A US freeway may get self-driving car lanes thanks to Foxconn

Wisconsin highway planners are studying the possibility of placing driverless vehicle lanes on I-94 to serve Foxconn’s mega factory in Racine County. The Taiwanese company — supplier to tech firms including Apple, Microsoft, and Nintendo — reportedly made the suggestion at a meeting with regional officials, according to USA Today‘s Journal Sentinel.

Foxconn’s $10 billion midwest facility will span 20 million square feet and could create up to 13,000 jobs. That’s an awful lot of humans commuting back and forth from work, and that’s before you take into account the goods getting hauled in. But, seeing as the I-94 highway is getting a bump from six to eight lanes anyway, regional officials figured they were prepared for the uptick in traffic. Foxconn, it seems, has other ideas in mind.

While companies like Uber and Waymo are trialing self-driving vehicles on roads across the US, there’s also been talk of dedicated lanes for robocars (and trucks). Last year, VC firm Madrona Ventures floated the idea for replacing the I-5 freeway between Seattle and Vancouver with an “autonomous vehicle” corridor.

But, Foxconn’s desire to yield regular car lanes to driverless vehicles could be a way off yet. A spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation told the Journal Sentinel that the proposal is just one of many “on the table.” One possibility, according to Tim Sheehy (president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce), is driverless lanes between the Foxconn plant and Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport.

Via: Journal Sentinel

Rideshare wars: Lyft takes on Uber in Toronto in first battle outside of U.S.

It’s been a long time coming, but Lyft is finally ready to take its ridesharing service beyond the U.S.

The company has chosen the Canadian city of Toronto as its debut market outside of the U.S. as part of ongoing efforts to compete with Uber, its main rival in the ridesharing space.

It’ll start offering rides in the city from December, though it’s yet to release details on passenger rates and driver fees.

“We’ve been looking forward to taking our brand of ridesharing international for some time, and we’re super pumped to share this with our close friends up north,” Lyft said in a blog post announcing its decision to roll into Canada. It added that its service will be around “to help ring in the holidays, so if you’re in Toronto, just tap to request – ’cause for the first time in TO, we’ve got your ride.”

Lyft’s arrival in Toronto comes more than five years after Uber set up shop there. Uber currently has around 50,000 drivers working the streets of the Canadian city, so Lyft certainly has its work cut out if it’s to make an impact there.

The ridesharing company famous for its now-discarded furry pink mustache will offer its existing services to riders, including regular cars for as many as four passengers, and its Plus service for up to six people. Its Premier service offers high-end cars, while Lux lets you ride in “the most luxurious makes and models with luxury black cars,” according to Lyft’s website. Finally, Lyft Lux SUV is a premium black SUV service with enough space for up to six passengers

Lyft president and co-founder John Zimmer told the Toronto Star he believes the city shares “the values that we have at Lyft – focusing on people taking care of people, treating people well, treating people with mutual respect, and promoting both inclusion and diversity.”

If Lyft’s first journey out of the U.S. works out well, it could be the beginning of a major expansion as it seeks to grab a chunk of the ridesharing market from Uber. Several reports in recent months have suggested Lyft has already been picking up some business at the expense of its rival, partly due to missteps by Uber that turned some riders off its service. Uber has also been dealing with the loss of its CEO, several company scandals, and various lawsuits targeting its business.

If you’re new to ridesharing but want to give it a try, check out DT’s informative look at both Lyft and Uber to discover which might be best for you.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Uber vs. Lyft: This is the ultimate ridesharing app showdown
• Uber could be out of London soon after losing its license there
• Self-driving cars are about to hit the busy streets of NY City
• It’s still business as usual at Uber as it rolls out new features for drivers
• Uber now lets you make multiple stops, whether or not you’re dressed as a horse

DeepHeart AI IDs sleep apnea, hypertension via Apple Watch

Your Apple Watch can tell if you have hypertension or sleep apnea — with the help of Cardiogram’s deep neural network, DeepHeart, that is. The app-maker and the UCSF Health lab have conducted a study proving that wearables can suggest the presence of hypertension and sleep apnea with 82 percent and 90 percent accuracy, so long as they come equipped with heart rate sensors and accelerometers. And, yes, they’re not just talking about Apple Watch, but also Android Wear devices, Garmins and Fitbits.

