hey guys will I'm norm we have something
special today something a little
different someone special someone
special sitting directly all right is J
Jamie Hyneman
Jaime it's good to have you here we have
got something kind of cool to show you
something that we've been spending a
little bit of time with the last few
days brand-new um and it's something
that I know you have some experience
with yes not this process particular
product so okay so this is a the oculus
rift it's a set of VR goggles designed
primarily play video games but I'm
discussion because you've had some
experience like will said with virtual
reality and using that for work but
let's actually have you put them on and
see what your reaction is yes so this is
this is just to set the stage here I'll
go ahead and give you the give you the
goggles um you might want to take your
glasses off but up to you um this is
your first time with this particular set
of goggles you tighten the back when
they write a little low I thank you
you're looking pretty how you feelin
you're getting good focus or yeah yeah
your experience like so yeah over here
you going up right hand his mouse right
here you got it okay left hand is this
is like guiding blind minute okay so
your middle fingers on the W right now
okay and you should be able to take a
look around kind of give us give us to
the the thoughts about you know how this
is going I mean we've talked about the
oculus a lot before on the site but this
is the dev kit so it's a little bit
lower resolution sensor screen rather
then you'll get in the future um you are
you are getting into this faster than
anybody we've seen so far yeah and
something you mentioned us earlier is
that you were you don't get high you
know get motion sick at least not like
most people so we'll we'll use this for
an hour the first day we got it and had
no problems playing video games with
that I could use it for more than 10 or
15 minutes without getting a little
dizzy are you are you feeling all right
oh I'm loving this you're loving it yeah
so you have an eye go right off the clip
I never darn but you can look around you
have full 360 degrees you look up and
down there's no kind of forward back
there's no there's no strafe I guess is
the in the in the current can although I
think they're going to do that for the
retail version while this is this is
absolutely wonderful it's except that I
can't go off the cliff well blame blame
the epic epic games guys for that they
they made this demo um so this is
deficit Adele demo what like just give
Katya share like that were you feel like
the movements good are you getting um
yeah I'm right at home with this it's a
it's actually pretty cool are you guys
able to see the yeah we can see where
you're walking what we're watching you
so there's a couple of trees I think we
might have just gone by them but there's
some good kind of stuff that'll fall
towards you you get a nice 3d effect
your you should get a nice 3d you walk
over that great right to the left of you
and then look down you can kind of see
down right in there yeah this is under
your feet but yeah yeah this is uh this
is actually I'm digging this the
resolution is not the best but it's it's
totally totally serviceable yes I must
be looking away from the camera while
I'm talking all this oh it's okay your
your everybody the the challenge I
thought would I put this on the first
time was to keep my mouth closed well I
was well I was looking around I'm
heading around oh yes uh you heard I'm
with the keyboard underneath it you're
good middle fingers on the W or that's
this now up one there you go okay yeah
yeah the the the challenge I had was to
keep my mouth closed as I was looking
around at stuff this is this is just so
you know this is a demo that comes with
the with the Unreal Engine development
kit so it's just it's the thing that
they really stunned the iPad a couple
years ago called Epic Citadel
um so you've had some experience or at
least desire to find a head tracking
solution before do you want to talk a
little bit about what your goals were
there and what what the problems you had
and differed from this yeah the I've had
this kind of ongoing quest for the last
I want to say 20 20-some years but it's
not been that long it's been as long as
I've been doing effects with radio
controls and remote control and the
thing is that you know even in the
simplest sort of situation with a
with an RC car if you're looking at the
car driving around a track it's easy to
drive it on in if you're oriented
towards the back of the car looking
forward then you kind of are able to
drive it as if you were inside the car
it's not optimal but at least you know
it but it's serviceable
the thing is that what happens when you
have to go the opposite direction on
track which you know if it's a circular
track sooner or later you're going to
have to then you have to be able to flip
it around flip or flip your your control
sort of abilities around and it's
awkward and especially if you're you
know going around a windy track that is
you know all sorts of dips and turns
it's a problem and in my case I've ended
up doing a lot of things on Mythbusters
for example that require that I be able
to control something that that that I
