Author: Lee Hutchinson

Enlarge / Trying out a nonfunctional Glyph prototype at CES 2015. Props to the Avegant people, because the shipping model looks pretty much exactly like this. (credit: Lee Hutchinson)

The Avegant Glyph is a screen that you wear on your face. That’s the simplest way to describe it. The whole device looks like a pair of outsized Beats headphones, complete with huge chunky body and thick plastic headband; the parts that go on your ears are indeed headphones, but that huge headband hides a 720p DLP screen (though "screen" isn’t quite right, as we’ll see) and the optics necessary to make the display work.

When you put it on, you look a lot like you’re wearing someone’s parody of what a VR headset is supposed to look like (personally, I think the effect rather resembles the popular "cyber woman with corn" stock photo). But the technology actually delivers a very high fidelity image—and for a first-generation hardware project borne of a Kickstarter, even delivering a product at all can be considered a success. Viewed through that lens, the Glyph is a hit.

But after spending a week with a "Founder’s Edition" version of the headset, I’m not entirely sure I’d want to spend the money for one—and it might not be for the reason you’re expecting.

Enlarge / John McAfee and Ars Technica deep cover operative Sean Gallagher at an unnamed location that looks suspiciously like Las Vegas. (credit: Sean Gallagher)

In an op-ed for Business Insider titled "I'll decrypt the San Bernardino phone free of charge so Apple doesn't need to place a back door on its product," libertarian presidential candidate and former antivirus developer John McAfee waded into the ongoing battle of words between Apple and the FBI with some choice words of his own.

Never one to bring a knife to a verbal gunfight, McAfee unleashes a howitzer of invective, blasting the United States government for undermining the country’s "already ancient cybersecurity and cyberdefense systems." It takes only four short paragraphs for McAfee to start talking about Nazis and Hitler. Two paragraphs later—not counting blockquotes—McAfee proclaims that by pressing Apple to "back door" (his words) the iPhone and bypass or defeat the mechanisms keeping its data secure, the government is seeking to bring about the end of the world (as we know it).

This is heavy stuff.

Enlarge / Blasting bots in the mines, just like old times. (credit: Revival Productions)

Descent-style "six degrees of freedom" tunnel shooters are undergoing a mini-renaissance. First, some of the Austin-based Star Citizen team jumped ship and started working on Descent: Underground, a multiplayer-focused prequel to the original game using the "Descent" name on license from Interplay. Next, UK indie studio Sigtrap Games announced Sublevel Zero, another Descent-like tunnel shooter—this one with blocky, retro-styled graphics and a focus on single-player.

We’ve played both, but as good as Descent: Underground and Sublevel Zero are shaping up to be, they’re missing something: the original development crew from Parallax Studios that worked on the original Descent and its sequels. We’ve been wondering since last year if Mike Kulas, Matt Toschlog, and the rest of the folks behind Descent were going to throw their virtual hats into the ring—and, as of this morning, they have. They’ve started a new company called Revival Productions LLC and launched a $300,000 crowdfunding campaign for a game called Overload.

Defending materials

The Overload Kickstarter, along with the game’s website, paints a pretty detailed picture of the kind of game Revival is developing. The game is not a sequel or prequel to Descent—Eric Peterson and Descendent Studios have the right to use the Descent name and are doing that with Descent: Underground—but is instead a new game in a new universe (Revival told Ars that its own attempts to license the Descent name from Interplay were unsuccessful). However, Overload will feature gameplay mechanisms that are undeniably Descent-y: zipping through underground mines in a small spacecraft, finding keys, opening secret doors, fragging robots, rescuing hostages, and finally blowing up a reactor and escaping the level before it collapses around your ears.

Enlarge / What might have been. (credit: Lee Hutchinson / NASA / NOAA)

February 1, 2016: One of the most tragic events in the history of space exploration is the loss of the space shuttle Columbia and all seven of its crew on February 1, 2003—a tragedy made worse because it didn’t have to happen. But just as it is human nature to look to the future and wonder what might be, so too is it in our nature to look at the past and wonder, “what if?” Today, 13 years after the event, Ars is rerunning our detailed 2014 examination of the biggest Columbia “what if” of all—what if NASA had recognized the danger? Could NASA have done something to save the crew?

If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.

—Astronaut Gus Grissom, 1965

It is important to note at the outset that Columbia broke up during a phase of flight that, given the current design of the Orbiter, offered no possibility of crew survival.

—Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report

At 10:39 Eastern Standard Time on January 16, 2003, space shuttle Columbia lifted off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A mere 81.7 seconds later, a chunk of insulating foam tore free from the orange external tank and smashed into the leading edge of the orbiter's left wing at a relative velocity of at least 400 miles per hour (640 kph), but Columbia continued to climb toward orbit.

