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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

The Wiimote may be spurring on the majority of desktop VR hackery these days, but at least one enterprising developer seems to be aiming to change that, and he’s now showing that you can do more or less the same thing with a PlayStation Eye. As with the Wiimote, you need a pair of homemade IR-equipped glasses, but you’ll also need to perform a couple of minor modifications to the PS Eye itself. That all-important detail consists simply of a homemade lens cap that houses some exposed and developed film, which lets the camera receive only the infrared signals from the glasses. Pair that with some custom-made software (now available for the taking), and you’ll be giving unsuspecting visitors motion sickness in no time. Head on over after the break for a peek at the setup in action.

Continue reading PlayStation Eye hacked for desktop VR use

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Source: Donald Melanson

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Sure, ASCII art is cool for making lewd gestures and the unicorn that you use for your e-mail signature, but couldn’t we be doing more with it? Well, some Russian artists / DIY’ers certainly think so, and as a result they’ve created an immersive system which allows you to view the world through the lens of real-time ASCII art (amongst other effects). The designers of this VR headset / live video-effects-unit were hoping to modify “real” reality for the user, thus creating a “virtual reality” experience via video effects (similar to Photoshop filters) in a stereoscopic viewer. The creators used a pair of goggles with a camera attached, a proprietary “black box” consisting of a CPU, battery, and radio transmitter, and custom-coded video processing modes (we assume, considering the box has no “operating system”). The result? Well, besides ASCII — which looks a bit like the Matrix numbers — you can do an effect akin to the Predator’s POV… though we’re pretty sure it won’t make you invisible, or a lethal, alien killer. Check the video after the break to see the psychedelic magic unfold.

[Via Slashdot]Continue reading VR goggles turn the real world into ASCII art

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Yeah, we’ve seen bizarre apparatuses that bring about otherworldly feelings, but new studies have reportedly been able to induce out-of-body experiences with just a set of “virtual reality goggles, a camera, and a stick.” Apparently, the “research reveals that the sense of having a body, of being in a bodily self, is actually constructed from multiple sensory streams,” and when the newfangled system forces individuals to peer at “an illusory image of themselves” while the stick prods them “in a certain way,” the guinea pigs said they felt as if they had been removed from their bodies. Of course, it seems the real purpose here circles more around the science of the brain rather than hashing out a DIY guide to accomplish this on your own, and no, so far as we can tell, it (unfortunately) does not play Doom.

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Source: Darren Murph

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