According to Cardiogram, heart rate sensors can detect both conditions, because your body’s autonomic nervous system connects your heart with the brain, stomach, esophagus, liver, intestines, pancreas and blood vessels. The company needed data to be able to train its AI to recognize heart rate patterns that denote the presence of the conditions, though, so it recruited 6,115 of its app’s users to participate in an online study with the UCSF Health lab.

Cardiogram managed to collect 30 billion sensor measurements composed of the subjects’ heart rate and step counts, which it then fed to its AI. Since 37 percent and 17 percent of the participants have hypertension and sleep apnea, respectively, the AI got the samples it needed to be able to say whether someone has either condition.

According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 5 people with hypertension are undiagnosed — perhaps even more now that the American Heart Association has redefined the condition’s treatment guidelines. At the same time, 80 percent of people with sleep apnea — a disorder that disrupts your breathing during sleep — don’t even realize they have it. A wearable that can detect them could compel you to seek medical attention and ultimately save your life.

The app-maker’s studies still have to undergo peer-reviewed clinical research, and that includes its previous experiment, wherein it trained its AI to detect the signs of a stroke. It promises to “start translating these research results into actual care” these next few months, as well as to expand its AI’s abilities and give it the power to detect diabetes.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Cardiogram

Linksys has a new tri-band range extender to eliminate WiFi dead spots

If you’re not shopping for a new router but still need something to cover far-flung areas of your home (have you tried aluminum foil yet? Seriously.) check out the latest hardware from Linksys. This “Max-Stream Tri-Band AC3000 Wi-Fi Range Extender (RE9000)” brings all the bells and whistles needed to keep things running smoothly, even with multiple devices.

Its “tri-band” MU-MIMO technology can help avoid interference if you have a lot of devices (it connects to your router using one band, while any devices communicate with it on either another 5GHz network or 2.4GHz), while Netgear’s Spot Finder tech can help you find the optimal place to put it. The best thing, however, may be its support for automatic firmware updates, so that the next time there’s a KRACK in security it can get a patch without needing any intervention from you (it does support manual updating for those who prefer direct control).

Of course, that ease of use comes at a price — the RE9000 goes on sale November 23rd for $170 at the usual electronic outlets (Amazon, Best Buy, Fry’s, Micro Center, Newegg, and Walmart.com) but The Wirecutter has some cheaper suggestions that may also work.

Source: Linksys

iOS 11.2 Supports Faster 7.5W Charging on iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X From Qi-Based Wireless Charging Accessories

Starting with iOS 11.2, the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X are able to charge at 7.5 watts using compatible Qi-based wireless charging accessories.

Currently, on iOS 11.1.1, the three devices charge at 5 watts using Qi wireless chargers, but Apple promised that faster speeds would become available in a future update. It appears that update is iOS 11.2.

MacRumors received a tip about the new feature from accessory maker RAVpower this evening, and tested the new charging speeds to confirm. Using the Belkin charger that Apple sells, which does support 7.5W charging speeds, the iPhone X was charged from 46 to 66 percent over the course of thirty minutes.

The same iPhone charged from 46 percent to 60 percent over 30 minutes when using a wireless charging accessory that does not offer 7.5W charging speeds. Our testing was intended to emulate real world conditions, with a case on and Airplane Mode not activated.

With support for 7.5W charging speeds, the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and iPhone X will be able to charge more quickly over a wireless connection, and it appears 7.5W wireless charging speeds are faster than the speeds you get with the standard wired 5W power adapter.

At 7.5 watts, Apple’s wireless iPhones do not support the same wireless charging speeds that are available on some other Qi-based smartphones, as the current Qi 1.2 standard allows for up to 15W of wireless charging power. Still, 7.5 watts is better than 5 watts and should offer some noticeable improvements for iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X owners.

