Exciting stuff is happening with the Oculus Rift

​I’ve been at the International Conference on Entertainment Computing 2014 for the past few days, and although I’m not an academic it’s been interesting to hear about the latest university research into digital gaming.

This morning’s keynote presentation by Dr Stefan Greuter made me sit up and listen. It was called ‘How to build a virtual reality system  in your living room’ and expanded on his article in The Conversation that went viral earlier this year.

Stefan is an affable German bloke from RMIT University who’d greet you with a big smile even if you interrupted him in the middle of his first beer after a long day. But he’s brainy as hell, and the research he and his team are doing into the possibilities of human movement while wearing an Oculus Rift is really quite exciting.

I won’t try to break down the research here – the piece in The Conversation covers it well – but here’s a video of an audience volunteer wearing an Oculus Rift and the setup that Stefan has invented, making his way through one of several virtual worlds.

Cool stuff. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.