one okay but it might be the best right there you go right we are out of time but some things to take with us on the road don't answer them right now just because we wish we had more time but we'd never really do when it comes to this and what we see comes down the road from it take into consideration how is we are gonna compat things like fatigue and dizziness and eyestrain and battery life what is Facebook gonna do with any more increased data coming in from oculus headsets will we see more concerts what is the next big step and are we gonna see VR and AR combat each other somewhat like Betamax and VHS did back in the day that one I'm particularly interested in to see where it goes but yeah those are all concepts for the road we're out of time we're out a week thanks everybody for joining us and Roger you I'll get him out here yes 359 is available in iTunes tune in stitcher feedburner google play music through the podcast the Amazon echo of course Tina calm we'll see you all next week bye folks have a great we have a great weekend thanks you