Month: April 2016

This E3 2015 video includes footage of Sam's attempts to build a VR bicycle on his second demo with Tilt Brush. Video shot/edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

History shows that if you want to impress the world with a brand-new way of computing, you better pack in some painting software. MacPaint made us believe in the Macintosh's GUI and mouse. Educational, art-driven software like Hypercard, Hyperstudio, and Kid Pix dominated school computer labs for years. Even the pre-installed sensation that is Microsoft Paint gets mileage to this day, if mostly for comical effect.

These applications weren't just fun to mess with, they also made it fun to learn how to use a mouse—that thing you use pretty much every day. That, above all else, is why Tilt Brush can safely be called the HTC Vive's killer app. It serves the same educational role for motion-tracked controllers.

After Blue Origin completed the third flight of its New Shepard launch system on Saturday, the spaceflight community applauded the effort. And on Sunday, after video emerged showing the dramatic firing of its engines just before the rocket would have struck the ground, the response was again approbation. This third test in a little more than four months demonstrated that Blue Origin has continued to progress toward its goal of launch, land, and repeat—the holy grail of low-cost spaceflight.

But among the cheers were also a few mutterings. What does it matter if all Jeff Bezos is going to do is take rich people on joy rides, some said. Or, if researchers want to do suborbital experiments, can't they get those done in conventional aircraft flying parabolas? Others have complained that New Shepard's propulsion module is relatively small and has only a single engine, and flying to suborbital space requires a fraction of the energy that getting into orbit does. In short, some critics say Bezos is just dabbling at the edges of space, not doing the hard stuff of going all the way.

This may all be true, but it misses the point. Much like Mercury represented America's first tentative steps into outer space, so does New Shepard represent only a beginning for the company. New Shepard, after all, is named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space who rode inside a Mercury capsule. It may or may not succeed, but Blue Origin aspires to be much more. It's trying to build a scalable, reusable architecture from the ground up, and that takes time.

The National Football League announced today that Twitter will stream 10 Thursday Night Football games, free for all users, during the 2016 regular season.

"The NFL and Twitter will provide free, live streaming video of Thursday Night Football without authentication to the over 800 million registered and non-registered users worldwide on the Twitter platform on mobile phones, tablets, PCs, and connected TVs," the league said.

Periscope broadcasts from players and teams are also planned. There is already "a massive amount of NFL-related conversation happening on Twitter during our games," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell noted.

Headset specs
Headset weight	555 grams (~1.2 lbs) without cables
Display	2160x1200 (1080x1200 per eye) AMOLED panels
Refresh rate	90 Hz
Field of view	110 degrees
Lens spacing	60.2-74.5mm (adjustable)
Controllers	Two wireless motion-tracked controllers with rechargeable 960mAh batteries
Tracking	SteamVR 1.0 tracking system with two "Lighthouse" IR laser tracking boxes (up to 5m diagonal tracking volume)
Audio	Audio extension dongle to plug generic headphones to headset. Built-in microphone
PC connection	Three-part multi-cable (HDMI, USB, and power) with junction box for PC connection.
Included games	Job Simulator, Fantastic Contraption and Tiltbrush
Price	$800

Recommended PC specs
GPU	NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
CPU	Intel i5-4590 / AMD FX 8350 equivalent or greater
RAM	4GB
OS	Windows 7 SP1 or newer
Outputs	1x HDMI 1.4 or DisplayPort 1.2; 1x USB 2.0
Other	At least 1.5m x 2m of open space for "room-scale" experiences.

An entire generation of nerds has now grown up with the sci-fi ideal of the holodeck as the ultimate future of interactive entertainment. The Star Trek universe’s 24th century gave us a view of rooms literally filled with 3D holographic projections that users could touch, feel, smell, and talk to at will. As a way of interacting with a computer simulation, it seems believably hundreds of years beyond the current methods of using a mouse or a finger to dither around on a 2D screen.

We’re still a long way from technology that can suspend visible light (much less physical matter) in empty space as the fictional holodeck can. For now, though, the HTC Vive is a better simulation of key parts of that holodeck ideal than we had any right to expect from the early 21st century. By combining a 3D virtual reality display, position- and motion-sensitive handheld controllers, and a tracking solution that works over the scale of an entire room, the Vive transports you to a convincing simulated world that you can see and touch (even if you can’t convincingly feel it).

The characters in Star Trek didn’t have to deal with uncomfortable, slightly pixellated ski-goggle helmets or mounting tracking boxes around their living space. Still, the Vive’s ability to let you walk around and poke at a computer simulation as if it was a physical space feels like the first step toward a computing future that science fiction has spent decades training us for.

Roku continues to regularly update its family of streaming devices, and today the company announced a revamped streaming stick. The latest Roku streaming stick will replace the purple dongle the company released back in 2014, and it works largely the same way (albeit with updated internals and a few extra features).

The new Roku streaming stick has dual-band MIMO antenna and an updated quad-core processor, giving it eight times more power than the 2014 version. Even with that improvement, Roku managed to shave off some bulk from the stick so it's now closer to thumb-drive size. Just like the old streaming stick, the new one plugs into your TV via HDMI port to deliver thousands of "channels," or apps that you can watch video through including Netflix, YouTube, and Time Warner Cable. Unlike the Roku 4 set top box the company released late last year, the new streaming stick doesn't support 4K video and only streams content in 1080p.

The stick comes with a remote just like the company's other devices, but that remote doesn't have a headphone jack for private listening. However, a new feature of the stick solves that issue: it streams audio via Wi-Fi to your smartphone, so you can plug your headphones into your phone and listen to the show you're watching. This will come in handy for those who live in hectic households, live with roommates, or just really want to focus on the latest House of Cards season.