jeri ellsworth
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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.
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.
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%
Report: Valve fires dozens of hardware, Android staff [Update 2]
Valve let go "several" employees on Tuesday, Gamasutra reported, following a tweet from hardware designer Jeri Ellsworth that read, "Yup. Got fired today. Time for new exciting projects."Initial reports from employees included the phrases "great cleansing" and "large decisions," and a few claimed as many as 25 people were affected, though this number is unconfirmed, Gamasutra reported. The layoffs hit more than one department, including Android and hardware staff.Ellsworth, at least, confirmed her own firing. She began working on next-gen gaming hardware at Valve, specifically living room PC controllers, in 2012. Ellsworth was concerned with transforming keyboard and mouse controls to a gamepad in a way that wouldn't interfere with current Steam game designs, or turn off those more comfortable with a traditional controller.Valve's recent focus has been on the Steam Box, a hardware system that allows PC streaming and gaming on living room TVs. Ellsworth worked on controller prototypes alongside the launch of Big Picture Mode, a Steam interface designed for controller navigation.We've contacted Valve for more information about the layoffs.Update: Develop reports that Valve's Director of Business Development, Jason Holtman, left the company. Valve has yet to respond to requests for comment.Update 2: Valve's employee page changed significantly sometime in the past month, as demonstrated by this comparison from Garry's Mod creator Garry Newman. There are eight names gone in the latest version: TF2 art lead Moby Francke, former Weta man Keith Huggins, Half-Life 2 programmer Tom Leonard, Portal team member Realm Lovejoy, Half-Life man Marc Nagel, ex-Lord of the Rings animator Bay Raitt, engine programmer Elan Ruskin, and Jason Holtman, mentioned above.
First Valve hardware to go into beta next year
Valve in-house hardware hacker Jeri Ellsworth told Engadget that she hopes to hold an external beta test, tied to Steam, for the company's first hardware product next year. Internal beta tests within Valve are already ongoing.She wasn't clear on what the device would be, but the stated goal is "to make Steam games more fun to play in your living room." The new hardware is some kind of input method to improve playability of PC games using Big Picture Mode. It could be a controller, or it could be some kind of keyboard/mouse combination.Or it could be maracas. Maracas have proven perfect for every game we've tried them with, including Samba De Amigo, and ...
Valve's first hardware beta starting by next year, wearable computing still far off
Valve Software's hardware division is still in its infancy. Despite having existed for over a year, recruitment is still its primary concern -- "prototyping is almost secondary," longtime inventor/hacker/now Valve employee Jeri Ellsworth told us in an interview this week. As the team ramps up, production becomes more and more prolific, of course; Ellsworth lights up when she talks about the work her team is doing now. She gets verbose when asked about corporate culture at Valve, about how she's never worked at a company where risk and failure are so acceptable -- even encouraged. She's visibly excited about the prototypes she's creating at Valve's new prototyping facility, but manages to contain herself enough to not let slip exactly what her and her team are working on. When asked what the team's immediate goals are, she obliquely states, "To make Steam games more fun to play in your living room." That's the team's one-year goal, at least. The challenge is making games that require a mouse and keyboard palatable to people who are used to a controller, or to people who just don't want to migrate PC controls to the comfort of their living room. Working in tandem with Steam's newly beta'd "Big Picture Mode," Ellsworth's team is creating a hardware solution to the control barriers found in many Steam games. She wouldn't give any hints as to what that solution is exactly, but she left no options off the table -- from Phantom Lapboard-esque solutions to hybrid controllers. Regardless, it sounds like gamers will have a chance to give feedback on those designs, as Valve's hardware team is planning a beta for its various products. Ellsworth is hoping to have one for the team's first product in the coming year -- we'll of course know much more about the product by then, she says. Internal beta tests are already underway, and a variety of the team's prototypes are available in the office for other Valve employees to tool around with. The next step is getting prototypes into gamers hands -- she says Valve already has a production line for short runs, making a beta possible -- and iterating on design before launch. As for how the beta will be handled, she posits it'll be tied to Steam in some way, but no logistics are anywhere near nailed down.
Video: HD Etch A Sketch for giant doodlers
Jeri Ellsworth (who previously fashioned a totally superb, functioning NES purse) has cobbled together a gigantic Etch A Sketch using a 52-inch projection television, some tent poles, a golf tee and gear-reduced motors. The sketcher uses aluminum powder, just like in the traditional toy, and they plan on eventually enabling it for IRC bot control. Check the video after the break to see it in action, and get a glimpse of how it was constructed. [Thanks, Hack A Day]
Nintendo / C64 purse is runway-caliber fashion accessory
Look: there are purses, and then there are purses. Well, this one is none of those things. It's a decent looking bag to begin with, but then... well, things get really fantastic. Jeri Ellsworth took it upon herself to cram a Nintendo-on-a-chip and a Commodore 64-on-a-chip (her own creation) into the bag, along with an LCD. Then she connected up some NES controllers, which are velcroed onto the outside of the bag. The result looks awesome, and is also actually useable. We haven't heard anything about these guys being offered for sale, but we're fairly certain that the august House of Dior will probably be ringing her up any day now. Seriously: this thing is a work of art. There's a video of Jeri talking about her creation after the break. [Via Make]