Both the Mophie Wireless Charging Base and the Belkin Boost Up Wireless Charging Pad that are available from Apple support the faster 7.5W wireless charging speeds.

Several other Qi-based wireless charging accessories from other third-party manufacturers also support the higher speeds, such as the RAVpower Fast Wireless Charger, but there are accessories out there that don’t, so you’ll want to look for 7.5W charging speeds as a listed feature when making a purchase.

iOS 11.2 is limited to developers and public beta testers at this time, but as we’re on the third beta, a public release could come in a few weeks to a month.

Related Roundups: iPhone 8, iOS 11, iPhone XBuyer’s Guide: iPhone 8 (Buy Now), iPhone X (Buy Now)
Discuss this article in our forums

Missouri AG wants to know if Google broke consumer protection laws

The attorney general’s office of Missouri has announced it’s investigating whether Google broke the state’s consumer protection and antitrust laws. AG Josh Hawley’s statement expressly questioned the search giant’s practices regarding collection of user data, potential content taken from competing websites and preferencing companies it owns in search results.

That last charge was central to the EU court’s recent antitrust case against Google, for which it served the internet titan a record-setting $2.8 billion fine. But the search company has been punished before for illegally collecting and storing user data. In 2013, Google paid out $7 million to 37 states (and the District of Columbia) due to a ‘rogue engineer’ acquiring personal information (passwords, emails and the like) collected over unsecured WiFi by its Street View cars.

“There is strong reason to believe that Google has not been acting with the best interest of Missourians in mind,” Hawley said in a statement on the Missouri Attorney General’s website. “My Office will not stand by and let private consumer information be jeopardized by industry giants, especially to pad their profits.”

But as Reuters points out, Hawley, a Republican, is attempting to unseat the Democratic US Senator Claire McCaskill in the 2018 midterm elections. Asked during the press conference whether his office’s Google inquiry has anything to do with the election, Hawley ‘said he acted upon his oath of office and desire “to get to the truth.”‘

Via: Reuters

Source: Reuters

HTC Vive Focus is a standalone VR headset with ‘world-scale’ tracking

After a couple of teases earlier this year, HTC has finally unveiled its upcoming standalone VR headset at today’s Vive Developer Conference in Beijing. Dubbed the Vive Focus, this all-in-one device features inside-out 6-degree-of-freedom (6DoF) “world-scale” tracking, meaning it doesn’t require external base stations nor sensors, so you can get positional tracking anywhere at any time — even on a train or plane, should you wish to. While at least a couple of Chinese manufacturers have announced standalone 6DoF VR headsets before, HTC claims that the Focus will be the first of such kind to actually hit the market.

“In the past, standalones have always kind of represented a mediocre balance, where you don’t have much content and you can only do rotational, and it’s not that much different than Cardboard except now you have one individual machine,” HTC Vive’s China President Alvin Wang Graylin told Engadget. “Now you can essentially do most of the things that you could do on a high-end machine on a standalone.”

“Now you can essentially do most of the things that you could do on a high-end machine on a standalone.”

We already knew that the Focus packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 with instant on support, and now we’re told that it also features a “high-resolution” AMOLED screen plus a rotational head strap that’s similar to the Vive’s Deluxe Audio Strap. Perhaps the only surprising bit of info is that the Focus comes with a 3DoF controller, though I was assured that it will still give “a very good experience” when paired with the 6DoF headset.

But that’s not to say that developers can’t add 6DoF hand input to the Focus. Also announced today is the Vive Wave VR open platform, which is basically Daydream for China with 12 hardware partners already signed up, including Quanta, Pimax, Nubia, iQIYI and more. With the Vive Wave SDK, vendors can integrate accessories — be it a Leap Motion, gloves or even outside-in solutions for 6DoF input (and potentially eye-tracking solutions as icing on the cake).

