Oculus’ new research program aims to make students into VR wizards

Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe is excited about the future of virtual reality (naturally), but the company can’t make VR a global phenomenon all by itself. It’s doing more than just tapping into Facebook’s resources, though — Iribe said at TechCrunch Disrupt NY that the company just put together a research group (which includes newly installed head scientist Michael Abrash) to get more folks thinking about (and hopefully adding to) our virtual reality future. How? By playing extra-nice with schools and students, for one thing.

Iribe says the group is hiring top-tier engineers who will “start engaging with universities and working with students to build virtual reality technology — to inspire and expand that ecosystem.” That’s right: if Oculus Rifts aren’t already a mainstay of your local college’s hackathons, they probably will be soon. If the company’s lucky, all those fresh viewpoints should help stretch the limits of what people can experience with devices like the Rift, and that’s absolutely crucial to virtual reality’s survival. After all, it’s easy to dismiss VR as another flash in the pan notion, a passing fad that’ll peter out after a few frenzied years. Building up a broad spectrum of uses makes VR even harder for nay-sayers to ignore — hell, we’re already starting to see that diversification in action.

The Oculus Rift struck a chord with a generation of folks clamoring for something seriously game-changing, but Zuckerberg’s angle is clear: he looks at the Rift and sees a communication tool. Iribe’s more than happy to embrace both audiences, and there’s no telling where this train is going to stop.

“We don’t have any idea how disruptive going to be, but giving virtual vision to the world is going to be a very powerful concept,” he said.

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An internet middleman’s take on net neutrality

This week’s update on the battle between Netflix, internet service providers (ISPs) and the companies that often carry internet traffic between them comes from the third group. Level 3 VP Mark Taylor’s “Observations of an Internet Middleman” shows what it looks like from his end of the network cable while being squeezed out by ISPs seeking the direct connection deals Netflix has signed with Comcast and Verizon. Without naming the ISPs in question — Level 3 waged a war with Comcast over Netflix traffic in 2010 before cutting a direct connection deal of its own last year — he points out that among the company’s many connected network peers, only a dozen are suffering congestion. While half of those are in the process of being upgraded, the other six are regularly overloaded, dropping packets and delaying traffic.

Want to guess which ones they are? Taylor points to a list that includes some familiar names. Comcast recently pointed the finger at Netflix’s “commercial transit decisions” for using overloaded connections, but Taylor’s stats join Netflix in placing blame squarely on the ISPs for inaction.

Taylor charges the unnamed ISPs (five in the US and one in Europe) with “deliberately harming the service they deliver to their paying customers,” (as show by the graphs above displaying a maxed out connection and subsequent packet loss). He points out that all exist where the providers have “dominant or exclusive market share” and that these problems don’t exist where customers have multiple broadband choices.

Without directly referencing the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger or the FCC’s net neutrality plans, he closes with the question “Shouldn’t a broadband consumer network with near monopoly control over their customers be expected, if not obligated, to deliver a better experience than this?” If you agree, the FCC is listening as it considers the new version of net neutrality, and you’ll want to pay attention Thursday morning. That’s when his fellow internet middleman Dave Schaeffer — the CEO and president of Cogent Communications — goes in front of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee as part of the panel for an oversight hearing on the Comcast-TWC merger.

[Image Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images]

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

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Source: Level 3