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Ex-Valve employees crowdfund augmented reality glasses
Former Valve employees Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson launched a Kickstarter project to fund the Cast AR augmented reality glasses. The glasses were initially developed while both Ellsworth and Johnson were working at Valve, and Ellsworth was granted permission to keep the AR glasses when she was let go by Valve in February. As our friends at Engadget saw firsthand in May, the Cast AR headset projects visuals into the real world, granting multiple players the ability to interact with any kind of digital object as if it were physically in from of them. Under the moniker Technical Illusions, the duo hopes to bring Cast AR to market by raising $400,000 by November 14, and has already earned $45,930 in its first funding day. Given all the technical terms laid out in the funding campaign page, the developer created a simple pledge calculator to dictate how much money backers should give depending on the pieces of hardware they want, like the additional "Magic Wand" controller hardware.
Hardware hacker spills on Cast AR 'projected reality' glasses, Valve
During her termination meeting with Valve founder Gabe Newell, former hardware head Jeri Ellsworth told Newell to either fund her latest augmented reality gaming project, or let her leave with it. Ellsworth had been with Valve for one year and seven months, and she believed in the potential behind her team's progress – even though Valve was firing many of the people involved. "Give it to them," Newell said. Ellsworth and fellow former Valve teammate Rick Johnson took their prototypes and started Technical Illusions, where they've been working on Cast AR, a set of 3D, augmented reality glasses. Four weeks after Ellsworth was fired from Valve, she and Johnson hit a breakthrough in the Cast AR project, and everything came together ahead of schedule, she said on The Grey Area Podcast. Cast AR is a "projected augmented reality" system that throws graphics into the real world, allowing players – multiple players at one time, even – to interact with an artificial projection as if it were actually right in front of them, using a wand-like controller and special mat. Engadget got their hands on the Cast AR in May. Early prototypes of the Cast AR are hardly bigger than standard glasses for a 3D movie, with spots on the corners from whence the projections, well, project. A camera on the bridge of the nose tracks the surface of the mat, so the glasses know where the player is looking. This set-up allows the wearer to see objects from different angles, and could apply to board and computer games alike. Technical Illusions intend the glasses, wand and surface to cost less than $200, with a Kickstarter planned for early 2014, Ellsworth said. Best of all, Cast AR makes Wizard's Chess a reality. "You can imagine Star Wars Chess, as an example," Ellsworth said on the podcast. "There's little chess characters just walking around your table. If I'm sitting in front, facing forward at them, I see their faces. And I can stand up, walk around the table, and I can see the backside of the characters."
Engadget goes hands-on with ex-Valve engineer's AR glasses
When Valve let up to 25 hardware development staff go in February, Jeri Ellsworth was one of them, and she was working on a pair of 3D augmented-reality glasses at the time called Cast AR. Ellsworth continued work on them with her new company, Technical Illusions, and recently let our friends at Engadget take them out for a spin at the Maker Faire 2013 event in San Mateo, CA. Cast AR is described as a "projected augmented reality system" on the company's site. Ellsworth said she plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign later in the year to fund the project, with the goal of each kit adding up to less than $200 for buyers. The site notes plans to include a development kit with each pair.
Cast AR hands-on with Jeri Ellsworth at Maker Faire 2013 (update: video interview)
When Valve's first hardware hire, Jeri Ellsworth, tweeted back in February that she was fired from the company, we were disappointed but also intrigued by what she meant by "time for new exciting projects." Well we finally saw what she's been up to here at at Maker Faire 2013. It's called Cast AR, and it's a pair of 3D augmented-reality glasses that she and former Valve programmer Rick Johnson were working on at Valve before they left. The model we saw is still in the early prototype stages, but the concepts are already in place. Perched atop a pair of active shutter glasses are a couple of miniature LCD projectors, which bounce images from a connected computer onto a special reflective surface at a 120Hz refresh rate. A camera module sits on the eyewear's bridge and monitors an array of infrared LEDs embedded in the reflective surface. This allows for quick and accurate head tracking. Join us after the break for our impressions and our video interview with Jeri Ellsworth. %Gallery-188760%
