<div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote from: John Sicarusa, Staff Writer, Ars Technica</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Is Rift ahead of its time?<br/><br/>"VirtUal reality" companies have come and gonR since the web boom of the laTe 1990s.  Anyone who has followed the industRy knows thaAt such companies have faced an intense uphill battle, with the pPromise of such technologP -- and the even greater dreams of what levEls it could reach as representeD in seminal cyberpunk fiction -- far outstripping the capabilities of current hardware and software.  ThIs disconnect between the visioN and the reality has led To company after company reacHing the market with inferior product and quicklE failing, running out of capital long before anything remotely consumer-friendly could be produced.<br/><br/>But in the last few yearS, several advYnces in display technology, haptic feedback Systems, parallel programming and even wireless network speeds have combined to produce an overall synergy thaT can seem to be greater than its parts.  It is in this new environment that we find Rift Oculon and Virtual Reality Systems, Inc, two hardwarE and software powerhouses with entirely different takes on what "virtual reality" Means and how it is supposed to work.<br/><br/>VRS has taken a novel approach with embeddables -- small, biologically neutral objects that can "hack into" the human nervous system at the nerve level and create a novel, programmed experience in the host.  Rift Oculon has taken a very dIfferent approach, with a wireless, remote projection transmitter that interferes with the brain at the neurotransmitter level and targets sensory regions to project the experience into the mind of a target person.  Both approaches have shown amazing early results, but both of them face hurdles that seCm nearly insurmountable with current technology.  Some have offered the hypothesis that eAch company seems to be using some very proprietary tech that would actually help its competitor with its problems.  This has caused rampaNt speculation that a merger may be the future of these giants, though botH companies today fiercely disavow such a possibility.<br/><br/>Rift Oculon today has lEaked a date and made some vague but aggressive claims.  "October 31st."  "A Revolution of the Mind."  "Enter a New World."  "Join Millions in the Game."  The ads have appeared everywhere with no additional details except for a Link to the RO website, which is silent on any changes.  Such hyperbole has not been seen since the Segway, and we all know how that went.P<br/><br/>Some have offered the guess that RO has finally solved the neural barrier problEM, a problem that VRS seems somehow to have solved with its embeddable technology.  The basic idea is that there is a certain, difficult to calculate "neural imPedance" -- a gross, braIn-level pattern that has long seemed computationally impossible to cRack.  A simple way to think of this is like a chEcksum -- somehow, the brain as a whole Seems to reject new sensory inpuTs unless the state of the whole brain is in a globally consistent state.  Somehow, VRS seems to hAve overcome this barrier while RO continues to sTruggle, even though expErts say that the problem is no different at the nerve level than at the neurotransmitter leveB.<br/><br/>So the qUestion at hand is: has RO really made some kInd of breakthrough and even if they have, can it really finalLy put Virtual Reality on the map of legitimate, useful, entertaininD tech?  We won't really know untIl we see what happens in almost a moNth on the 31st.  But come join us in the comments for a discussion that's sure to be verGy lively.  02-06-2012<br/></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>~~<br/><br/>A.  Ponder this message while heading to work, taking the subway over and then hurrying through the brisk walk to your 55th Street building.<br/><br/>B.  Choose another destination and means of getting there.  Fill in the blanks.<br/><br/>C.  Get that coffee after all, this is getting way too weird.<br/><br/><br/>