Dell Looking Into Wearable Computing And Virtual Reality Goggles Oculas Rift Announced

| Updated: Friday, July 5, 2013, 17:46 [IST]

Global PC maker Dell is looking to diversify into wearable computing. Sam Burd, Dell's global vice-president of personal computing told the Guardian that the company is looking into this area. Given that the PC market is diminishing and Dell is struggling a bit, this is perhaps right area for the company to consider.

Ever since Google introduced their futuristic device, Google Glass, there has been a great buzz in this quadrant. There has been news about several companies working on similar technologies, including Microsoft, Vuzix, Sony, amongst others. The very idea of computing devices that can be worn, stretches the boundaries of imagination. Just think about it, this is just the beginning of things, even the Google Glass is first of it's kind, there is no telling what the future will bring.

Wearable computing will indeed diverge in to many sects in the days to come, already there is the smartwatch, which can perform actions that a smartphone can and the computing eye-wear, that makes things to appear before your eye. Recently, Motorola also announced that it is working on a tattoo like patch that could replace passwords. We might be entering into a era where PCs might become extinct.

More, recently a company called Oculus VR also announced their new virtual reality eye gear the Oculus Rift. Palmer Luckey, an eighteen-year-old technician at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies, started working on this incredible piece of technology in his parent's garage in 2011.

Oculas Rift can literally place a gamer in the middle of a virtual world. The headband like device places screens in front of both the eyes to provide immersive, stereoscopic 3D experience with a huge field of view of 110 degrees diagonally, which can overcome latency challenges. Motion sensors on the device tracks the movement and position of the wearer's head and feeds the data back to a computer, which can typically be a gaming PC.

Suppose you are playing a game such as Call Of Duty, the computer will render the 3D world twice rather then just once, in slightly different angles, creating an illusion of depth of field. The optical illusion gives the user a realistic, augmented reality kind of a feel.

Think about it, the device was actually used for Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy, for veterans who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. It was used to simulate the terror of combat in order to help the Iraq war veterans. The device is expected to be released in the US latter this year or early 2014.