#16: Ben Lang on creating Road to VR & prospecting the potential of VR before the Oculus Rift + State of VR Tech

Ben Lang is a futurist and avid gamer who prospected that all of the pieces for a virtual reality revolution were in place back in October 2011. He started RoadToVR.com as an outlet for his desire to learn about VR by reading and writing about it.

Ben LangHe discovered that some of the best discussions were happening on the Meant to be Seen 3D (MTBS3D) forums, and had been following the progression of the Oculus Rift before their successful Kickstarter that launched on August 1, 2012.

He talks about his inspirations for getting involved with tracking the evolution and road towards virtual reality as well as what types of experiences he’s really looking forward to having in VR, including some of the more physical aspects of virtual reality.

Ben talks about the intention and focus of Road to VR in that they’re trying to cover the latest technological developments, but also new and exciting VR experiences that are getting a lot of buzz. He describes some of his favorite VR experiences so far, and what types of VR experiences he’s looking forward to having in the future.

He gives an overview of the state of the VR HMD space as well as which one of the peripheral VR input devices are worth tracking more closely.

Finally, Ben talks about some of the non-gaming potential applications that get him excited, as well as what types of social experiences he’d find really compelling.

Reddit discussion here.

TOPICS

  • 0:00 – Founded RoadToVR.com Oct 2011. Allowed him to follow passion of VR. Needed an outlet to write about it in order to learn about it more. Could see that the pieces were there to bring VR to fruition. But at that time you had to be a hacker/maker to enjoy VR because all of the VR HMDs were DIY. Oculus Rift Kickstarter launched on Aug 2012, and he’d been tracking it on the MTBS3D forums. Rift was originally going to be a DIY kit, and then Carmack got involved. It’s been an amazing amount of growth since then. Kudos to Ben for having some winning futurist vision to be able prospect out the potential of the VR space.
  • 3:17 – How did you come across MTBS3D forums? Part of the research process to discover that’s where the leading thinking was. People were excited about the Sony HMZ. Forums are a great place to take a deep dive and learn about a topic.
  • 4:46 – What was your inspiration for getting excited about VR? Mostly about the technological evolution and it’s impact on society. It’ll be powerful medium going forward because it taps into something deep in your subconscious. It’s not going away any time soon. No specific movie or book served as a singular inspiration. The Matrix is the example of what he uses to use a metaphor for others. But had a lot of thought experiments as to what would be possible – like a physics simulation where you slow down the speed of light.
  • 6:29 – What do you want to experience in VR? Studio Ghibli and other films or games where you want to be a part of that world so that you go inside of the stories that you love and be a part of it. Also excited about the adrenaline rushing, and heart-pounding physical interactions with an emotional component made possible with technologies like the Virtuix Omni. Also looking forward to having entire self within VR and be able to recall intense moments with friends.
  • 9:24 – Are you coming from a gaming background then? More of a technology futurist. Was carrying around mobile computers before mobile phones. Then tablets and mobile phones came out and that space got boring. Also like to stay on the cutting edge, and VR feels like it’ll have legs and be around for quite a while.
  • 11:04 – There’s lots of technological components to this topic, what is Road to VR’s focus and intention with their coverage? They get excited about people doing cool stuff with VR. Trying to pick out the new and awesome hardware as well as innovative VR experiences. The key is what is truly new and exciting. Crash Land is compelling demo. Looking to help document the cool and new VR experiences.
  • 12:50 – What are some of the VR demos that are the most compelling? Half Life 2 and the Half Life VR mod that enable hydras controls that add an additional component of immersion. Valve did a great job of creating an engaging world with great story, characters, interesting enemies, and different types of weapons. They did a great job of adapting it to VR. Lots of demos and short experiences that weren’t build from the ground up for VR.
  • 14:30 – What are some the top VR products out there that get you excited? Obviously, the Oculus Rift Consumer Version, and can’t wait for the DK2. Sony Morpheus. Microsoft likely coming out with something soon, perhaps at E3. Incumbent game companies were a bit too jaded by the previous failures of VR though which is why it had to come from a grassroots group who could afford to take a risk.
  • 17:38 – What sticks out to you at SVVRCon? Everything at SVVRCon worth checking out. Infinadeck omnidirectional treadmill prototype proof of concept. Sandbox Augmented Reality adapter for the Rift. Would like to see new demos for Morpheus.
  • 19:44 – What about the Avegant Glyph display technology? There’s a Difference between VR headset and Head-mounted Display. Glyph is a HMD, and not a VR headset. 45-degree FOV. No screendoor effect. The Glyph creators are keeping an eye on VR, and it’d be good to have competition in displays.
  • 22:39 – What do you see the potential of VR beyond gaming? Immerse people within another world while your changing bandages on a burn patient. Looking forward to gaming experiences where you can hang out and play poker with friends.

