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Trying out the Oculus Rift

I got an email from Q8geeks asking me if I would be interested in trying out the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. He had one and had set it up at his stand at the KuwaitySteps event so I passed by awhile ago and tried it out.

My first impression was the Oculus Rift was pretty light. When you see the device you expect some heft to it but then you pick it up and you’re like thats it? I got to try the headset with a quick round of team fortress followed by a virtual roller coaster ride and then a trip to Norway to check out the Northern Lights. The headset works really well and tracks your movement very accurately. When I first started the roller coaster demo for example I was sitting facing the back of the roller coaster so I had to physically turn around so I could face the front. I loved that. The biggest issue with the Oculus Rift for me was the size of the pixels on the internal screens, they’re pretty large and visible but then again this is just the developers kit and the actual device when released will have a better updated screen (amongst other things).

If you’re interested to try out the Oculus Rift you can pass by the KuwaitiSteps exhibition and try it for free. Q8Geeks has a stand there when you first walk in called GuuStore where he’s also selling micro-controllers such as the Arduino and Raspberry Pi.

Location: Tent outside Safir International Hotel [Map]
Time: 5PM to 11PM
Date: Till Saturday October 5th
Price: For some odd and silly reason there is a KD3 entrance fee

15 replies on “Trying out the Oculus Rift”

Yay! Thanks to your post Mark, I went to the expo and was finally able to experience this awesome piece of equipment. I’ve been following the oculus rift wave since Carmack showed the head mounted display’s 1st prototype (which was still literally held together by duct tape and glue) at E3 last year. I played the strike suit zero right after the think-like-you’re-an-elephant game and boy, it was awesome! It really felt like I was inside the plane’s cockpit.The low-res screen kind of breaks the immersion though. Mad props to the fine gentleman at the boot (who owns the rift btw) for letting me pick the games i wanted to play and patiently walked me through the entire experience.

How was the motion sickness mark? My friend who is a programmer has it, and he’s been messing around with it lately, but he tells me he gets really terrible motion sickness.

Hi Mark,

where we can buy this product, who is the distributor or agent here in kuwait?

appreciate your help in advance!

regards
Sam

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