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Saturday, November 22, 2014


 It's pretty clear that Oculus in their public statements of late are trying to shape expectations and goals. These latest statements are related to something they call "Optical" or in another case "Ocular" Computing which they propose has been the "real" goal of their device all along.. The original goal in the Kickstarter Days was to offer Gamers a Head Mounted Display at an entry level price. "We may even give it away" Palmer Luckey said right after the Facebook acquisition. Suddenly Luckey was not interested in money. He put on the cloak of a California Cyberpunk who just wanted to share his "world changing" device with the "masses." That was not his attitude after his very successful Kickstarter Campaign. $2.4 Million Dollars to develop the DK1. His supporters were ecstatic and got a free Tee Shirt to boot. In short order Zuckerberg, impulsively buys the concept after demoing a NVIS Head Mounted Display at USC and millions of dollars more pour into the Bank Account of Palmer Luckey. Asked about the Kickstarter Campaign in an interview last week Luckey said "Who doesn't like Free Money?"
 So in hindsight, it might have behooved Mr. Zuckerberg to look at the "Best Practices" Guidelines Oculus had released earlier. None of what is happening now with the device would have surprised him. The motion sickness, the poor resolution, the power demands that make it impossible to design an untethered Oculus Rift, the short demos they control knowing in the right circumstance with the right person being recorded a comment about dizziness or nausea could finish them off, so what can they do?  
 Up till now they were the benchmark. They have dozens of imitators. They were so confident in their leadership they sternly warned Sony and Samsung not to release a device that "makes people sick." Wow, that takes a lot of nerve. But now they are talking about "Virtual Reality" as the on-ramp to "Optical Computing." Optical Computing already exists. Stephen Hawking could tell us that with his Robotic Surrogate. Why the move away from gaming and all the other applications Team Oculus said would "change the world"? How about foreknowledge on their part that Microsoft was demoing an Immersive Head Mounted Display and that an obscure little company in Bellevue Washington was ready to show a prototype of an Immersive Head Mounted Display( that doesn't make people sick) to interested parties at the beginning of the year.
 Before the recent change in tone, Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe was quoted as saying "We are trying to figure out what our product is." I can tell you two things it's not Brendan, a viable gaming peripheral or a viable computing platform.
My question to you Mr. Iribe is how are you going to get that $30 Million back from the University of Maryland? 




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