Theme music: “Fatality” by Tigoolio

Rough Transcript

[00:00:05.412] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast.

[00:00:11.978] Ben Lang: My name is Ben Lang. I'm the founder and executive editor of RoadToVR.com. I founded the site in October of 2011. At the time, it was just like a total bare-bones, like, WordPress.com kind of site. It really started as a side project to follow my passion and my interest at the time, which was virtual reality. It was something that I had been thinking about, just the possibilities of it for a long time, and it just amazed me. As someone who had been doing a lot of technology blogging, I wanted a place to write about this. I find that to be a very useful way to learn about something, to read and write about it. It really makes you think about it. And since I was doing all this thinking, I decided I should start exploring this space in a structured way. So I decided to start reporting, just taking in all the news and everything that I could and learn about it. But this was 2011, so this was a year before the rift, and there wasn't really all that much out there. But, you know, there was still exciting stuff and the reason that I started this site was because I could see that the pieces were out there. The pieces to make a really cool VR experience were there. Nobody was bringing them together into a single package. So, there were, you know, here and there you'd see some student or some research project would kind of hack together some of these different peripherals and make something cool. but nobody was doing it in a way that, you know, you couldn't just go to the store and buy a system and enjoy virtual reality for yourself unless you were one of these hacker maker types that could build it, you know, or put the pieces together and do the software programming. So I saw that the technology was getting ready to deliver on the promise of VR, but no one had done it. But so I started writing 2011, about a year later, the Oculus Rift Kickstarter launched. It was August 2012, and I had actually been following the Rift's development prior to the Kickstarter on the MTBS 3D forums, and it was really exciting just seeing that... Palmer, a lot of people don't know this, but... Palmer initially was going to launch this as a DIY kit that he was going to sell directly to, he thought, maybe 50 or 100 people on the forum. And it was going to come disassembled and they'd put it together and then, you know, talk about it on the forum and they'd have common hardware to talk about and maybe make software for. And then, you know, Carmack got involved and things just blew up from there exponentially. But so, once the Oculus Rift Kickstarter struck and it had a great success, the next, you know, years up until now, you know, here we are at SVVR 2014, and there will probably be one next year, the amount of growth in that time has just been amazing. And I got lucky, but I want to give myself a little bit of credit for kind of prospecting this space and seeing that it was there, and it was just waiting for somebody like Palmer and the people that he's gathered to come along and say, let's put it together, let's make the system, let's make something awesome that people will be able to just go out and buy and enjoy this promise of virtual reality.

[00:03:17.456] Kent Bye: And so had you been aware of the meant to be seen forums and some of these discussions that were happening when you started the site? Or I'm just trying to get a sense of what signal you were getting from what was out there.

[00:03:28.703] Ben Lang: Yeah, so it was part of my initial explorations into, you know, what is the current state of VR that I came across places like MTBS 3D. At the time, you know, people were playing with the Sony HMZ and, you know, a lot of things that are back then were kind of exciting, but, you know, now when we know what good VR looks like, they kind of pale in comparison. So yeah, it's just the process of going out and sucking in all that information and trying to gather that knowledge initially. Starting the site, you know, you find these communities and you find the ones that are good. And I have been a long-time forum guy, just because again, you know, reading, writing, I think is the best way to explore and grow your knowledge about a topic. And so, you know, in my previous work for certain topics, you know, there's forums that you get really kind of embedded in the community and there's I think they're a great place for anybody of any age to go and just be treated well, purely based on their, you know, ability to converse. You know, there's no other, it doesn't matter what you look like, you know, the anonymity lets you just say, you know, I'm going to write out what I'm interested in and if you guys want to converse with me, we'll do that and we can have a good discussion. It really brings down all those barriers. So, I've been a long-time forum guy and so, you know, as soon as I saw MTBS3D and the discussion going on there, I started following along.

