Magic In VR That Depends On Your Actual State Of Mind

November 21, 2021 by Donald Papp 10 Comments

[Cangar]’s excitement is palpable in his release of a working brain-computer interface (BCI) mod for Skyrim VR, in which the magic system in the game is modified so that spell effectiveness is significantly boosted when the player is in a focused mental state. [Cangar] isn’t just messing around, either. He’s a neuroscientist whose research focuses on assessing mental states during task performance. Luckily for us, he’s also an enthusiastic VR gamer, and this project of his has several interesting aspects that he’s happy to show off in a couple of videos.

User wearing VR headset — The Muse 2 fits under the VR headset easily.

It all starts with the player wearing a Muse 2 meditation device; a type of passive, off-the-shelf electroencephalography (EEG) unit aimed primarily at guiding a user towards better relaxation and focus. [Cangar] reads data using the Brainflow library and processes it into a final value on a scale between “not focused” and “focused”. [Cangar] makes a point of explaining that his system ultimately has the goal of modeling the player’s state of mind, which is different from modeling just the brain activity. As such, motion data is considered as well, and holding still confers a small bonus to the process.

How is this data actually used in the game? In VR, this “focus” value is shown as a small bar on the player’s wrist, and spell effectiveness (for example, damage for attack spells) scales along with the size of the bar. When the bar is full a player would be very powerful, with spells doing double damage. If the bar is empty, spells will do little to no damage.

[Cangar] demonstrates the mod in two videos (both embedded below), but you won’t see him blasting enemies with fireballs. Presumably, VR gamers already know what that looks like, so what he does instead is explain how the system looks and works (first video, cued to 4:12), and in the second, he video demonstrates how the focus meter changes depending on his activity and mental state.

The results look exciting, and the potential uses of a system like this are pretty interesting to think about. Taking a few deep breaths and calming one’s body and mind before launching a magical attack will have a tangible effect in the world, and because things rarely go according to plan, there is also a clear survival benefit to learning to focus while under pressure. But if a brain monitor isn’t your cup of tea, maybe consider a leisurely bike ride through Skyrim, instead.

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Oculus Go VR Headset Gets Root Access, No Jailbreak Needed

October 21, 2021 by Donald Papp 16 Comments

The Oculus Go, Facebook’s first generation standalone VR headset, hit the market back in 2018 but it’s taken until now for owners to get an official unlocked OS build. The release was hinted at by former Oculus CTO John Carmack in a recent Tweet as something he had been pushing for years. This opens the hardware completely, allowing root access without the need for an unofficial jailbreak.

Oculus Go headset [image: WikiMedia Commons]

The Oculus Go is Android-based and has specifications that are not exactly cutting edge by VR standards, especially since head tracking is limited to three degrees of freedom (DoF). This makes it best suited to seated applications like media consumption. That said, it’s still a remarkable amount of integrated hardware that can be available for a low price on the secondary market. Official support for the Go ended in December 2020, and the ability to completely unlock the device is a positive step towards rescuing the hardware from semi-hoarded tech junk piles where it might otherwise simply gather dust.

When phone-based VR went the way of the dodo, millions of empty headsets went obsolete with it for a variety of reasons, but at least this way perfectly-good (if dated) hardware might still get some use in clever projects. Credit where credit is due; opening up root access to old but still perfectly functional hardware is the right thing to do, and it’s nice to see it happening.

Software Removes The Facebook From Facebook’s VR Headset (Mostly)

October 13, 2021 by Donald Papp 18 Comments

It’s not a jailbreak, but [basti564]’s Oculess software nevertheless allows one the option to remove telemetry and account dependencies from Facebook’s Oculus Quest VR headsets. It is not normally possible to use these devices without a valid Facebook account (or a legacy Oculus account in the case of the original Quest), so the ability to flip any kind of disconnect switch without bricking the hardware is a step forward, even if there are a few caveats to the process.

To be clear, the Quest devices still require normal activation and setup via a Facebook account. But once that initial activation is complete, Oculess allows one the option of disabling telemetry or completely disconnecting the headset from its Facebook account. Removing telemetry means that details about what apps are launched, how the device is used, and all other usage-related data is no longer sent to Facebook. Disconnecting will log the headset out of its account, but doing so means apps purchased from the store will no longer work and neither will factory-installed apps like Oculus TV or the Oculus web browser.

