The Gallery kickstarter in its last 24 hours

The kickstarter has already reached its goal of $65000, so they don't need help in that regard. But if you have a Rift, or are waiting to recieve one, you might be interested in pledging for one of the rewards that gets you some early access.

For instance, the $30 tier gives you "early access to Episode #1 beta content" in august. The game itself is scheduled for release a year from now. (But we know all to well how reliable kickstarter estimates can be ;) )

If you want to support development aimed specifically at Rift or VR in general, I encourage you to back this kickstarter, as I have done.

Oculus update on shipping and GDC recap

Oculus update on shipping and GDC recap

We’ve shipped roughly 1,850 development kits worldwide so far (~500 internationally). Up next, we have another ~2,000 arriving around April 26th, but it could be a few days earlier or later depending on international customs.

ifixit tears the Oculus Rift devkit apart

ifixit tears the Oculus Rift devkit apart

The Oculus Rift Development Kit Repairability Score: 9 out of 10 (10 is best)

Virtual reality creates infinite maze in a single room

Virtual reality creates infinite maze in a single room

Step into the labyrinth. Imagine physically wandering through the many rooms and corridors of an endless maze, never seeing the same place twice – but without actually leaving your living room.

Rift and TF2 tested by Tested.com

Really comprehensive test, going through all the alternative configurations of TF2, in a well edited video.

Oculus Rift at GDC

Oculus are at GDC, showing off their brand new Rift devkit, using fresh demos like Hawken, Team Fortress 2 and their own driving game, DriVR.

Here's some videos from various publications testing the Rift out.

Gamespot

RoadToVR

VG 24/7

IGN

Valve to release VR-adapted Team Fortress 2.

Valve to release VR-adapted Team Fortress 2.

There was plenty of dissapointment after Oculus announced this weekend that Doom 3 BFG wouldn't be ready for the Rift's upcoming launch. I'd say this more than makes up for it.

SXSW Virtual Reality Panel [Live Stream]

We’ll chat with Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus, Paul Bettner, CEO of Verse HQ, Chris Roberts, creator of Wing Commander and Star Citizen, and Cliff Bleszinski, video game industry veteran, about how virtual reality might change the games industry, why developers should be excited, and what gamers should look forward to.

Live Stream below starts at 6PM CST (0AM UTC)

VR headset using a smartphone

Ernest Cline, Author of Ready Player One, visits Oculus VR

Ernest Cline, Author of Ready Player One, visits Oculus VR

Oculus also debuted their new order system which lets people who have a Rift on order edit their shipping detail, as well as check the status of their order.

As we begin the final countdown to shipping development kits and launching the Oculus Developer Center, we still have a few surprises up our sleeve.

I expect the first Rifts to start shipping next week.

DICE building support for the Oculus Rift in Frostbite

DICE building support for the Oculus Rift in Frostbite

DICE has an intern job posting explicitly for the purpose of integrating support for the Oculus Rift SDK, as well as working out how to best implement VR in the engine.

According to Frank Vitz, Creative Director for Frostbite, there's plenty of excitement for the Rift at DICE:

I have one of the first Rift dev kits coming my way in March. We have an internal community eager to work on it... I know of at least four kits on order.

Here's to Battlefield 4 and Mirror's Edge 2 seeing the fruits of this labour. A man can dream, can't he?

Squeeze Virtual Reality With Cyborg Glove

Squeeze Virtual Reality With Cyborg Glove

What if you could actually grasp the sword you pick up in a video game, or if surgeons could feel their robots hit bone? That’s the promise of the Tactilous glove, which won this weekend’s Upverter + Y Combinator Hardware Hackathon.

Josh Topolsky of The Verge tries Google Glass

Josh Topolsky of the Verge tries Google Glass

Google's AR project is still miles away from being the consumer product they are trying to promote it as, but I'm quite impressed with the progress they have made so far. The progress made is perfectly illustrated by the picture of this prototype:

Google says it plans to release Glass as a consumer product within this year. No word on if the price will significantly drop from the $1500 they have charged developers so far. (Update: They have actually said it will cost less than $1500.)

Canon Mixed Reality Is Google Glass for Business

Canon Mixed Reality Is Google Glass for Business

"For business" is what you say when you want to justify a $125000 pricetag.

Horror game Asylum adds Rift support as stretch goal

Horror game Asylum adds Rift support as stretch goal

With 7 days left and almost having reach their kickstarter goal, stretchgoals for Asylum has been announced, and if the pledges reach $130.000 they will add support for the Oculus Rift.

Successor to Kinect, "Durango", possible specs leaked

Successor to Kinect, "Durango", possible specs leaked

Higher FOV, lower latency and better accuracy. Certainly looks like a good upgrade on paper, but will it be good enough for VR projects?

Rift devkits start showing up in the hands of developers

Yesterday, Minecraft developer Jens Bergensten tweeted his colleague Notch, aka Markus Persson, letting him know his Oculus Rift devkit had arrived.

Shortly after this picture was tweeted, showing Persson along with Jakob Porsér posing with each of their Rifts, but the picture was quickly removed, quite possible by request from Oculus.

(Update: Notch jokingly tweeted "If we ever received something like the Oculus Rift, we'd probably be stupid enough to tweet pics of it immediately, despite agreeing not to." following up with "Of course, if that hypothetical situation arose, we'd apologize for it." I can understand how getting a rift will make you excited enough to forget any NDAs you agreed to)

It's not so surprising that Notch and his crew would be first in line for a devkits. Notch has been a vocal supporter of Oculus for a long time, giving it much praise after having demoed it and he has said he intends to make his new game, 0x10c, compatible with it, and also hinted the possibility of the massively popular Minecraft getting support.

Sebastien Kuntz however, might not be as obvious of a choice, but he also tweeted that he had recieved a kit. This tweet was also removed quickly.
As people questioned why this guy would get one early, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey himself responded on the mtbs3d.com forums, saying "In addition to being a good person to have a Rift, Sebastien is also a good VR friend of mine."

Kuntz is the CEO and Founder of i’m in VR, a company creating software that helps in the creation of VR applications. Doesn't sound like a bad choice for an early Rift recipient.

Oculus has still not given an official update on their shipping schedule since last year, but recently reiterated that they expect the first batch to arrive in mid-march.

Brendan Iribe shows off Rift at AllThingsD conference

Article at AllThingsD.com

Oculus Rift tested by Jimmy Fallon

Vireio Perception released as open source driver

Originally intended as a commercial product, Vireio Perception is a driver that makes games compatible with the Oculus Rift, by adding headtracking support and stereoscopic 3d with distortion.

The developer decided to release the driver as an open source project instead, and you can now download the last version of the driver from the website, and check out the sourcecode at GitHub

These are the games currently supported by Vireio Perception:

Half-Life 2
Left4Dead
Left4Dead 2
Dear Esther
Mirror's Edge
AaaaAAAAA!!!!!
Skyrim
Portal
Portal 2
DiRT 2
UT3