[00:04:46.227] Kent Bye: And so what was it about virtual reality? Was it any sci-fi or movies that really got you kind of hooked into seeing the potential of VR?

[00:04:56.575] Ben Lang: I hesitate to say The Matrix, because I don't really think that's what did it. I mean, that's just an easy example, I think, to appeal to other people who don't really understand Wi-Fi. And you say, well, it's kind of, you know, like what they did in The Matrix. And then they get it. I think that's just a good example of what virtual reality could be far into the future and what it could mean if we ever get to a point like that. So that's actually kind of the reason that I made the site. Well, not kind of the reason, the reason I made the site called Road to VR is because The whole point was, where are we now and where is it going to go? Not just, you know, Rift-centric. This was before the Rift and I imagine this is going to be, you know, virtual reality is not going to stop. It's not like 10 years later the VR fad is going to be over. This is something that you know, it taps into something so subconscious that it's going to be a powerful medium just going forward. It's not going to go away. So that was why we did the road thing. And so, no, you know, no specific movie inspiration or book. To be honest, it was just, I kind of had this idea of virtual reality is, let's say, perfect virtual reality is an exact simulation of the real world, but you can, you know, inject whatever you want. You can have anything you want, you can see anything you want, you can be anywhere, you can meet anyone, you can be anyone. And you could rewrite the laws of physics if you wanted to. You could alter the speed of light in a simulated reality. And just those possibilities alone, you know, I'd lay awake thinking some nights, you know, what would that mean? And I still think about that stuff.

[00:06:29.533] Kent Bye: So what do you want to experience in VR? What's the thing that you haven't been able to experience yet that you're just dying to experience in some way?

[00:06:37.460] Ben Lang: You know, there's some films and games where when you finish them and some of you out there may know the Studio Ghibli is one of my favorite anime studios and really like a lot of their work and So films like that, kind of when you finish them, there are certain ones that they just engross you and they enthrall you. And when the story is over, you say, I wish, or at least I would say, I wish I was still there. I want to be part of that world. And that feeling, I think, will connect very well in virtual reality. So for those stories that you love and want to experience again, you'll actually be able to go inside of those worlds and go back and be part of them. And I think that is just extremely exciting and just very powerful emotionally. I'm also very much looking forward to, I have to come up with some sort of term for this because it always takes a little bit too long to explain. But so you've got games, let's say, that are emotionally compelling, not just in, you know, sad or scary kind of way. But, you know, there are moments in games that I've played where there's like this team camaraderie, like, It's capture the flag and a shooter, let's say, and you and your team are like running the flag back to your cap point and you need that point to win. 15 seconds left and like everyone's at the top of their game shouting and making sure like that this thing happens even though it's virtual and we're just controlling it with keyboard and mouse or our thumbs on sticks. It's like this emotional like adrenaline filled heart pounding moment. And I've always thought that was really cool the way that games could create moments like that kind of organically. But I really wish that we could combine that emotional excitement with physical adrenaline-pounding action. So I'm really looking forward to devices like the Omni that are really taking full input and translating them into the game so that when you're running that flag and your adrenaline's really going, you're running at full speed in real life because you're like, I need to capture this flag because I need to win this game. You know, having just half of it, having just the emotional side and not kind of that physical side is, I think, a shame. And, you know, let alone the benefits of exercise and all that stuff. But just having your entire self in that moment, I think, is just a super powerful experience. And I would love to have had that in all these moments I think back to our, you know, playing with friends. And these are like really intense moments that we all have, you know, we'll talk about and be like, yeah, remember that one time we did that? Like, it'd be so much cooler if it was like, dude, I was out of breath. I didn't even think I could make it. And I, you know, it just, I love to think about that and I hope that we'll get there.

[00:09:24.755] Kent Bye: And so are you coming mostly from a gaming background then, from your initial interest in VR at least?

