back to article Multi-sense VR helmet in development

Forget 3D TV - a conglomerate of universities is developing a virtual reality headset that’ll simultaneously stimulate all five senses to bring you the sights, smells, tastes, sounds and even feel of ancient Egypt, the Serengeti or Victorian Britain. virtual_cocoon_02 Virtual Cocoon: smell-o-vision and more Called Virtual …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Liam Johnson

    Just me?

    I read that as "stimulate all five senses to bring you the sights, smells, tastes, sounds and even feel of ancient Egypt, the Serengeti or Victoria Beckham"

  2. Tom

    Will it come bundled with...

    Pull my finger?

  3. Lionel Baden

    dont want to be a pessemist but...

    The final headset will be light and comfortable,

    im going to wait and see first

  4. lIsRT
    Happy

    If this works well...

    ...expect the porn industry to adopt it at maximum possible speed.

    Once it's a consumer product, imagine the fun of linking somebody (who is suitably equipped) to a 2 girls 1 cup style file *with authentic smells*.

  5. Richard

    Not for the games industry

    I've spent far to much time creeping around sewers to want one of these for gaming.

    Obviously it'll be a good few years before that is even considered anyway.

  6. Ginger
    Paris Hilton

    Now with full on Pornovision

    5 minutes after first alpha product is released

  7. Ash
    Joke

    Victoria Beckham

    That one's easy; Take an old gym sock and place it over your face while you fondle a couple of cocktail sticks.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Smells

    Call my cynical, but I don't particuarly *want* the smells of ancient Egypt (mummified corpses?), the Serengeti (lion crap and half eaten animals?) or Victorian Britain (icky sewer systems, cholera in the streets etc etc)

    Also, they need to make it smaller...

  9. Liam

    wtf?

    "A device will be placed in the user’s mouth to stimulate a texture sensation, while "tactile devices" will help generate touch. Sight is - clearly - the easy bit."

    yeah right, VR LOOKS so damn real doesnt it? video WILL be the hardest to do in REALTIME to fool us imho. remember cinema sfx (which almost look real now, its hard to see the joins in films like ironman in BR) take months to do...

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Right whatever

    I still don't have one that will do just sight so I won't hold my breathe m'kay.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Well that's

    going to cost the same as my house. Probably more.

    On the other (rapidly moving) hand, think of the possibilities for porn with touch, taste and smell built in!

    I wonder if it'll be useable with games? Or if some games will be designed / updated to work with it?

  12. Tim

    @ Liam

    And you know which one of those 3 will be the most lucrative app for this technology.

    Wonder how long it is before the first case of someone's wife etc catching them wearing just one of these.

    Tim#3

  13. Chris
    Alien

    I'm surprised

    Two comments and no-one's calling this out as vapourware?

  14. Rob Beard
    Coat

    Are they trying to say...

    ...that the poor sods wearing these helmets won't notice they're wearing them?

    Yeah right... I bet they weigh a ton. Give me a holodeck from Star Trek and I'll be interested.

    "He hinted that the technique for smell delivery – developed by Warwick University – will also help to stimulate taste senses, because the two senses are so closely linked."

    I wonder if Captain Cyborg had any involvement, I bet he's literally wetting himself in anticipation.

    BTW, why hasn't there been any Captain Cyborg coverage lately?

    Mine's the one with the Atari Jaguar VR Helmit in the oversized pocket.

    Rob

  15. Code Monkey

    @Liam Johnson

    For the feel of Victoria Beckham you could try grabbing a bundle of sticks

  16. Sam

    BTL

    One step closer to "Better Than Life" (TM)

  17. Richard Rae
    Paris Hilton

    @ Liam

    What you like the taste of skeletons?

  18. michael

    how long before

    they come out with a crotch atachment for it?

  19. Psmiffy

    Its the 3 B's again

    "universities of Bangor, Bradford and Brighton" ...

    or as I like to say

    Bullshit baffles brains.

    Just remind me never to visit 18th century london during the time of the plague, might not quite like the smells and tastes of that

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Groinal attachment?

    Type your comment here — plain text only, no HTML

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    wtf?

    does it come with the baggies you find in an airplane. I think the smell of a medieval london will make me puke.

  22. Luis Ogando
    Paris Hilton

    Pron!

    Can't wait to view.. er.. 'adult interest' content with one of these!! PHWOOAAR!!!

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Hmmmmm

    The porn industry could be reborn with this.

    Not too sure about the thing in your mouth, might be OK for a woman?

  24. Frank

    And the main application will be?

    "A device will be placed in the user’s mouth to stimulate a texture sensation, while "tactile devices" will help generate touch."

    Is this being bankrolled by the pron industry? What about the other body part attachments?

    (Am I the only one here with such a dirty mind?)

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    I wonder...

    ...which prawn company will, as we read this, be heavily investigating "crotch attachments"?

    Paris for... well, obvious reasons!!

  26. g e

    All they need is a recorder

    Then they can play back people's experiences a la Brainstorm movie

  27. Pinwizard
    Boffin

    right

    But what happened to all the VR headsets people like Escomm were selling in the early nineties?

    Ok, so they needed headphones and didn't smell but I still want one or three.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    you just KNOW...

    ...that some Übergeek will have a pr0n mod for this before it even hits store shelves.

    In which case, count me in!

    ("GO" because PH is a nasty skank I wouldn't touch with someone ELSE's ten foot pole.)

  29. Harry Stottle

    Ambitious but every journey begins with a single step...

    Very ambitious claims being made for this project. It will fail. But version 15 or 16 should be pretty good and by the time we get to v 20, we genuinely will not be able to distinguish between real and virtual; not without contextual clues at least...

    Why's this version going to fail? Primarily because it's an external device. V 15 (or thereabouts) will be internal. But also if the developers agree with this report that "sight is easy" then they don't yet understand the problem. Why d'you think VR helmets haven't already taken off? Because anyone using them for more than about 20 minutes tends to throw up or get a massive headache. Why? Because sight aint easy at all. The problem is that they insist on presenting prefocussed images to each eye at about 3 inches.

    The brains "accommodation" algorithm knows it's focussed on an image 3 inches away, but the data in the image only makes sense to the brain if the objects are several feet away (or more). This produces real cognitive dissonance and the nasty side effects.

    Solving that problem aint easy; it requires abandoning prefocussed images and somehow presenting the eye with exactly the same data it would get in real life, forcing the eye to focus naturally instead of too short. There's a fortune waiting for whoever cracks that little conundrum...

  30. Stevie

    Bah

    Now we see that Sauron was simply a misunderstood beta tester for this daft device.

  31. Mike
    Coat

    wake me up

    when they get some kit for the "lower brain" also.

  32. Alex King
    Happy

    All we need now is...

    ...the matching recording device - then we could have Strange Days coming true. Hurrah!

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh, whooo, boy...

    ...the smells of Victorian Britain. Hold me back.

  34. This post has been deleted by its author

  35. This post has been deleted by its author

  36. mark
    Happy

    Lawnmower man!

    YUS!!! I've been telling all my gaming friends for the last few years that it's about damn time they revisited VR. The technology wasn't up to standard back in the early 90s though and eventually everyone just forgot about it. Things have moved on since then though! It's damn nice that they've finally decided to have another crack at it.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like