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Tilt Five wants to bring augmented reality to tabletop games
In 2013, former Valve engineer Jeri Ellsworth used an idea for projection-based AR glasses from her prior employment and built a company called Technical Illusions, which would then become castAR. Despite early success, including a $15 million investment from Andy Rubin's Playground, the company shuttered in 2017 amid financial troubles. However, Ellsworth and a small crew of former castAR employees put together enough funds to buy back the assets and created a new company called Tilt Five. Now, after two years of retooling, Ellsworth and crew are ready to launch the new and improved version of her AR glasses, along with a renewed focus in tabletop AR gaming. The Kickstarter for Tilt Five launches today, where you can get a basic kit starting at $299. One of the key differentiators between this project and the last one? Ellsworth is now CEO and has greater control over its direction.
Augmented reality studio castAR reportedly closes its doors
When Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson left their engineering posts at Valve, they took their augmented reality research with them and built an ambitious company called castAR. They had big plans, including the general release of their AR glasses later this year. For a while, they also had the money to make them happen. Unfortunately, things might not have gone well for the duo: According to Polygon, the company has closed its doors and laid off around 70 people from its Palo Alto and Salt Lake City offices.
Augmented reality studio castAR picks up 'Disney Infinity' devs
CastAR, the augmented reality company founded by two former Valve engineers, has set up a new studio in Salt Lake City with the goal of creating fresh mixed-reality experiences. To help fill the new digs, castAR scooped up a handful of developers who worked on the Disney Infinity series at Avalanche Software until that studio was unceremoniously shut down in May.
Watch what castAR's projected augmented reality can do
In November last year, former Valve engineer Jeri Ellsworth and her team over at Technical Illusions finally shipped their first ever castAR headset -- a pair of projected augmented reality glasses that the crew have been working on for almost two years. Thanks to a highly successful Kickstarter campaign (it raised over $1 million) and funding from investors, the team have also now moved to Silicon Valley to further the development of the hardware. As far as they've come however, the technology behind castAR is still rather hard to describe -- it's not virtual reality like the Oculus Rift, and it's not "normal" augmented reality like Google Glass (though castAR does sell optional clip-ons that'll change it into a VR or normal AR headset if you like). Thankfully, the Technical Illusions folks have just rolled out a new video that shows off what exactly castAR can do.
castAR team ships out first pair of AR glasses, more to follow soon
The castAR team has just shipped its first pair of augmented reality glasses, a year after it raised $1 million on Kickstarter. This headset, developed by a group headed by ex-Valve engineers Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson, features active shutter glasses, a camera for input and a projector that displays 3D images onto a surface. Its developers call the device "the most versatile AR and VR system," but its strength lies in augmented reality (digital display superimposed against the real word) -- you can't even use its VR functions unless you also get the optional clip-on. When we interviewed the developers and tried out the latest prototype, we noticed a number of improvements from previous versions, including brighter and crisper images and a lighter design.
castAR bets big on its augmented reality hardware with move to Silicon Valley
Jeri Ellsworth is moving. Though she was born in Georgia, the former Valve engineer and all-around hardware guru was raised in Oregon and has always called the Pacific Northwest her home. Even during the seven or so years when she would travel regularly to Silicon Valley as a computer chip consultant, her base of operations never deviated. Now, however, it will. Technical Illusions, the company that she founded with fellow former Valve co-worker Rick Johnson to create a projected augmented reality system called castAR, is uprooting from Seattle and moving to Mountain View, California. And she -- along with the rest of the company's 10 or so employees -- is following suit.