[00:09:32.162] Ben Lang: I mean, I am a gamer. I don't know that... I mean, that's kind of the obvious applications for it. But I was also coming largely from just kind of a technology, kind of futurist background. So in my previous work, I have pretty much always been on kind of the bleeding edge of something. So in my early days, it was this category of device called the UMPC, which was like a little handheld computer. These preceded the smartphone and tablet market, and I was writing all about those, and this was really exciting, and you know, completely niche. Nobody had one. I was carrying around a little computer in my pocket and nobody knew it, running Windows XP, and at the time that was like awesome. And once that became kind of matured into smartphones and tablets, things got boring. You know, it's like new smartphone comes out, it's faster, camera's a little better, screen's a little better. And that just kind of became, you know, the norm. And that's kind of boring. So I move on to something else. So VR is, you know, bleeding edge right now. And that's why I'm so excited about it. And so it's not necessarily just gaming. And although I say that I do like to stay on the bleeding edge, I think virtual reality has, you know, it's different. It has this ability to tap into us at a really human level. So I don't think it'll be something I'll move on from. I think I'm kind of embedded at this point. I'm just too excited to leave it behind. I mean, I don't know. Who knows, 20 years down the road, maybe it'll be, you know, HMD comes out, a little bit better screen, a little wider field of view, I don't know. I think it's going to be exciting for a long time. I mean, it's definitely going to be relevant for, I think, ever from this point forward. Whether or not, you know, what I'll do with it, I'm going to be sticking with it for a while.

[00:11:05.331] Kent Bye: And so there seems to be definitely a technological component of different innovations that are happening in the virtual reality, HMD space with mobile coming in and also PC and potentially the more IMAX experience of fully walking around a room. I'm just curious in terms of when you're covering this area, what are you focusing on on Road to VR when you're covering this space?

[00:11:29.930] Ben Lang: We're really excited about people doing just cool stuff. I mean, and that stems from what I was just talking about where the new phone, new screen, blah, blah, blah, it's kind of boring. So we're not trying to, we're trying to pick out, you know, the most newsworthy stuff in terms of what is new and awesome. You know, what are the cool innovative experiences? What kind of new hardware is coming out that is really doing something neat and different? you know, there is going to be a level of it where people do want to know what's the latest game, what's the latest hardware. But for us, the key is what is truly exciting and promising. You know, what kind of combinations of hardware and software are people making that lead to some really compelling experiences? Like Crashland, for instance, is one of my favorite Rift demos at this point. For those that haven't played it, it's a Rift-enabled game that also uses the Razer Hydra. just a super simple demo, but it's like got these big aliens that come at you and you're dual wielding guns. And I just find that that combination, you know, works and creates a really awesome experience. So that's when, you know, that thing is always in the back of my head and I can't wait to see more of that. So we're always on the look for cool stuff that I think other people will find interesting as well.

[00:12:38.680] Kent Bye: And we're, I guess, a little, like, maybe a year and a half into the Rift being out into the wide world of developers' hands where they can actually develop applications. And so what have been some of the VR apps that have been public that you've experienced that really stick with you as being a really compelling experience?

[00:12:55.797] Ben Lang: Actually, so it wasn't, you know, Rift dedicated, but Half-Life 2 has been, for me, one of the coolest experiences so far, just because, you know, the production value is really good. Even though it's an old game, they added Rift support to it a little while back, officially. And then there is this mod that some guys have made, Nathan Andrews and Wormslayer, made this mod for Half-Life 2 called Half-Life VR, and it enables Hydra controls, which When you look down at your hand and you're turning your hand over and you see that you're holding, you know, one of these weapons, you just feel so much more part of the world. So, that experience for me is really cool. You know, Valve did an amazing job of filling that world with compelling characters, story, action. The weapons have their own character to them. They're all very unique for those that have played the game will know that. And so to feel like you are the main character and you're able to actually physically wield these really neat weapons and attack or be attacked by really interesting enemies, that's been one of the coolest experiences, I think, because it's one of the best games out there and getting to enjoy it in VR, even though it wasn't made for it. They've done a very good job at adapting it between Valve's Rift support and Half-Life VR mod, and just having that whole package of a story, a setting, a character, and all the cool weapons and enemies is really fun, and not something that we've seen delivered on that level yet, just because, you know, these types of games being built from the ground up for VR are still long in development. A lot of what we've seen so far are demos or short experiences that don't yet have that whole world behind them.

