Intel in 3D and virtual reality dash Intel and Qualcomm are increasingly extending their reach beyond their core chip technologies and into surrounding technologies and even applications. Both seek to enhance their revenues and account control with end-to-end offerings in key emerging areas of technology such as virtual reality. Last week, Intel acquired Replay …
We also did PDAs in the nineties, but the Apple Newton and even PalmPilot never achieved the ubiquity of today's capacitive touchscreen phones.
Tablet computers had been kicking around for a long time, but again were niche and largely built around Intel chips and WindowsXP Tablet Edition. They didn't become popular until SoCs became more efficient and more suitable GUIs had been developed.
Today's VR has some big advantages over efforts in the nineties:
- very low cost of entry for consumers to test the waters, if they already have a 5" smartphone they can cobble up a headset with some cardboard and lenses. More sophisticated integrated headsets are cheaper to make today (LCD screens, gyros and accelerometers) than they ever have been.
- content is easier to create. Live action VR content is easier to create today, with multiple HD cameras and clever software trickery allowing passible 360 scenes to be captured.
-support from some big players in the consumer space, such as Sony, Samsung, Facebook, Steam, Intel etc. In the nineties, Forte Technologies made a VR headset - but only really Gravis Ultrasound users had heard of them.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