can't even see like that something from
a distance for example or in another
location and um and in order to do that
you need to have a telepresence in there
that is identical with what it would be
like if you were in that car and I've
never to this day been able to totally
achieve that I know for a fact that you
know that the that there is a profound
difference between what I would be able
to do if I was actually in a
remote-controlled vehicle like
physically there as opposed to actually
remote controlling it because in like
you know give me a car I can drive it
you know through a city street negotiate
past you know pedestrians take turns
really fast narrowly miss obstacles or
or whatever with complete control
remotely I can't I can't even come close
to that it's it's it's ooh well you lose
both the 3d perspective and the ability
to turn your head 30 degrees to the
right and left and see out the out the
side window of the car right yeah and
there was a
thing that we got into in a an episode
of Mythbusters it's about to premiere if
there's that that where I even took it
to the point of having an eye tracking
device that that would pick up the
little movements of my eyes because one
of the things that that people do that
they're not aware of is their eyes were
making all these little they're called
cicadas little micros ACOG's they're
they're constantly shifting around in
order to give you perspective on on
things I I'm not sure on on the science
of it absolutely but my understanding is
that unless your eyes are making those
little movements you can't actually see
anything well it's it's like in
comparison to there are other simpler
organisms like like lizards and things
like that
reptiles that that bobbed their head and
thing and so on in order to gain
perspective because they can't like if
they want to you know eat up on eat a
bug for example they can't see the bug
unless the bug is moving so your
solution you had technology to track
your eye movements and then that was
attached to some type of control
mechanism the cartman you could yeah
yeah you should take off yeah sorry yeah
yeah the the mechanism that I put
together at it was in a remote location
and I had a camera with pan and tilt
just like this thing actually this thing
is intriguing because this interface
could have been used the same way I was
using what I custom-made with the eye
tracking where you know and as it is
with this you're moving your head and a
camera could move around to give you the
sensation that you were in there and I
went to a great deal of trouble in this
particular episode to put a camera
exactly where my head would be in that
car if I was in that car
and it was on a servo and so wherever it
my eyes look to the right or left the
camera would look to the right or the
left that would be just it wasn't just
pointing the servo movement where it was
also yeah it was pan and tilt tilt okay
and it was it was there was no latency
actually the as bears noting with remote
controls that the biggest stumbling
block is being able to have a
high-definition transmission over over
fair distances that's an expensive thing
to do and and in our case since we were
have these on cars with rockets that
would likely be destroyed we couldn't
have an extremely expensive high-def
transmitter so hey you know there are
other kinds of transmissions that we
could use but the latency is a problem
that was the thing is you know if you're
going to be remote controlling you you
need like the thing is and what's what's
neat about this type of device and this
whole concept is that if you're going to
remote-control something or you know
have a real virtual telepresence you
need to have every little detail be like
like as if you were there as a closed
field of vision
the eye reality if you're in a car you
know in theory you would think that you
could just put a camera right facing
forward and what else do you need you
know you drive the car and you see out
the windshield if you steer the car this
way the you know the you'll see the
image move and so on but when you're in
there you're not blocked it's kind of
like to put it in perspective that most
people would understand if you try to
drive a car from like say the passenger
seat either off to the side or in the
back it's going to compromise your
performance well you get used to you get
you need to be able to get that fine
tuning where you could really navigate
carefully through things you need to
have that that you know the cars have
been designed to have you in the
driver's seat right there
and anything that you do throws you off
so having you know the ability to look
around like you normally do you know
even the fact that your eyes are
constantly adjusting and lending you
perspective and even ideally the sense
of gravity or momentum you know starting
and stopping and things like that all of
those things are of kind of create what
I like to think of as a composition
where the the whole equals more than the
sum of the parts
you know yes you can you can deal with
any one of those things missing but the
more that you have in that kind of
virtual experience that that that brings
the more the more you have you end up
having some an end result that's