[00:14:31.725] Kent Bye: And so looking at the state of the VR field, since you are kind of on the bleeding edge and seeing what's out there, maybe you could describe to me, you know, the state of some of the top products that you see that are out there that get you excited for the future of VR.

[00:14:45.857] Ben Lang: Yeah, well the obvious ones are the Oculus Rift consumer version is coming up. They say, I think they'd be okay saying if it's not out by 2015 then something had gone wrong. I believe as the official, like that's the nearest that they'll say it might be coming. So between now and the end of 2015 we'll probably see the Oculus Rift consumer version. The DK2, I can't wait to get my hands on. They're coming in July, and from being able to try it several times, the experience is so much better. The comfort level is amazing compared to the DK1. Not just ergonomically, like on your face, but the way that your brain just kind of accepts this world so much better without the nausea, just because of the positional tracking. And Oculus is doing such a good job of Really nailing the incredible subtleties of head tracking and positional tracking and bringing the latency down and making this experience as good as it can be. And that is really impressive. They could have just put out the DK1 and said this is our consumer product. Clearly, they would have made a return on their investments. They've sold quite a few, and they could have just pushed it and marketed it as a consumer product. But they said, no, this isn't actually ready, and I think it's really respectable that... I mean, they could have done the same with the DK2. It's a very good experience, and they could have put that out there as a consumer product and said, here's VR, it's great, everybody go buy it. But they didn't, so they're waiting, and I can't wait to see what they're going to have in store for the CV1, what that experience will be like. Then there's Morpheus, which is also really exciting. I'm so happy to see that Sony has jumped into the VR space, because that competition is going to be great. I have a feeling that Microsoft is going to get pulled in as well, and maybe we'll see something about that at E3, who knows. But to have them in there, Sony at least, is something that even before Oculus, I was saying, one of these game companies needs to pick up the mantle and put it out there in an easy-to-use way where you can just plug it in, and they need to make this happen. And it took, you know, I came to find that these companies have become so jaded in their experience with virtual reality, you know, the last time that it failed, that none of them wanted to take on the risk. It was just this connotation that virtual reality isn't gonna work. So it took somebody like Palmer with a vision and an interesting idea and a bunch of individual people who were excited and willing to pledge on the Kickstarter to start the seed of this thing happening. So, I wanted one of those companies to pick up the mantle. I found that it took a collective of people who were actually enthusiastic and not afraid, you know, they could take on the risk as being individual people. And now, at least, we have reached that point where the companies have decided, okay, we can now, we're not jaded anymore, this is cool, let's get in there. So, I think there is a lot of growth in the industry yet to come.

[00:17:37.507] Kent Bye: I see. And so being here at the Silicon Valley virtual reality conference and trying out all these demos, what is kind of stuck out for you in terms of what's on the bleeding edge here at this conference?

[00:17:48.630] Ben Lang: You know, to be honest, everything here on the showroom floor is something that is worth seeing. I think this space represents, and the people here represent pretty much everybody I'd be interested in seeing going to a larger convention. And so, I honestly haven't had that much time to go check out each individual thing, but, you know, just looking at the names here and seeing some of the different demos is really cool. I saw the Infinideck omnidirectional treadmill, which is still very much just a kind of proof of concept, but it's really interesting. It's this huge, like, thousand-pound thing that rolls in two different directions, so you can walk diagonally or forward or backward or sideways. And it's really neat. Maybe we'll see something like that come down the road that can fit in a consumer space, works for consumer VR. I also saw some guys from Sandbox who are working on an attachment for the Oculus Rift that will have 3D pass-through video for augmented reality and a depth sensor mounted on the front. So kind of like a Leap and 3D cameras mounted on the front so that you can not only see outside of the Oculus Rift, but you can also do augmented reality and hand gesture stuff. It's pretty neat. They're still kind of quiet about what they're doing, but I guess we'll be announcing soon. They were showing here anyway. I'm actually looking right now around the floor to see the names that I remember from yesterday. It's been a busy day. Morpheus is here. I wish that they had some new demos to show, but it's exciting that they are here supporting this space. They have already come out. You know, they're a games company, so the experience for them is really important, which I think is great. So they already have some cool demos. They're showing the knight one here, or the castle, I believe it's called. I don't know if you've had a chance to try it, but it's fun, which is, you know, really cool. It's just people immediately get in there and they use the move controllers to start punching and chopping with swords and stuff. I'm hoping that soon we will see some new demos from them, probably at E3.

