• Quick note.  Look likes it US phones only running the Qualcomm chip for now.

Some games seemed to have a glitch the first time I would try them.  I tried Fallout Shelter first.  Did not load the first time, but worked fine after that.  Not sure what the story is here. Same with Pokemon Go. Did not work the first time, then works fine.  However,  it locks to portrait and when using AR, the camera does not display correctly.  I turned AR off and it was fine after that. few other games seemed locked to one view port or another, but that was not too much of an issue after I got used to it.  I would make the window a bit smaller for portrait games, larger for landscape.

I then tried Monument Valley, a favorite of mine.  This took 3 tried, but again, seems to work after that.  That game play was even nicer with the view port set to the largest setting despite portrait mode.  I have it smaller in my screenshot.  It took a little bit of effort to get used to the controller, but I got it down soon enough.  I do not like this screenshot that much, but for some reason, screen capture and video capture are iffy with PhoneCast.  There is a video of this at the bottom of the post as well.

What was really cool was trying ARCore apps in PhoneCast.  It ‘mostly’ works, and when I say mostly, that is because the viewport is not locked to the head. If you check out the video below you will see what I mean.  Still, VERY cool! I tried the first ARCore app that was released, ‘Atom Visualizer‘ from Signal Garden.   I contacted the good people involved in this project and made a request, we’ll see how it goes.  If they can lock the view port, this would be really fun!  Have a look for the video at the bottom of this post.

Here is a Pro tip for you.  The controller takes a bit of time to get used to, so don’t get put off.  Keep working at it.  BTW, there is not pinch to zoom.  Something I found out on Fallout Shelter.  Hopefully they will find a work around.  I suggested they should map something on the controller for zooming and zoom around the center view.  That could take some work though.

So there you go!  Enjoy.

BTW, many of these mods are unsupported to use with cation once you find them.

A final note about the Gear VR and the lenses fogging up.  Every time I put this one the lens fog up on me.  To fix this I went to a sky shoppe and bought defogging liquid for the lens.  It works great for one use, but once it drys, then you are back to where you started.  This is a first try at a VR HMD for Samsung and they made it clear this is a developers version, so I’ll give it a pass for now.

Oh and use earplugs.  Worth it.  Many of these demos lose something when playing sound through a speaker.

Unlike other sites, I will put the list down here first, then I will create a page per app because each one make the list for a different reason.

10.   Playhead

I was really on the fence with Playhead because it did not appeal to me, but I appreciate the effort and the imagination that went into this effort.   I’m sure this would be higher on other peoples lists.

9.  DarkNet

8. Titans Of Space

7.  Vanguard V  :  Nightitme Terror  : Lunsee

6.  Dreadhalls

5.  Anshar Wars

4  Herobound: First Steps

3. Matterport VR : Gyeonju VR Museum

2.  Esper

1.   360 Video’s .  BTW the NBA videos look good but still wish the video was a bit more HD.  In a few weeks we are suppose to be able to watch the All Stars game.  Not sure if we get to see the whole game, or highlights or what.

Temple VR did not make it because they violate a basic rule in VR, do not move a users point of view too fast.  When you dodge from one side to another you will get VR sickness pretty fast.

As you already know, SimCity is full 3D, you can navigate ‘mostly’ in and around your city.  But there is no way to export the model into any other software.  This is a shame because it would be sweet to actually see this through a 3D VR headset. Technically, there is no reason why we could not get this to work.  Using all the standard tricks for realtime 3D rendering it could be done, just look at ARMA or Call of Duty or even GTA.  Unfortunately this seems to be a case of a locked box that EA does not want anyone in, and they do not seem to be interested in making SimCity available for VR.   But dont lose hope.

Its only a matter of time before a SimCity like game gets ported to a platform that supports the Rift or other VR display system. How cool would it be to have Civ 5 in VR?  That will be my next bit of research and post here for my dear readers.  Remember how SimCity said it could not work in offline mode.  Then in March 14 we got it? Put enough pressure on and I think they will do something to make it work on the Rift or Samsung VR.  But my fear is that the interest and market for Simcity VR is too small for EA to react and thus we will have to wait for someone, someday to reverse engineer Simcity so that we can at least get a single point in time model.  That would be great just there.  I do not need to edit in VR, just explore and perhaps have simple interactions, again locked at that moment in time.

Ahh…  One day.

In this case we are going to multiply 24 x 52.

Starting with the number 24, lets draw 2 lines representing the ten’s digit of 24.  So you can see I drew two lines from right to left at the top.  Next I drew 5 lines below the two I drew above.  The 4 lines represent 1’s digit of 24.

Next I do the same thing but in the other direction for 52.

Now lets count the number of intersections.  Starting from the left, I counted 10 intersections.  So I wrote down 10.   Next I count the total of intersection in the center. That is 4 at the top, and 20 at the bottom.  I could have saved time here and simply wrote down 24, but I wanted to show my work, so I left the 20 and the 4 to be added at the end.  Finally I counted the total number of intersections on the right and found 8, thus writing down 8.

Finally, we total these things up.

10

20

4

8

1 2 4 8  = 1248

Pretty cool eh?  Then to check my work, I did the same thing the way we were all taught in school and totaled it in 10.  I do not know how much time it took me to do this hatching exercise but WAY more then 10 sec.  So for actual use, this is not practical at all, but perhaps as a way to teach what is going on to children when multiplying, perhaps.