transcendental think it's stuff yeah the
driving experience yeah and and and
that's where you get into the butter
zone where you you should be able to
perform just as well as as you could if
you were actually or at least 90 percent
instead of 10 yeah yeah yeah so I mean
the thing that these guys realize is
that the latency is a big is that is the
big problem with most of this because we
all use the goggles in the 90s that were
all flat shaded and 3d and kind of kind
of bad um they they look at the latency
issues and realize that the problem the
thing that causes the disconnect is the
same problem that like drone pilots have
the latency of the signal going up to
the sidelines coming back down makes it
really hard to fly an airplane and even
even on something that's not as bad as
going two hundred two thousand miles
through space you have you know five
milliseconds of lag and it's going to
impact your it's going to throw your
equilibrium off enough that you get most
people get really motion sick and and
have you know nausea problems when they
use something like this and they and it
seems like they've worked out a lot of
the problems with that at least so far
so so what did you think after after you
know spending a few minutes with the
goggles on I think it's great it's a you
know I was well I was there you know
it's a the the image is the image could
definitely be improved
it you know was a it was a little you
know pixelated I suppose a little grainy
but you know even that didn't really
detract from the experience it was this
this is pretty good yeah it did you know
I I feel like I was there and that's
that's a big deal I think I'm sure this
will improve by leaps and bounds but you
know I was I was just flying through
there as fast as I could go and and and
I got to say I think let's see let me
see if I can I believe the cliff I
believe I was able to do uh what was
required much better with those those
goggles on than I'm doing now with this
but it's it's um the controls are a
little rough with the keyboard mouse
especially if you're not familiar with
that kind of that kind of control scheme
or but yeah I mean if you have this
attached to a car you know in a remote
controlled car the right server that
would can be really interesting and the
good thing is that the SDK is all out
there so you can actually pull the data
coming in from the headsets goes over
USB but thank you Jimmy thank you for a
trauma try not the virtual reality
headset and well thank you I think I
just want to I just want to add that you
know remote control like we're uh
there's a thought there's a little thing
with robotics for example you know
everybody knows about robots and and all
this stuff with the UAVs and and
telepresence everything but remote
control is you'll note that that the
UAVs aren't being sent out by themselves
they're generally you know somebody on
through telepresence this is uh this is
in my opinion um you know they're going
to be some things where you want to send
a robot out to just you know let it do
its job but in
remote control is actually at this point
in time it's it's a nun really a kind of
an immature field that there where
there's a lot of room for improvement um
and and and so and I think it's it's
largely untapped these kinds of
technologies are what are going to make
the difference it's it's not the not the
robot itself and whether it smiles or
not and the you know the platform that
it's on and whether it can make it
upstairs or all those things are are you
know necessary to have some degree of
effectiveness with but it's really all
about the control interface and when we
can if we can get to the point where
we're through these kinds of things
we're actually there that's it's going
to be a game changer with all sorts of
technology because because there's a lot
of there's not there's not a ton of
autonomous stuff right now as to what
people think of as drones are like you
said remote control devices that
somebody's sitting working some
joysticks or keyboard or mouse or
whatever that the control scheme happens
to be so well and you know there was
like we used to be fairly well known and
rub a robotic combat arena and because
we had our robot blend oh that was quite
destructive but those are remote control
vehicles you know it's it's a nobody
really wants to you know watch some
autonomous thing go out there and just
kind of hack at something it's it's it's
it's you know maybe fun for the
autonomous vehicle if it has if it can
experience fun but otherwise it's just a
machine that is you know might as well
be mowing the lawn or something like
that
as far as the all the human interest in
it remote control is where it's at and
it's I'm intrigued with the fact that
that gaming is actually something like
the this technology
is being spurred or or you know is is
the innovations coming from the
innovation is that community yeah it's
it's coming from gaming and you know and
but it's most important use may actually
end up being in the real world well you
get the big market to pay for the small
market right yeah cool well thank you so
much Jamie we'll have more with the
oculus real soon
norm and yet with more Jamie Wilson -
yeah see you guys next time
right right
