The stock's at $31.50.
From Fortune:
Nvidia and Stanford University are developing the next generation of virtual reality headsets that could be consumer products by 2018.
Virtual reality has had numerous hurdles to overcome on its way to being part of our everyday lives, from graphics to processing power. Now visual computing company Nvidia is trying to tackle user experience challenges, and is teaming up with Stanford University to make virtual reality a more comfortable experience for consumers.
The alliance comes at a competitive time in the virtual reality world. Digi-Capital is forecasting that the virtual reality business will grow to $30 billion by 2020, and major technology players like Nvidia, Intel, Microsoft, AMD, Google, and Facebook are all investing billions into the sector. Nvidia hopes its alliance with Stanford University will give it an edge in this growing market.
Three years ago—well before Facebook purchased Oculus VR for $2 billion—David P. Luebke, Ph.D., senior director of research at Nvidia, says his team began researching how to make virtual reality more comfortable and more natural.*Previously on the fanboi channel:
“Almost all of the VR setups are pretty uncomfortable to use if it’s within arm’s reach because of depth cues like stereo and accommodation,” Luebke says. “This is because of the vergence-accommodation conflict, which is how much the lens of your eye has to change to bring sharp focus to your retina. This has famously been a problem with 3D TV and 3D movies. The director puts an object in front of you to have it in focus, but your eye still needs to focus on the screen that’s six feet away. If you want to look at an arm’s reach distance you have to cross your eyes, and this causes some people to get headaches and some people to see double images.”
Nvidia turned to Stanford University, which is just down the road from its Santa Clara, CA. headquarters, to collaborate and develop new technology that could solve this problem.
“At Stanford, we have developed a new display technology, dubbed the light field stereoscope, that addresses the vergence-accommodation conflict,” Gordon Wetzstein, assistant professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford University, says. “It provides a much richer and more natural visual experience than conventional head mounted displays and has the potential to reduce nausea, eyestrain, and also increase visual comfort.”
Essentially, these early light field stereoscope prototypes use two displays with two layers of LCD panels separated by 5 millimeters. The headsets send each eye an entire 4D light field of images so that each eye can naturally disseminate focus between objects that are nearby and further away. The prototypes also feature head tracking, and users can see their hands within the virtual worlds.
With Samsung Gear VR Consumer Edition shipping this month and HTC Vive, Facebook Oculus Rift Consumer Edition and Sony PlayStation VR shipping in 2016, Wetzstein believes the first generation of VR products will be very convincing.
“From the demos we’ve seen, the primary problems that VR researchers have been facing over the last decades are almost solved: high-resolution display panels, wide field of view, and ultra low latency orientation tracking,” Wetzstein says. “It’s remarkable that all required components have been developed for cell phones and are now available at low cost to fuel emerging VR displays. Nevertheless, secondary problems, such as the vestibulo-occular and the vergence-accommodation conflicts, have now become very noticeable and will have to be addressed in next-generation VR technology.”...MORE
"NVIDIA: “Expensive and Worth It,” Says MKM Partners" (NVDA)
We don't do much individual stock stuff on the blog but this one is special.Quants: "Two Glenmede Funds Rely on Models to Pick Winners, Avoid Losers" (NVDA)
We use it as an example of what Silicon Valley used to be, when high tech meant high technology and not a new app for some (still) mundane task.
Simply put, NVIDIA makes some of the fastest computer chips in the world.
They are used in gaming systems that require graphics that don't make you (literally) puke. Right now automakers use their chips for graphic displays....
"Silicon Valley Is a Big Fat Lie"
Nvidia Wants to Be the Brains Of Your Autonomous Car (NVID)
