Tag: ar glasses

The team has brought the effort to Kickstarter to build the funding that they need to move forward.

Two former employees from Valve are now working together on the development of their own pair of augmented reality glasses, in an effort that has brought them to Kickstarter in order to raise the necessary funds.

The two have come up with the wearable product that they have called CastAR glasses.

They use augmented reality to enhance the vision experience by projecting onto a surface made out of highly reflective material. What this produces is the appearance of what looks to be three dimensional objects directly within the real world view. The name of the new company is Technical Illusions.

The two are seeking $400,000 for the finishing step in development of their augmented reality glasses.

At the time that this article was written, the company had already managed to bring in over $300,000 toward their goal, with a full 30 days left to go. The augmented reality glasses have already managed to attract a certain amount of attention and hype, simply because of the developers, Rick Johnson and Jeri Ellsworth, who were both fired from Valve (which is a rare form of action from the massive game studio).

These augmented reality glasses give the wearer the opportunity to move about a space, such as the room of a workplace or a house, while still keeping up the 3D effects that are displayed for them to see. They are also capable of multiple person support as long as all of the individuals are all looking at the same reflective surface. Through an attachable gadget, the glasses can also be used for boosting the field of vision of the wearer, even when they are not looking at the reflective surface. Another mode provides the wearer with complete field of vision coverage for an experience more comparable to virtual reality.

That said, CastAR is being marketed by Technical Illusions mainly for the projected augmented reality, despite the fact that there are a number of other modes possible through their use. The price tag on the basic headset is $189 along with one reflective board, which is necessary for their use.

The company is tinkering with the idea of incorporating the wearable devices in its game console.

A patent application that was newly published by Mircrosoft has revealed that it appears to be tinkering with a head mounted display device for multiplayer games, and which has technology followers wondering if augmented reality may be in the future of the Xbox game console.

None of these speculations have been officially confirmed by the company, other than its patent application.

The patent application details look as though Microsoft is working on augmented reality glasses and a way to be able to match the players by way of these wearable devices. Provided in the description is a system and related methods for being able to invite a potential additional player to participate into a multiplayer game by way of a device with a head mounted display, to be worn by the user.

Augmented reality could be a central part of being able to form a full experience among several players in a virtual space.

Within one of the examples, a potential additional player invitation program would receive data by way of the user’s voice and determines that the this data is an invitation to be able to take part in the multiplayer game. From that point, eye tracking information is received by the program, in addition to facial recognition data, depth info, information related to the head mounted display device of the potential user and/or the voice data of the potential player.

The program makes a match of the potential player with the potential player account. From that point, the program receives a response of acceptance from that additional player so that he or she can have his or her potential player account with a multiplayer game participating user account.

What is central to the filing of the patent from Microsoft was the use of the potentially augmented reality based eye tracking, facial recognition, depth information and other sensor data use in order to make it possible for a number of different players to participate within the same virtual game arena.

For example, to make it possible for two players to fight using swords. Within the patent filing, it explains that “depth information comprises a measured depth of an interaction space in which the user and the potential player are located, and the potential player invitation program is further configured to use the depth information to select a suggested multiplayer game that is physically compatible with the measured depth of the interaction space; and suggest to the user the suggested multiplayer game.” This has suggested to many that augmented reality would be required to complete that experience.