It happens every time I strap on the Oculus Rift. Whether the amazing head-tracking wonder that is the DK2 unit or even the earlier model, I’m completely sucked into a new virtual world. Then I look down and my hands and…nothing. Oculus VR seems to understand the frustration and is taking steps toward developing hand tracking for the Rift by snatching up motion capture startup Nimble VR. Creating a game controller for VR is a mystery that Oculus has long been trying to solve.
Will the Oculus Rift someday bring your hands into virtual reality? That seems to be a direction they’re moving in, based on some acquisitions they just made. This morning, Oculus quietly disclosed a pair of acquisitions: Nimble VR, and 13th Lab. Nimble VR is a hand-tracking, skeletal detection camera built almost entirely with the Rift in mind. You’d strap their camera to your Rift, and boom: your in-game hands and your real-life hands are moving in sync. If that company sounds familiar, you might’ve seen their Kickstarter campaign. They set out to raise $62,500 back at the end of October, and had more than doubled that by the time they canceled the campaign this morning (in light of this acquisition) . Given that Oculus itself all began with a Kickstarter campaign, there’s something particularly sweet about that detail.