The foam strike was not observed live. Only after the shuttle was orbiting Earth did NASA's launch imagery review reveal that the wing had been hit. Foam strikes during launch were not uncommon events, and shuttle program managers elected not to take on-orbit images of Columbia to visually assess any potential damage. Instead, NASA's Debris Assessment Team mathematically modeled the foam strike but could not reach any definitive conclusions about the state of the shuttle's wing. The mission continued.

Enlarge / Was this image taken with an iPhone or a DSLR? Spoiler: this one's from a DSLR, on a tripod, with a long exposure and a fair amount of post-processing. This is Gordon Cooper's "Faith 7" Mercury capsule, on display at Space Center Houston. (credit: Lee Hutchinson)

"The best camera," goes the old saying, "is the one you have with you." It’s true, too—spend just a few minutes browsing places like /r/pics and you’ll find stunning image after stunning image taken on a wide variety of cameras, from DSLRs with telephoto lenses all the way down to smartphones. A modern smartphone is equipped with a hell of a lot of picture-taking power and can spit out pro-looking images without a whole lot of effort, and nearly everyone has one on them all the time. Does that mean, then, that the best camera today is a smartphone?

We explored this in our October 2014 "iPhone vs. DSLR" shootout—and we learned a lot. The first lesson was, at least according to a whole lot of people, that I suck at photography. And that’s all right—I do suck at photography. Most of the images I take are properly called "product photography," done inside in studio conditions with lots of lights and not necessarily a lot of variation in settings. Shooting in the real world is a lot more complicated.

More importantly, we proved conventional wisdom right. A smartphone does take awesome pictures, so you don’t need a DSLR, two bags of gear, and a tripod unless you really need an expensive DSLR, two bags of gear, and a tripod.

Enlarge / Standing back as far as I can get in the hangar and I still can't quite get the whole thing in frame. Pilot Rick Sharpe at frame left. (credit: Lee Hutchinson)

HOUSTON—My first thought was that I should have rented a wider lens. Sitting in front of me was a vintage two-seat Douglas TA-4J Skyhawk, and this aircraft dominated the space. It loomed like a temporarily grounded raptor, simultaneously enormous and oddly toy-like. The Skyhawk sat poised on chocked gear with its nose cocked slightly upward, like it was ready to go, this very instant, decorate a jungle canopy with a long string of burning nape. A painted Playboy bunny perched impudently at the top of the empennage—the logo of Headquarters & Maintenance Squadron 11, based out of Danang, Vietnam.

No matter how far back I shuffled in the crowded hangar, I couldn’t quite fit the whole aircraft in frame. Let that be a lesson, would-be photographers: the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L is a hell of a lens, but sometimes, 24mm just isn’t wide enough.

Lee Hutchinson

Though it's the smallest jet we saw that day, the A-4's landing gear makes it stand tall in the hangar, towering above us.

11 more images in gallery

Four, on the floor

The Skyhawk—the first of four vintage jets I got to see this day—holds Bureau Number 153524 and first saw service in 1967 in "Fast FAC" missions over Vietnam (that is, "Forward Air Control" missions into "hot" areas). It is now the property of the Massachusetts-based Collings Foundation, an education nonprofit group that maintains a large number of historical aircraft from various eras. Several of the Foundation’s Vietnam-era aircraft are stabled in Ellington Field, southeast of Houston in Clear Lake and just a few miles away from the Johnson Space Center. The Foundation’s website features detailed write-ups on the provenance of each of its aircraft, including 153524, but my visit to the hangars in Ellington wasn’t an official Foundation activity—rather, it was the result of a personal request to professional pilot and family friend Rick Sharpe.

Enlarge (credit: HTC)

HTC CEO Cher Wang has revealed that the HTC Vive VR head-mounted display will be available for preorder starting February 29. Speaking with The Telegraph, Wang said that the company is de-emphasizing smartphone handsets and increasing its focus on virtual reality and that the release of the Vive is a major step in that direction.

This will make the Vive the second "AAA" head-mounted display to come to market, since a significant number of people who pre-ordered the Oculus Rift last week should be receiving their devices at the end of March. HTC has not yet announced final specifications for the shipping version of the Vive, but we’re expecting them to be similar to the shipping version of the Rift, including dual OLED displays at or around a combined resolution of 2160x1200 with a 90Hz refresh rate. It’s also expected that HTC will put more of an emphasis on "room-scale" virtual reality, encouraging wearers to get up out of their seats and interact with an environment. Unlike the Rift, the Vive will include a pair of infrared tracking cameras and virtual reality hand controllers in the box (or at least, so says the current information from HTC).