What will still work is the ability to sideload unsigned software, which are applications that are neither controlled nor distributed by Facebook. Sideloading isn’t on by default; it’s enabled by putting the headset into Developer Mode (a necessary step to installing Oculess in the first place, by the way.) There’s a fairly active scene around unsigned software for the Quest headsets, as evidenced by the existence of the alternate app store SideQuest.

Facebook’s control over their hardware and its walled-garden ecosystem continues to increase, but clearly there are people interested in putting the brakes on where they can. It’s possible the devices might see a full jailbreak someday, but even if so, what happens then?

Heatsink Makes VR Even Cooler

June 22, 2021 by Al Williams 12 Comments

Our first thought was that having big fins coming out of your VR goggles might not look very cool. But then we realized if you are wearing VR goggles, that’s probably not your biggest concern. (Ba-doom, tss.) Seriously, though, high-intensity graphics can cause your phone or device to get pretty toasty up there pressed against your face, so [arfish] set out to make a heatsink.

The build isn’t very hard. Some 0.8 mm aluminum sheet is easy to shape and cut. Thermal pads from the PC world help with heat transfer.

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Project Starline Realizes Asimov’s 3D Vision

May 20, 2021 by Al Williams 36 Comments

Issac Asimov wrote Caves of Steel in 1953. In it, he mentions something called trimensional personification. In an age before WebEx and Zoom, imagining that people would have remote meetings replete with 3D holograms was pretty far-sighted. We don’t know if any Google engineers read the book, but they are trying to create a very similar experience with project Starline.

The system is one of those that seems simple on the face of it, but we are sure the implementation isn’t easy. You sit facing something that looks like a window. The other person shows up in 3D as though they were on the other side of the window. Think prison visitation without the phone handset. The camera is mounted such that you look naturally at the other person through your virtual window.

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Commodore 64 Emulator In VR Delivers A Full 80s Experience

May 3, 2021 by Donald Papp 18 Comments

The simulated color CRT monitor looks surprisingly convincing in VR.

One way to play with vintage hardware without owning the hardware is to use an emulator, but [omni_shaNker] announced taking it to the next level by using VR to deliver a complete Commodore 64 system, in its full glory, complete with a native 80s habitat playset! This is a pretty interesting angle for simulating vintage hardware, especially since the emulator is paired with what looks like a pretty convincing CRT monitor effect in VR, not to mention a virtual 5.25″ floppy drive that makes compellingly authentic sounds.

The project is hosted on GitHub and supports a variety of VR hardware, but for owners of Oculus headsets, the application is also available on SideQuest for maximum convenience. SideQuest is essentially an off-the-books app store for managing software that is neither approved nor distributed by Facebook. Oculus is owned by Facebook, and Facebook is keen to keep a tight grip on their hardware.

As functional as the application is, there are still improvements and optimizations to be made. To address this, [omni_shaNker] put out a call for beta testers on Reddit, so if that’s up your alley be sure to get in touch. A video demonstration and overview that is chock-full of technical details is also embedded below; be sure to give it a watch to see what the project is all about.

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Virtual Reality Experiment Tricks Your Feet Into Walking While Sitting Down

April 24, 2021 by Al Williams 3 Comments

The whole idea behind virtual reality is that you don’t really know what’s going on in the world around you. You only know what your senses tell you is there. If you can fake out your vision, for example, then your brain won’t realize you are floating in a tank providing power for the robot hordes. However, scientists in Japan think that you can even fool your feet into thinking they are walking when they aren’t. In a recent paper, they describe a test they did that combined audio cues with buzzing on different parts of the feet to simulate the feel of walking.

The trick only requires four transducers, two on each foot. They tested several different configurations of what the effect looked like in the participant’s virtual reality headgear. Tests were performed in third person didn’t cause test subjects to associate the foot vibrations with walking. But the first-person perspective caused sensations of walking, with a full-body avatar working the best, compared to showing just hands and feet or no avatar at all.

Making people think they are walking in VR can be tricky but it does explain how they fit all that stuff in a little holodeck. Of course, it is nice if you can also sense walking and use it to move your avatar, but that’s another problem.