Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Headset Blows Past Kickstarter Goal

Virtual reality headsets have historically been very disappointing. While the concept has been fun and interesting, the technological realities never quite lived up to expectations, and hardware developers largely gave up on research into this kind of device. However, it's been long enough that display technology has caught up to our ambitions. So, where are our VR headsets? Well, hobbyist Palmer Luckey asked that same question, and when he couldn't find a good answer, he decided to build one himself. He and his team have built a prototype, and they just launched a Kickstarter campaign to distribute developer kits. The campaign blew past its $250,000 goal in hours. What's interesting about this particular campaign is that Palmer took the Oculus Rift to various development studios and managed to get enthusiastic endorsements from some big names, including Cliff Bleszinski, Gabe Newell, and John Carmack.

Another Kickstarter Slashvertisement?

[Missing.Matter]

Seriously, do we need a Slashdot story about every piece of Kickstarter vaporware that meets its funding goal? Here's an idea, how about we start running Slashdot stories when something from Kickstarter goes from rendering to shipping actual products. That will cut down stories like these tenfold. Cool ideas are dime a dozen, and it's nice to see these guys met their goal, but going from vision to prototype to product is something Kickstarters have proven to be problematic, especially for people who have no experience in business, product development, sales, and manufacturing.

Re:one person

[ThePeices]

If Carmack was giving money anonymously, how do you know it was him?

Putting our money where our mouths are

[lordofthechia]

As a nerd who was heavily into consumer VR headsets and has been disappointed in the offerings available since the 90s, this excites me. Now consider that:

1. People here are highly interested in tech stuff (you know, stuff that matters)
2. Putting something here, to the attention of the 100s of thousands of Slashdot users increases the chances that a project such as this will reach its funding goal and you know, we get the story about it successfully shipping in the next year.
3. They already have a working prototype (must have missed the duct tape) and working software.
4. The developer units (you know if you pledge $300) ship in December.
5. Not all of us are cynical assholes and are willing to chip into other fellow geeks/techies/engineer's dreams.

So excuse us while we get excited over new tech and chip in any way we can to make it happen instead of bitching and moaning about it on a forum.

Now go check to see what things have been made possible via Kickstarter [makeuseof.com]. Even things for all to enjoy [kickstarter.com].