But HTC remains mum on the specifics. The final price for the Vive has yet to be announced, though HTC has long maintained that the Vive will probably be more expensive than the Oculus Rift. With the Rift coming in at $599—higher than many potential customers anticipated—it’s a virtual certainty that the Vive will cost as much or more, especially considering that it’s expected to include the extra camera and VR controllers. The actual ship date for the device is also unknown, though according to The Telegraph, the Vive’s current April release is still solid.

Enlarge / This is the real deal. (credit: Oculus)

In a press release last night, Facebook-owned Oculus announced that it will begin shipping final, complete versions of its Oculus Rift VR headset to developers starting this week. VR developers interested in taking advantage of this offer should submit their VR apps through the standard Oculus dev portal, and Oculus will "be in touch with next steps."

The announcement comes alongside another big deal: the 1.0 version of the SDK has been finalized as well and will also be available this week. VR developers interested in using the Rift in their games have previously had to work with steadily changing prerelease versions of the Rift SDK; some version shifts, like the jump from 0.6 to 0.7 and 0.8, have introduced substantial changes in the way developers have to have their apps interact with the Rift hardware. Multiple developers have told Ars they've chosen to hold off on integrating Rift support into games due to the possibility of sinking development efforts into an unstable prerelease SDK. The 1.0 release should signal to anyone who wants to develop for the Rift that now’s the time to get started.

The Oculus Rift is still expected to be released in the first quarter of 2016, though we do not have as yet an exact date. Nor has the price been announced, other than Oculus informing us that it will be "over $350." The release version is expected to include a 2160x1200 display panel (25 percent more pixels than a 1080p display running at 1920x1080) running at a 90Hz refresh rate and will require a pretty hefty GPU to drive modern games at a consistent 90fps. We also learned earlier this month that space combat sim Eve: Valkyre will be included in all Rift preorders to give new Rift owners something exciting to play right out of the gate.

Enlarge / No spoilers: this is a thing that the trailer showed happening in the movie at some point where two characters exchange a lightsaber maybe. (credit: Walt Disney Pictures)

There are no Star Wars spoilers in this piece. Read without fear, but beware of clicking any of the links presented herein.

I haven’t seen Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. I probably won’t see it until well into the new year—the idea of waiting in line to see a movie in a theater just doesn’t fly for me anymore. Ars Editor Tiffany Kelly hit up the press screening in LA, but I haven’t talked to her about the film yet, nor have I talked to our Disney PR rep or anyone else affiliated with the film.

Nonetheless, I already know everything that happens, from crawl to credits.

Though Abrams and friends planned to keep things under wraps for as long as possible for the fans, and in spite of Disney’s lunatic hair-trigger litigiousness, no plan survives contact with the enemy—and in this case, the enemy has proven to be anyone entering the theater for premiere screenings, in and outside of the United States. As I write this, it’s still a few hours until the general public in the US gets an unchaperoned crack at the films—evening screenings start tonight—but even though I made only a casual search for Star Wars spoilers, it took only moments to gobble up dozens of plot points and revelations. After maybe fifteen minutes of reading and watching, I’d seen everything. I’d seen it all.

Enlarge / "Big moon Horizons on Cobra and SRV," by CMDR [AEDC] Haridas Gopal. (credit: CMDR [AEDC] Haridas Gopal)

Ninety frames per second. That’s the new target for consumer VR gear: you need hardware capable of rendering two HD images with all the trimmings at a steady 90fps, or the whole thing starts to shake and judder and make you sick. That 90fps requirement is what’s driving the disturbingly high VR system requirements posted a few days ago for Elite: Dangerous by Frontier Developments; according to Frontier, you need 16GB of RAM, a fast i7 quad-core CPU, and a GeForce GTX 980 to do VR well with Elite and consumer VR hardware.

Studio founder and CEO David Braben is aware that the spec is high—the recommended video card alone will set you back at least $500—but Braben is in somewhat of a privileged position among game developers: he has one of the only shipping triple-A games that, as of today, officially supports VR without having to dig into config files and enable hidden dev-only options (I’m looking at you, Alien: Isolation). The game’s soon-to-be-released "Horizons" 2.0 expansion, which is currently in semi-open testing by the Elite playerbase, raises the bar and adds SteamVR support alongside Oculus Rift support, meaning you could plug an HTC Vive into your computer and play Elite: Dangerous on it right now, at the 90 frames per second the Vive prefers for glass-smooth head tracking.

Elite is one of the best VR experiences a PC gamer can have right now—and believe me, if a PC game supports VR, I’ve tried it out on my Oculus Rift DK2 at home, which is attached to a gaming PC that meets or exceeds Frontier’s VR spec in every category (I have a 980ti video card, but only one—SLI in Elite with VR is currently problematic due to a combination of different issues). Braben explained that the game’s VR support is the result of a complex dance of intuition and design iteration.