So when developers port their Vive content to Vive Wave, they can choose to adopt 3DoF hand input or keep 6DoF by using additional accessories. One such example is a VR game called Spark of Light which, according to its developer, only took three hours to port the original Vive version to Vive Wave. HTC Vive’s Associate Vice President Raymond Pao added that existing Daydream and Samsung Gear VR content would take less than a week to port to Vive Wave. Developers who are already using Unity will enjoy the added benefit of the new one-click process to publish to Viveport, along with in-app payment support starting with China.

At the same time, the OpenVR-compatible SDK optimizes the content for medium-level hardware –- be it Focus-like standalone devices or even phone-based solutions (like HTC’s very own Link) — in order to keep the latency to below 20 ms. According to Graylin, China’s standalone VR market’s revenue share grew from 5 percent to a whopping 24 percent in Q3 alone, while mobile VR still has 50 percent revenue share in the same region, so he believes that developers around the world will want to take advantage of Vive Wave to tackle both markets. On the other side of the field, hardware manufacturers will finally be able to standardize their devices in order to boost VR experience across the industry.

Going back to the Focus, one potential use case that intrigued me the most is that it can be hooked up to other HTC headsets — be it the Focus or even the original Vive — for social interaction. According to Graylin, this can be applied to a classroom where the teacher is doing a demonstration, while the students are all equipped with a Focus each and can see each other in the same virtual space. Better yet, they can also share virtual objects. Other similar use cases include Second Life-like social platforms, or it can be something as simple as watching movies with friends in a virtual cinema — not an entirely new concept but now you can do so pretty much anywhere you want.

While today marked the official unveiling of the Vive Focus, HTC is still mum on availability and pricing. What’s most likely to happen is that the Focus will be made available in China first, followed by its Daydream version for the rest of the world some time later. We’ll update y’all as soon as we find out, and stay tuned for our upcoming hands-on later.

Source: HTC Vive

Virtual machines: What they are and why you might want to use one

Heard the terms “virtualization” or “virtual machine” used in your school and office and wondered what they were talking about? In a world where collaborating and working remote have become commonplace, you’re going to hear these phrases more and more. They represent an important change in how people are using computers — but if you’ve been wondering what the big deal is with them, you’ve come to the right place.

Here’s what people are talking about when they mention a virtual machine, the benefits of this software, and how it’s being used.

What is a virtual machine?

At its heart, a virtual machine or VM is an app — typically called a hypervisor — that emulates an operating system. You launch the app, and it (generally speaking) opens a window that’s another operating system, which operates exactly like it’s own computer. Everything in the VM is self-contained, and it typically has all the capabilities of the operating system it is imitating.

Yes, that’s like using a “fake” computer within a computer! However, there are some important distinctions. A virtual machine is indeed entirely virtual – it doesn’t have any hardware of its own, except for the storage drives it comes from. Modern VMs are also frequently associated with servers and network connections, since more complex versions are typically supported by server setups.

Virtualization services are often provided by specific companies — currently providers like VMWare and VirtualBox box are at the top of the field, but there are a number of different creators, some focused on business and some focus more on individual apps.

Why use a virtual machine setup?

Flexible work: Today, a growing application of VMs helps companies arrange flexible and remote work environments. When the software itself is the workspace, then where the computer or device is physically located doesn’t matter nearly as much. This allows everyone to collaborate in similar spaces no matter where they are or what machine they are using — or to switch to a different mode without the need to change computers. Storage space also isn’t very important, because most of the VM activity is managed behind the scenes by central servers.

Security: Virtual machines are used in two interesting security tactics. First, they are used to study ransomware, viruses, and other types of nasty attacks in a relatively safe environment. In this case, the malware usually thinks that VM is a real computer and starts to attack it, while white hat security experts can study how it operates and find weaknesses without endangering their “real” computers. Second, organizations can use VMs to help protect from device-based attacks, such as attacks using a smartphone OS framework.

Experiments: One of the oldest uses of virtual machines is to test new apps or coding changes in a safe environment that won’t crash the computer if something goes wrong. This type of VM can be very simple and inexpensive — and is commonly used by developers to to test apps for different operating systems.

