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It seems like wireless VR is on the way. Just last week, HTC announced pre-orders of a device to enable wireless use of their Vive virtual reality headset, but it seems like MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has been making headway on a headset agnostic system that could deliver high-end virtual reality without the wires.
MIT CSAIL’s prototype system is known as MoVir, and Engadget reveals that it uses Millimeter waves to send data from a transmitter hooked up to a computer on the headsets receiver. The high-frequency radio waves can maintain a wireless connection at over 6GB/s, enough to stream the high definition feeds needed for virtual reality without wires.
The problem is that these waves don’t really have the ability to penetrate objects, and as most people have furniture in their houses and a lot of VR experiences ask you to move about the place, it’s hard to maintain a stable and smooth virtual reality experience. CSAIL’s solution is to include a "mirror" device that tracks the position of the user in real time, receives the original broadcast and then bounces the signal towards the headset-mounted receiver as it moves around the space.
It’s still a prototype, but it shows we’re another leap towards a wireless solution for virtual reality, which is good news for consumers that are interested in the technology but not so keen on the jungle of wires that accompany virtual reality in its current form.
