Second Blogger

Details: http://www.vuzix.com/iwear/products_vr920.html

INTRODUCTION

I was quite excited a few months ago when I stumbled across the Vuzix VR920, a lightweight set of virtual reality eye glasses with dual hi-res displays. The amount of features packed into the three ounce package is really impressive:

• dual 640 x 480 VGA progressive scan LCDs with a 32 degree field (scales to 1024×768)
• head tracking
• built in microphone
• dual speakers
• USB powered
• nVidia stereo driver support

Most importantly for us, it supports Second Life, as well as World of Warcraft, and a suite of games. The Second Life support is currently not native, but works well with mouselook mode, as I demonstrate in the video below. Vuzix was kind enough to loan me one to test out with Second Life and is actively seeking enterprising developers who may be interested in helping develop native Second Life support for the device. The VR920 is the first device that supports immersive three dimensional graphics, head tracking, as well as microphone and audio all in one device.

VIDEO DEMONSTRATION

In the video below, you can look over my shoulder and see what I am seeing.

INSTALLATION & EXPERIENCE

Installing the device was easier than hooking up a typical digital camera. The first step is to install the drivers, followed by a simple calibration routine in which you rotate the device on all three axes. The device can be worn with or without glasses, and contains a handy head strap to keep them on tight during use. The resolution upscaling is pretty impressive; I was able to read icon text at 1024×768 on my Windows desktop, and since I’m a touch typer, interacting with application was fairly easy. The device is incredibly light, which is important as I could see using this for several hour stretches at a time. While reading text became a bit of a strain after a while, that is expected given the resolution scaling. As far as looking at the environments themselves, the picture was vivid and crisp. Exploring some of Second Life’s most beautiful simulator had a truly immersive experience; I checked out Black Swan, Svarga, Apollo, and my home in Olive. The head tracking adds a very cool element: I was never much of a mouse look user in the past, but now have found a great use to the first person perspective.

FUN & EXPERIMENTATION

We ran a few interesting tests while reviewing the device. We wore the VR920 while holding a laptop with a web cam in front of us. It was interesting to “see” through the screens what the laptop’s web cam was seeing. We immediately had thoughts of hooking up a lightweight wireless camera to the side of the VR920, which would make you the equivalent of a movie camera. That will have to wait until our next hacking session, however!

FUTURE FEATURES?

I am hoping for native support to be built into the Second Life client. This would offer a smoother experience. A feature to use the head tracking when not in mouse look would be great: being able to look left and have the camera automatically swing behind your avatar in alt-zoom mode would be fantastic. Native support could also give better threshold detection; as it stands right now, the iWear monitor takes over the mouse when it detects the program is active, without any threshold considerations.

OVERALL

This device isn’t quite ready for prime time, but it is getting close, and the more native support that arrives, the closer it gets. Any hard core Second Lifer would have a good time with these; I know I’ve been waiting for years for affordable immersion experience hard ware. I’ve shown them to several of my geek friends, who absolutely love them and have helped me give them a work out and are really enthusiastic. My less geek inclined friends still seem excited by the possibilities. The Vuzix iWear VR920 is a huge leap towards the goal of total immersion that fuels many of our dreams.