Data management: Virtualization allows organizations to centralize data, change how they use servers or how many servers they use, and refine their hardware purchase strategy.

Special cases: In some cases, a VM setup can allow people to run software that they would not otherwise be able to run. For example, maybe you want to run an app that only works on an older version of the OS you are using (say a Windows 8 app on Windows 10) — a VM can allow you to do that without removing all your updates. Or you can use a VM to run an entirely different OS as needed for specific apps. This may be particularly useful for students who don’t have the right OS for classwork software, or similar cases.

The downside to virtual machines

Expense: When used for the right solutions, VMs can help individuals and companies save a lot of money. However, implementing a VM is a different case. If you’re just downloading a single VM app for your schoolwork, it probably won’t be that expensive. But building and customizing an in-house VM solution for a large company can be very pricey. Ongoing data management costs may also be higher than before (although hardware costs may be lower). In other words, it can take significant investment to adopt a widespread VM solution, and it often takes a lot of analysis of the costs and savings to make a decision.

Complexity: Choosing, managing, and maintaining VMs can also be pretty complex. Employees or students who must use a VM may have a lot of new things to learn, which can make fast-paced adoption difficult. Additionally, VMs may take more technical expertise, including experience that current IT specialists may not have.

Limitations: Not all computers or operating systems can support virtual machines. This is especially true of older systems.

How can I try a virtual machine?

You can download a VM yourself by finding the right apps. Here are a few common options:

• VirtualBox: VirtualBox allows you to open up a number “guest operating systems” to emulate older operating systems. It’s ideal for a first solo experimentation.
• VMWare: VMWare is more business friendly than VirtualBox, but it’s also more difficult to learn. It favors server software and a variety of server setups for downloading more complex VMs.
• Parallels 13: Parallels is an app designed for the specific purpose of running Windows 10 as a virtual machine within MacOS.
• Microsoft: Microsoft provides fee 90-day VMs to emulate older versions of IE and more, which may help with experimenting or using older software.

Future of virtual machines

Expect to see a lot more VMs in the future as their use cases expand. The security qualities in particular may mean that VMs will be more common than not in the coming years.

Editors’ Recommendations

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Virtual machines: What they are and why you might want to use one

Heard the terms “virtualization” or “virtual machine” used in your school and office and wondered what they were talking about? In a world where collaborating and working remote have become commonplace, you’re going to hear these phrases more and more. They represent an important change in how people are using computers — but if you’ve been wondering what the big deal is with them, you’ve come to the right place.

Here’s what people are talking about when they mention a virtual machine, the benefits of this software, and how it’s being used.

What is a virtual machine?

At its heart, a virtual machine or VM is an app — typically called a hypervisor — that emulates an operating system. You launch the app, and it (generally speaking) opens a window that’s another operating system, which operates exactly like it’s own computer. Everything in the VM is self-contained, and it typically has all the capabilities of the operating system it is imitating.

Yes, that’s like using a “fake” computer within a computer! However, there are some important distinctions. A virtual machine is indeed entirely virtual – it doesn’t have any hardware of its own, except for the storage drives it comes from. Modern VMs are also frequently associated with servers and network connections, since more complex versions are typically supported by server setups.

Virtualization services are often provided by specific companies — currently providers like VMWare and VirtualBox box are at the top of the field, but there are a number of different creators, some focused on business and some focus more on individual apps.

Why use a virtual machine setup?

Flexible work: Today, a growing application of VMs helps companies arrange flexible and remote work environments. When the software itself is the workspace, then where the computer or device is physically located doesn’t matter nearly as much. This allows everyone to collaborate in similar spaces no matter where they are or what machine they are using — or to switch to a different mode without the need to change computers. Storage space also isn’t very important, because most of the VM activity is managed behind the scenes by central servers.