Following a link I found a video by Vi Hart explaining this.  As we can see from her video, once you start doing large number, say 88×99, this techniques becomes messy and impractical.  However this got me doing so other searches and seems there are quite a few visualization techniques for multiplying, so check around.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-e8fzqv3CE

– up button starts recording
– down button stops
– long press on the select button erases the highscore

Records how long you take, how many faps total end faps per second.
The highest fps is saved in the watch’s persistent storage.

Pure Genius

Heh, no I’m joking when I say Facebook is going to recreate Second Life, but I think they are thinking along those lines although primarily I think Zuck is looking for away to get Facebook into more games, and this could be one way of doing it.  However he did say that there is a social element for this buy.  And remember, this is 2 BILLION we are talking about.  I think he really believes that there will be a run on virtual space for shopping, interacting and non game entertainment just like they thought on Second Life.  Here are a few quotes from the Zuck…

“After games, we’re going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences,” said Zuckerberg in a post announcing the purchase. “Imagine enjoying a courtside seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face — just by putting on goggles in your home.

“This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures.”

Here is the thing, I have played with HMD’s (Head Mounted Displays) for a number of years, studied them at U.C. Berkeley as part of my Masters and have played with the Oculus a few times myself.  Its a good headset, but its no game changer outside the gaming world.  The issues with the Oculus is still the same with the state of the Virtual World back in the late 90’s.  A person can only spend just so much time in a HMD VR environment without getting sick and/or tired. Second, content is everything.  Just because a VR headset is cool, does not matter if you do not have content that brings the masses, and brings them over and over again.  And I do not see anything compelling in the 90’s and do not see anything really changing for the daily life person of today.

Gaming is a logical use for the oculus, (and some research and engineering) and there will be a win there as more gamers, myself included, get HMD’s for gaming as the display quality goes up and the cost goes down, but that does not seem like a good ROI for 2B$.  And do I expect that non gamers will run out to get a HMD just in case they want to talk to their doctor and meet up with buddies a la Second Life?  Doubt it.

For Oculus this is a great deal.  2B$?  Hell yea I would jump at that.  And right now Facebook has not indicated they are going to do anything different with the HMD that they were not already planning.  I just have a feeling 2 or 3 years from now, Zuck is going to look back and think, hmm, even if Facebook starts to lose popularity and the stock value goes down, he could have bought better things for 2 billion.

New:

• SimCity Single-Player Mode. Enables Offline Play.
• Single-Player Mode includes multi-city play, regional interdependence, and city specialization. Regions are saved locally and there is no limit on number of save games.
• Autosave can be disabled in Single-Player Mode in order for players to experiment and load their regions at a previous save point.
• Save As a copy feature. Players can make copies of their regions at multiple save points.
• See FAQ on Single-Player Mode for full details.
• Friends Search now uses the Origin friend search.

Performance:

• Optimizations in the simulator to improve performance of both Multiplayer and Single-Player Mode.

I reasoned that what we need to is a ‘pod’ where the floor base was made of small wheels and the waist was restricted by a harness.  This will allow the subject to simulate walking and turning thus allow more of the bodies haptic feedback loops to agree with what was being seen in the HMD.  Although VOR gain adaption would still be needed, the adaption time would be greatly reduced, and the in VR sustainability time extended, as I discovered with my work on the chair and allowing free walking. However, I never could build such a device because of cost.   But now, someone has figured it out.

Originally starting out as a kickstarter project, the ‘Omni‘ is an improved version of what I designed back in the 90’s.  Instead of using rollers, a grooved curved plastic bowl is used with sensors. (older version uses an xbox sensor)  These sensors can translate movement and direction to the game. Paired with the new lightweight Oculus, the user walks normally and turns normally.  Admittedly it does take a little bit to adjust to your feet slipping instead of the force feedback with normal translational movement, but the connection between body mechanics and spatial perception is synced enough that adaption happens quickly. The rig itself is $499, quite affordable for most serious gamers. What is exciting about this we might be seeing the beginning of the next level of maturity around VR that was stunted in the 90’s. With inexpensive but capable HMDs and now inexpensive VR motion platforms, we can make that next leap in immersive gaming.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUkjaNQlZO8

______________

Excerpt for my Master Thesis: Spatial Perception in Virtual Environments:
Visual Cognition Gain with Head Mounted Displays (images removed)

VOR

Despite the commonality of simulator sickness, little is known about it.  The most common source of simulator sickness is Vestibulo-ocular Reflex (VOR); The vestibular apparatus is a small structure that exists in the bony labyrinth of the inner ear, whose function is to sense and signal movements of the head. This function is extremely important because it contributes to the coordination of motor responses for the body.  VOR is the fundamental eye-movement reflex that functions to keep images stabilized on the retina during movement of the head, thus helping to perform a very basic but important function, to allow sight during movement. The disagreement between what is seen by the body and what the vestibular apparatus senses can cause confusion, providing disagreeing signals to the brain and thus inducing sickness.  VOR can adapt its signal to the brain when the environment demands it, but not everyone has the same VOR adaptation ability.  This inability to resolve vestibular and ocular discrepancy is a major contribution to simulator sickness.  The greater lag time between screen position updates and vestibular sensation can accelerate simulator sickness even more.

Credit to endorken for making this.

And just for fun, so kinda cheats short cuts.  These are in the manual BTW.

• Alt-W = +$100k
• Alt-M = Sickness and Injuries Toggle
• Alt-A = Air Pollution Toggle
• Alt-S = Sewage Toggle
• Alt-F = Fire Toggle
• Alt-G = Garbage Toggle
• Alt-H = Homelessness Toggle
• Alt-P = Ground Pollution Toggle
• Alt-C = Crime Toggle