[00:19:44.115] Kent Bye: And one device that isn't here that I'm interested in that has kind of a leap in technology is the Avalon glyph and sort of like beaming light directly into your eye. I'm just curious if you see something like maybe describe your experience of that and if you see that as something that is going to be fitting into the virtual reality space.

[00:20:02.753] Ben Lang: Yeah, so I've had my chance to try on the engineering prototype and the alpha prototype of the Glyph. And while it's not what I would call... So I make this distinction between VR headset and head-mounted display. A head-mounted display is just a device that is on your head and has a screen. So Google Glass, for instance, I would call head-mounted display. A VR headset, on the other hand, is an immersive head-mounted display that has, you know, wide enough field of view and encloses you to the point that you can get the sense of being in another space. So, the Avagon Glyph, while their display technology is really impressive, and I was blown away when I saw it, they are still a head-mounted display. It's, I believe, off the top of my head, it's a 40 or 45 degree field of view. you're not fully enclosed, whereas virtual reality headsets are kind of another thing. But as far as the display technology goes, it's really impressive. I was amazed at kind of the natural feeling of the light that I saw on some of the scenes. There was this underwater scene that I saw during one of their demos where there was like a turtle in kind of a tropical water, not so deep. And there was light cascading down through the water, shining on its shell. And I was like, wow, that looks so right, like the light looks right. And I don't know if that has something to do with the way that they are producing the light or what, but it's a very interesting experience. And they have no screen door at all that you can see. So the pixels are, I mean, you don't see any pixels at all. It just looks like this smooth, continuous image. They have said that they are watching the VR space carefully and that they would be interested in moving into that space if the time were right. And I think that that would be very good for the industry to have a competing display technology out here because all of the head-mounted displays that we're seeing coming out now are based on raster screens, pixel-based. And having something different, a different option, always drives that competition and always improves the experience for the consumer. So I would love to see them say, yeah, we're coming out with a 100 degree field of view version. I mean, not to say it's not an exciting product for those that want to, you know, that ride a bus or a train or have some level of mobile transit in their day where they're just sitting for a while. having the ability to just flip down your headset and have a big screen view of a movie or you can hook up your phone and have a large screen, you know, web browser. That's all really cool. I would love to be able to sit on the plane and, you know, go through my emails not on a little phone but on this nice big screen in front of me.

[00:22:28.921] Kent Bye: And finally, maybe you could just share some of your thoughts in terms of the potential of VR beyond gaming.

[00:22:36.366] Ben Lang: Yeah, there's a lot and it's still being explored. People always mention PTSD treatments and someone had mentioned recently the other day that I thought was very interesting, this ability to immerse somebody in another space and kind of distract them from what may be ailing them. So, for instance, I believe it is burn patients that changing bandages on a burn patient is said to be extremely painful. So there is this idea that someone suggested where, you know, if you can immerse them in this calm experience where they are in another world while their bandages are being changed, you know, will that reduce their perceived pain on, you know, let's say their legs are burned and they're having their bandages changed. that could be an interesting use. There's a lot of really exciting stuff where it's not necessarily gaming, but it's more social, where like, you know, my friends and I, back in the day when we all used to be kind of located near each other, used to like to play poker from time to time, and that was a, you know, that was a fun thing that we used to do. I think that we're getting to a point where in the next five years I'll be able to say, hey guys, we're all kind of now spread out around the country and whatnot. But I think in the next five years, we'll be able to say, hey, guys, grab this headset, grab this motion controller, and get this software. And we'll be able to have a virtual reality poker game where we can all see our cards and throw chips at each other, as we might have done in the past. So I think that's really cool to be able to bring people. I'm really looking forward to being able to recreate that experience, not once a year when I have the chance to fly home or whatever, but being able to have that whenever I want through that virtual connection would be really neat.

[00:24:06.424] Kent Bye: Great. Well, thank you so much.

[00:24:08.083] Ben Lang: Sure, thank you.

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