Oculus Rift injects real life with lag, hilarity ensues

By Will Fulton Published April 29, 2014

Any online gamer can tell you that lag is the fastest and most frustrating way to go from a righteous killing spree to getting teabagged by a swarm of demons, but what if this terrible affliction affected people in real life?

Swedish utility provider Umeå Energi played around with this notion in a new ad for its fiber-optic internet service. Four volunteers, equipped with Oculus Rift headsets, go about their daily lives, only with a slight delay fed to them by the VR headsets. The Rifts used in the ad are outfitted with forward-facing cameras that feed laggy video into each wearer’s eyepieces. Activities like table tennis, making eggs, and taking a dance class all become comically difficult with this real world lag.

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You may laugh now, but this could be your future when a buggy firmware update for your bionic eyes in 2064 causes the world to glitch out.

(via Gizmodo)

Will Fulton

Former Staff Writer, Gaming

Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…

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