Security: Virtual machines are used in two interesting security tactics. First, they are used to study ransomware, viruses, and other types of nasty attacks in a relatively safe environment. In this case, the malware usually thinks that VM is a real computer and starts to attack it, while white hat security experts can study how it operates and find weaknesses without endangering their “real” computers. Second, organizations can use VMs to help protect from device-based attacks, such as attacks using a smartphone OS framework.

Experiments: One of the oldest uses of virtual machines is to test new apps or coding changes in a safe environment that won’t crash the computer if something goes wrong. This type of VM can be very simple and inexpensive — and is commonly used by developers to to test apps for different operating systems.

Data management: Virtualization allows organizations to centralize data, change how they use servers or how many servers they use, and refine their hardware purchase strategy.

Special cases: In some cases, a VM setup can allow people to run software that they would not otherwise be able to run. For example, maybe you want to run an app that only works on an older version of the OS you are using (say a Windows 8 app on Windows 10) — a VM can allow you to do that without removing all your updates. Or you can use a VM to run an entirely different OS as needed for specific apps. This may be particularly useful for students who don’t have the right OS for classwork software, or similar cases.

The downside to virtual machines

Expense: When used for the right solutions, VMs can help individuals and companies save a lot of money. However, implementing a VM is a different case. If you’re just downloading a single VM app for your schoolwork, it probably won’t be that expensive. But building and customizing an in-house VM solution for a large company can be very pricey. Ongoing data management costs may also be higher than before (although hardware costs may be lower). In other words, it can take significant investment to adopt a widespread VM solution, and it often takes a lot of analysis of the costs and savings to make a decision.

Complexity: Choosing, managing, and maintaining VMs can also be pretty complex. Employees or students who must use a VM may have a lot of new things to learn, which can make fast-paced adoption difficult. Additionally, VMs may take more technical expertise, including experience that current IT specialists may not have.

Limitations: Not all computers or operating systems can support virtual machines. This is especially true of older systems.

How can I try a virtual machine?

You can download a VM yourself by finding the right apps. Here are a few common options:

• VirtualBox: VirtualBox allows you to open up a number “guest operating systems” to emulate older operating systems. It’s ideal for a first solo experimentation.
• VMWare: VMWare is more business friendly than VirtualBox, but it’s also more difficult to learn. It favors server software and a variety of server setups for downloading more complex VMs.
• Parallels 13: Parallels is an app designed for the specific purpose of running Windows 10 as a virtual machine within MacOS.
• Microsoft: Microsoft provides fee 90-day VMs to emulate older versions of IE and more, which may help with experimenting or using older software.

Future of virtual machines

Expect to see a lot more VMs in the future as their use cases expand. The security qualities in particular may mean that VMs will be more common than not in the coming years.

Editors’ Recommendations

• A beginner’s guide to A.I. superintelligence and ‘the singularity’
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8 virtual reality milestones that took it from sci-fi to your living room

Until fairly recently, the dream of donning a headset and dropping into a virtual world belonged purely in the realms of science fiction, like Star Trek‘s Holodeck or The Lawnmower Man. Thanks to the work of companies like Oculus, HTC, and others, that’s no longer the case. But virtual reality’s history goes back a whole lot further than that — so without further ado, here are our picks for eight of the major landmarks in tech history that made the VR dream a virtual reality.

Sensorama (1957)

When you think about Hollywood movies in the 1950s, there’s a good chance that one of the first things that come to mind are the gimmicks. Modern widescreen, 3D stereoscopic movies, and even the ill-fated Smell-O-Vision arrived over a 10-year stretch of time. Filmmaker Morton Heilig took things even further, however.

In 1957, he invented a large booth-like machine called the Sensorama, which was intended to combine multiple technologies to give one to four people the illusion of being in a fully 3D immersive world — complete with smell, stereo sound, vibrations, and even atmospheric effects like wind in the hair. A few years later, in 1960, he honed a version of this idea into a patent for the world’s first head-mounted display, promising stereoscopic 3D images, wide vision, and true stereo sound.

Neither technology ever materialized in his lifetime, but they both helped lay the groundwork for the VR revolution to come.

