Intel now has a standalone VR Headset which doesn't require a PC

Intel has taken its first major leap into Virtual Reality with Project Alloy. CEO Brian Krzanich on Tuesday showed off the company's first standalone virtual reality headset at the company's Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

The Project Alloy Virtual Reality headset would allow you to use your hands to interact in virtual space rather than a separate controller. Krzanich added, that it would use Intel's RealSense cameras and other sensors. The headset would be able to recognize surrounding environment without external sensors which the HTC Vive uses.

At the demo on-stage, Intel showed how you could bring real objects in the virtual world and then interact with them. This is why the company is calling it merged reality.

Merged reality delivers virtual-world experiences more dynamically and naturally than ever before

Merged reality delivers virtual-world experiences more dynamically and naturally than ever before  and makes experiences impossible in the real world now possible. Merged reality reduces the need for elaborate and costly sets of external sensors that translate real-world environments into digital representations.

If this sounds a bit like Microsoft's Hololens, you would be right. Instead of focusing on VR, Microsoft has been working on another aspect, Augmented Reality which brings virtual elements to the real world which can then be interacted with. This is where Microsoft and Intel's partnership on merged reality comes in and will power Windows Holographic.

At present there are no specifics on a release date but the company said they are looking at a 2017 release for developers.

Via: Medium