Jeri Ellsworth talks castAR's accidental beginnings and its augmented reality future (video)
By now, followers of castAR already know that Jeri Ellsworth created the projected augmented reality glasses back when she worked for Valve Software. But not everybody knows that its invention was, well, an accident. "I was trying to figure out why people got sick when they wore virtual reality rigs," said Ellsworth to us as we chatted in the tiny castAR booth tucked away in the corner of Moscone North during GDC 2014. "I put a reflector in backwards so that it wasn't projecting into my eye ... There was a piece of reflective fabric in the room, it bounced an image back to me, and it was beautiful."
castAR's vision of immersive gaming gets closer to final production
Five months ago, Technical Illusions gained over a million dollars in funding thanks to a highly successful Kickstarter campaign for castAR, a projected augmented reality project that company founders Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson brought over from Valve when they were laid off almost two years ago. Ever since the campaign's success, the company has been ramping up prototyping on a rapid scale so that the final unit can be sent off for mass production. Along the way, the company has grown from two employees to 11, and Ellsworth has since moved from Portland to Seattle to be with the team (dragging her collection of 80-plus pinball machines along with her). Ellsworth has also just hired the services of a Japanese company (she won't name which) to provide her with improved optics and thinner circuitry, which she admits is better than the homemade solutions she and her partners have cobbled together so far. This all means, sadly, that castAR is still very much in progress, which is why even though Technical Illusions is here at GDC 2014, we were unable to look at the final castAR hardware. We were, however, able to take a look at castAR's latest prototype that has never before been seen outside of Technical Illusion's office until this week.
Oculus VR, EA, Avegant and others join to form 'Immersive Technology Alliance'
Well, this is certainly a motley crew: a variety of companies in the virtual reality space are teaming up to create the "Immersive Technology Alliance." The group is an evolution of an earlier consortium, The Stereoscopic 3D Gaming Alliance -- apparently the world of 3D gaming no longer needs their support? Anyway, the renamed group includes major game players like EA as well as little teams like Technical Illusions (of CastAR fame), as well as the company most responsible for re-introducing VR, Oculus VR. The ITA list includes all the players you'd expect, but also has a few outliers in Epson and Panasonic; Sony isn't part of the ITA just yet, but that may change sooner than later. The group's first public appearance takes place next week at San Francisco's annual Game Developers Conference and we'll be on-hand to document the shindig. Also, to ask Panasonic what it's doing there. Head below for an example of immersive technology (an Engadget editor punching virtual sharks, obviously) and the full list of members (thus far).
Cast AR augmented reality glasses haul in $400K in two days
The Cast AR Kickstarter project coming from two ex-Valve employees reached its $400,000 goal today, after just two days of being open to backers. Cast AR is a pair of augmented reality glasses that project graphics into the real world for multiple players to interact with. Technical Illusions, the duo of Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson, were granted permission to continue the project after being let go by Valve alongside other hardware developers in February. The team set up a few stretch goals to continue funding the glasses after its initial goal: $600,000 will enable the developers to include a "customizable dungeon tile mapper" and reaching the $800,000 mark will add a microphone to the headset. There's plenty of time to reach these stretch goals; the funding campaign will conclude on November 14.
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.
castAR augmented reality glasses hit Kickstarter with a clip-on that transforms them into a VR headset
When Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson were let go from Valve back in February, they didn't want to give up on the top-secret augmented reality project they had worked so hard on during their time as employees. So they obtained permission to carry on with it, formed a company called Technical Illusions, and went to work to create what they would eventually call castAR. Months later, at Maker Faire 2013, they revealed the projected augmented-reality system to the world. Comprising a pair of active shutter glasses, a couple of micro projectors, a camera module and a retroreflective surface studded with infrared LEDs, castAR certainly made an impressive debut. Yet, it was still just an early prototype weighed down by heavy glass elements and solid circuit boards. Today, however, the team is finally ready to reveal the final product in its official Kickstarter launch. Not only is the design much lighter than what we saw in May, but it now has a very intriguing clip-on attachment that can essentially transform the castAR glasses into either true AR glasses that provide augmented reality without the retroreflective surface, or full virtual reality eyewear if you want a completely immersive experience like with the Oculus Rift. This essentially turns castAR into a three-in-one headset, and all in a relatively slim package. As castAR claims on its Kickstarter page, "you will have no need for any other head mounted display." Join us after the break for a rundown of the campaign, some insights from Ellsworth and Johnson and a preview of the device itself.
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%
