Day, Feb. 5

I’m going to call this my very rough draft. Since my article will mostly be about my experience using the product, I don’t imagine the article should look anything like this one. However, I figured I might as well tell you all about the interview I did on Sunday.

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On Sunday, I spoke with Michael Tenery about the Oculus Rift. Tereny is a programmer who works with software for banks. He received his Oculus Rift Development Kit in October and told me a bit about his experiences with the product as well as what I should expect when I demo the product later this week.

Tenery told me he was first introduced to the Oculus Rift when he saw their Kickstarter. He had been interested in VR (virtual reality) since the ‘90s when he played ‘Dactyl Nightmare’ but this was the first time he heard of a product like this that was affordable.

Tenery explained when he first started using the Oculus Rift he did experience a bit of simulator sickness which took him around four days to get over. He credits this to latency issues.

“I think most of that has to do with the latency which is better than anything that’s out there, about 50 or 60 milliseconds,” Tenery said. “The newest prototypes they have out there are approaching 20 and also, the positional tracking wasn’t there. So, I could turn my head but if I moved my head it didn’t move in space which kind of makes your brain freak out a little bit.”

Tenery also told me he’s had issues with drifting in certain games. In other words, over time if you’re looking straight ahead the game may drift and eventually you’ll be looking the wrong way. However, Tenery expects these problems to be resolved, or at least greatly lessened, by the time the consumer product is released.

“With the new Crystal Cove (newer prototype) it has that camera which will keep the position accurate,” Tenery said.

Possibly most importantly, Tenery explained he believes people won’t understand how amazing this product is until they actually try it. He compared it to smart phones in the sense that everyone thought they would just be a phase but now it would be hard to imagine a world without them.

He also told me that he had demoed the product to his friends and his children’s friends and that all of them were blown away.

“I demoed it to all the neighborhood kids, about 14 kids, and several of the adults including some of the parents and I haven’t had one person walk away and say ‘Oh, yeah, this is just a gimmick. This is gonna be like The Move or The Wii,’” Tenery said. “People who have tried it are saying, ‘Wow, this is really gonna change things.’”

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Tenery and I talked about a lot of other things during our conversation on Sunday but, for now, that's all I think is necessary to report. I'll see what other information we discussed proves useful after I demo the product.