The Sword of Damocles (1968)

The first actual VR head-mounted display (HMD) was created in 1968 by computer scientist Ivan Sutherland. Sutherland was one of the most important figures in the history of computer graphics, having developed the revolutionary “Sketchpad” software that paves the way for tools like Computer-Aided Design (CAD).

Sutherland’s HMD was a project he described as “the ultimate display.” It connected to a stereoscopic display from a computer program depicting simple virtual wireframe shapes, which changed perspective as the user moved his or her head. Because these are superimposed on top of a real background, this could also be seen as the birth of “augmented reality.”

However, it never developed into more than a lab project — possibly because the device’s weight required it to be suspended from the ceiling on a mechanical arm like a periscope. (Hence the “Sword of Damocles” name, a reference to the Roman myth about a sword which hangs above a person’s head to teach them responsibility.)

The Super Cockpit (1970s-80s)

At around the same time that Ivan Sutherland was working on his “Sword of Damocles” project, a military engineer named Thomas Furness was busy developing an ambitious flight simulator project which eventually grows into something called the “Super Cockpit.”

Furness continued working on the project through the 1980s, with the result being a training cockpit able to project computer-generated 3D maps, infrared and radar imagery, as well as avionics data into a real-time 3D space. According to Furness, the project costs into the “hundreds of millions.” Way ahead of its time, the Super Cockpit allows a trainee pilot to control an aircraft using gestures, speech, and even eye movements.

The Aspen Movie Map (1978)

Developed by MIT in 1978, with a helping hand from DARPA, the Aspen Movie Map was basically a virtual reality take on Google Street View. Instead of the basic 3D graphics that could be created at the time, it used photographs taken from a car driving through Aspen, Colorado, giving the user an interactive first-person journey around the city.

Running it required several Laserdisc players, a computer, and a touch screen display. While there was no HMD component to the project, the Aspen Movie Map’s innovative use of first-person interactivity nevertheless represented a smart examination of how VR could be used to transport people to other places.

Making a name for itself (19??)

Jaron Lanier

In the 1970s, computer artist Myron Krueger coined the term “artificial reality,” while most people consider the popularization of the term VR as we now know it to be due to computer scientist and artist Jaron Lanier in the 1980s.

Sega VR (1991)

One of the first companies to attempt to launch a VR headset was Sega, which planned Sega VR as an accessory for the Genesis. With development starting in 1991 and continuing for a couple years after, Sega VR was an attempt to squeeze more life out of the company’s 16-bit games console. The visor-like look owes a lot to RoboCop and The Day The Earth Stood Still, with a sleek black plastic design that concealed LCD displays, stereo headphones, and internal “inertial sensors” for tracking head movement.

“Sega VR will create the impression that you are exploring an alternate reality,” a press release stated. “As your eyes shift focus from one object to the next, the binocular parallax constantly changes to give you the impression of a three-dimensional world.” Unfortunately it was never released — with one (somewhat amusing) explanation being that Sega worried the virtual effect was too realistic, and people would wind up hurting themselves while immersed.

Despite this, Sega VR makes our list for being one of the first attempts at a mainstream consumer-facing virtual reality headset.

Enter Oculus (2010)

In 2010, 18-year-old entrepreneur Palmer Luckey created the first prototype of the Oculus Rift. Boasting a 90-degree field of view that hadn’t been seen previously in a consumer device, it raised $2.4 million on Kickstarter a couple years later, before the company was purchased by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014.

Luckey’s decision to sell the company before shipping any prototypes to Kickstarter backers stirred up controversy from early supporters.

Hitting the mainstream (2017)

Here in 2017, hundreds of companies are working on their own VR headsets. These include market leaders such as HTC (makers of the HTC Vive), but also Google (with its enormously popular Google Cardboard), Apple, Amazon, Sony, Samsung, and others.

With plenty of marketplace competition, the addition of various innovative controllers for allowing interaction with the virtual world, and a wide range of intriguing use-cases for the technology, it seems that virtual reality’s time may finally have come at last.

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