A few inches above the floor, a man is suspended from a swing-like apparatus pretending he is flying over a mountain. Around the corner, a woman is defending herself against a horde of zombies with a make-believe gun. Several feet away, two guys are seemingly racing in cars over 160kph while both sit still.
They are each, in their own way, experiencing virtual reality (VR).
At the third annual VRLA, a gathering of VR creators and enthusiasts in southern California, the immersion technology transported more than 2,000 attendees beyond the walls of the Los Angeles Convention Center to other countries, worlds and dimensions.
“It really feels like the momentum has shifted,” VRLA co-founder Cosmo Scharf told the sold-out crowd at the beginning of the one-day event.
“More people care about VR today than ever before,” Scharf said.
Scharf said there are currently 733 VR companies in the US and VR start-ups have raised more than US$800 million in funding since 2010.
While VR on smartphones is now available with headsets like Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR and Noon VR, regular folks interested in higher fidelity and more interactive experiences must experiment with them in person at events such as VRLA — that is, until higher-powered systems are released to consumers over the course of the next year.
Sony Corp and Oculus VR Inc, which is owned by Facebook Inc, plan to launch retail editions of their VR headsets early next year, while Valve Corp and HTC Corp (宏達電) are expected to release their Vive system later this year.
“I really wanted to see what all the companies are coming up with,” University of Southern California student Seyed Mousavi said, who attended VRLA.
“I heard the HTC Vive is amazing. I haven’t had a chance to try it,” Mousavi said.
The irony of gathering potential consumers in the real world to experience virtual ones is not lost on those in the VR business.
“The biggest marketing challenge facing the whole virtual reality industry is that you can’t experience VR until you experience VR,” VRcade Inc director of product integration Ivan Blaustein said.
“That’s why an event like this is important for us,” he said.
VRcade, a wireless multiplayer VR system not intended for home use, was the most popular exhibitor at Saturday’s event. VRLA attendees tried out the system in a 10m2 space.
The company is currently testing VRcade at a Dave and Buster’s in Milpitas, California.
“I think there’s room for all types of VR,” Blaustein said.
“There are compelling experiences you can have at home, but there’s always going to be limitations. With our system, there’s a dedicated space and no wire. You won’t have to move your couch or kick your cat out of the way,” he said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to