From design, component manufacturing, to assembly, transportation, and sales, behind the global journey of Apple's Oculus helmet in the VR era, it is the world's most amazing industrial division.
After the smartphone, who is the next hardware hurdle in the Internet era? The answer is undoubtedly VR; who is the most dazzling star in the VR world? The answer is undoubtedly Oculus, which was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion.
In its infancy, Oculus was highly anticipated by supporters, sometimes referred to directly as Apple in the VR era. But for the general public, the Oculus Rift star VR helmet is still mysterious: Where is it mass production? What are the suppliers of core components? Are there any Chinese manufacturers involved in the industry chain?
The answer is hidden in every Oculus Rift global journey.
From design, component manufacturing, to assembly, transportation, and sales, behind a global journey of helmets, it is the world's most amazing industry division. The Oculus Rift has more than 200 internal components, and parts produced overseas are estimated to account for 90% of the total. It is the collaboration of hundreds of behind-the-scenes vendors and tens of thousands of participants that Oculus can become a leader in VR heads.
It is in this context that the analogy between Oculus and Apple is more substantive. As a star product in the era of smart phones, Apple's iPhone is designed in the United States, Japanese companies provide key components, Korean companies manufacture the most core chips and displays, Taiwanese manufacturers supply other parts, and finally Shenzhen's Foxconn factory is responsible for assembly. The iPhone was airlifted to the United States, recycled and refurbished by mobile phone workshops in Shenzhen, and finally recycled as e-waste.
Oculus Rift | Image source: popsci
An iPhone's global journey has dramatically changed the landscape of the global IT industry. It has led to the rapid rise of behind-the-scenes companies such as ARM, LG, Samsung, and Foxconn, while others are dwarfed. Now, the supply chain of VR devices is reshaping the industry landscape in the same way.
Blackbird interviewed a number of Oculus, outsourcer and supplier employees, and obtained a detailed disassembly and evaluation report from OFius Rift from iFixit, trying to restore the global journey of a helmet.
Long Beach, Irvine, California, USA
The Oculus Rift's first prototype was designed and assembled in the garage. In 2011, in the garage of Long Beach, California, the 18-year-old Palmer Luckey pieced together a rough prototype of the Oculus Rift.
At that time, the simplistic equipment has become a star product of the whole industry. A group of professionals gathered at the Oculus headquarters in Irvine, California, to push the Oculus Rift to maturity.
At the time, after the prototype of the Oculus Rift was built, Luckey sent it to the founder of the 3D game concept, John Carmack, the master programmer of Duke of Destruction and Quake. In June 2012, Carmack brought this early prototype to the E3 Game Show.
Rift initially raised $2.4 million at Kickstarter, and Palmer Luckey recruited his own management team and formally established Oculus. Luckey usually walks in Oculus's office in Irvine, California, wearing sandals, where he and his colleagues continue to perfect the Oculus Rift.
They hired Apple engineer Nirav Patel, who designed a motion tracker that uses gyroscopes, accelerators, and magnetometers to sense the player's head movements. Patel helped design Rift's brain at Oculus, a tool that quickly simplifies motion data, predicts the player's head movements and pre-renders the image, reducing latency by a few milliseconds.
Mark Zuckerberg and Palmer Luckey | Image credit: Vanity Fair
Oculus also replaced the LCD (liquid crystal display) with AMOLED (active organic light-emitting diode panel), so that Rift can reduce the delay and motion blur at the same time. Oculus' R&D team used a miniature external camera to track the head without the aid of a reference mark.
What made Oculus Rift revolutionary was the acquisition of Facebook. Prior to this, the Oculus Rift could only be regarded as an early adopter by VR geeks. After being included in Facebook, Oculus Rift began to seek mass production, and the global electronics industry began to welcome this pioneering giant.
On March 26, 2014, Facebook announced the acquisition of Oculus for a total price of approximately $2 billion. Facebook's funding means that Oculus doesn't need to worry about immediate profitability. Once Oculus's monitors were unloaded directly from the Samsung Galaxy S4s, now Oculus is qualified to require manufacturers to produce a custom VR display panel. Oculus is also developing plug-in camera functions and tactile tracking technology, with the goal of allowing players to interact with the virtual world and get feedback.
Three-axis DSLR stabilizer is composed of pan axis, rolling axis and tilt-axis. With a gyro-stabilized gimbal system, it keeps stabilized or steerable horizon with automatic calibration to give you an unprecedented smooth shooting experience.
The camera stabilizer is very professional for DSLR photographer, the device has heading cruise, normal holding position, inverted position, and single-handed side position modes.
Wewow focusing on handheld stabilizer is a technology company which does R & D independently. With Wenpod series product released, the company achieved the industry's praise and quickly became the leader of the smart stabilizer industry.
Our service
1. Reply to you within 24 hours.
2. Already sample: within 1-2days.
3. Shipping date: within 24 hours once get the payment.
4. 12 months warranty.
5. After-sales service, solve within 3 working dates.
If you have any questions, please contact with us directly.
Wewow appreciates domestic and international business relationship!
Three-Axis DSLR Stabilizer,Popular Three-Axis DSLR Stabilizer,Professional Three-Axis DSLR Stabilizer,Handheld Three-Axis DSLR Stabilizer
GUANGZHOU WEWOW ELECTRONIC CO., LTD. , https://www.stabilizers.pl