Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️So at this week's electronics fair, I found a weird VR headset prototype. No names on it, and it says "prototype/not for resale". I took it apart to figure out who made it, and completely failed. It's weeeird:
It's got a lot of cameras, including ones for eye tracking, it's got 3 wireless chips, and a cracked screen. I'd love to see this thing work, but sadly it's not possible for this unit. and unless I can find out what this thing is supposed to be, I'm afraid I won't learn much more
Also it has this on the front. No one can figure out what this says, or even if it's actually supposed to be test. The best suggestion I've seen is that it's designed for computer vision identification, not stylized text.
Perhaps it's ONECRYSTAL upside down?
https://mastodon.org.uk/@growf/110374756283181735
https://mastodon.org.uk/@growf/110374756283181735
Bruce Preston (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image @[email protected] Assuming that 1. it is English, 2. it is derived from dictionary words, and crucially 3. it is upside-down and over-stylized to hell and back, the best match is ONECRYSTAL:
Runner 🏳️⚧️@foone is there any evidence of inside-out tracking? if it's visual outside-in tracking the symbols might be part of the tracking system
XorOwl@foone maybe you could get a clean, head on picture of the logo with the extra bits cropped out. Maybe a reverse image search would find something
@xorowl a good idea. Sadly, no luck
Jernej Simončič �@jernej__s @foone thats not something average folks know how to do
@xorowl @foone You just need any half-decent image editor. Here's how it looks in Paint Shop Pro, but GIMP has a very similar tool:
@jernej__s that's some advanced photo editing stuff
evilspoonsWell, you beat me to it and did a better job, but here's my crap attempt at isolating and perspective-correcting the text.
(Note to self: I hate GIMP and I should stop using it.)
Oblomov@foone I was going to say that it looks a bit like Elian, but it doesn't seem to spell anything sensible
Shanya (Over at BlueSky)
Joel@foone could be an identify marker for an augmented reality co-op experience (since it has lots of outside cameras)?
Although, not sure why they'd use this vs a more standard marker.
Michael_N_Payne@foone What if it's not ten letters, but five? Could it be stylized Korean?
@Michael_N_Payne it definitely has some similarities which make it seem like it's almost hangul, but unless they're rotating/mirroring some characters, it doesn't look like it can be hangul
Dex 🔞 - 
@foone Yeah, that might be akin to the Xbox One's zebra stripe patterns for determining leaked prototypes, if it's not something used by whatever tracking is in place
Might be worth reaching out to @sadlyitsbradley@birdsite? They deal with a lot of prototype VR headsets and might have the best shot of identifying it
Nova🐧✨
Pet Rock@foone
AR fiducial markers would always be uniquely recognizable under rotations, but these "letters" instead seem orientation-dependent. There's an 00's feel to their design.
AR fiducial markers would always be uniquely recognizable under rotations, but these "letters" instead seem orientation-dependent. There's an 00's feel to their design.
vince@foone i'm confident this is incorrect, but the brainworms are telling me "Oculol" (ignoring the remaining 4 symbols)
Dame-Armiger Kali Ranya ⚔️🐈@foone Ah yes, stylish and well known manufacturer Tolra Jeduo
Michelle Hughes
DHeadshot's Alt@foone Trying to read that is like trying to read text in a dream, or text generated by an AI image bot...
❄️Winter❄️@foone i would have guessed pigpen or a variation, but not much sense from it
⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe@foone If it's upside down, the first line reads "ON OCR" … and the second line isn't letters. (So maybe that's a coincidence.)
Graham Sutherland / Polynomial@foone anything in USB descriptors?
@gsuberland Nah. USB seems to be data-only.
@gsuberland err, power-only
@foone any clear reset button onboard? wondering if you can boot it into DFU mode by holding it while plugging USB in.
Bruce Preston@foone Assuming that 1. it is English, 2. it is derived from dictionary words, and crucially 3. it is upside-down and over-stylized to hell and back, the best match is ONECRYSTAL:
@growf interesting!
There is a VR headset called the Pimax Crystal, but it doesn't exactly look like this. Good interpretation though.
There is a VR headset called the Pimax Crystal, but it doesn't exactly look like this. Good interpretation though.
🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑@foone CV seems doubtful to me, though the only other idea I have is that perhaps it's stylized pseudo-text intended to be replaced with something else in production, as is done with "lorem Ipsum".
orcrist86@foone I feel like it's some weird form of qr code
Luna Lactea@foone Could it be pigpen?
Adam R. Wood@jackemled @foone That's what I immediately thought. It gives us 'GEHIC AD*BE' if we assume it's all supposed to be undotted; notably, the solid square isn't a pigpen character (or it's a dotted square) - hence the asterisk I used above - but if we treat it as a letter 'O', we get 'ADOBE' down there. Random thought.
Oceanotter 
@foone it's a dev kit
@oceanotter I think it's more likely a prototype, or if it's a dev kit it's an entirely internal one. But I want to know more than that. a devkit for WHAT?
Naomi Peori@foone @oceanotter With the magnetic part in the forehead, maybe it was an experiment in using stimulation to overcome VR motion sickness?
Christopher Agocs@foone Did you ever look at the similarity between the weird typography and the Varjo logo?
@agocs Yeah. But it doesn't appear to look anything like any of their headsets.
🌈 Andrew ☄️@foone are there any chips inside it that narrow the manufacture date, or maybe the combination of chips correlate more with one headsets brand more than others?
Jeff@foone Are you able to get it working? Is it a PC headset?
I suspect that would have been the first thing you tried but if not I wonder if the USB ID returns anything meaningful.
@jeffalyanak Nah. Both USB ports on it appear to be power-only.
Bogon@foone @jeffalyanak Wait, both? I could have sworn there were three USB ports when I looked at it at the flea market. Two USB3 micro-B on the side of the display section and one USB-C on the back of the strap?
@Bogon @jeffalyanak There's actually three USB ports on the side of the display section, which I was merging into one. Two are USB-3 micro-B and one is regular micro-B
@foone @Bogon @jeffalyanak speaking of which, mind taking pictures from more angles? I can narrow down that it's likely an XR viewer with onboard SLAM and eye tracking but that's about it unless I see more of the boards and ports and front camera assembly and such
⠵⠻⠷⠕⠭ 🍥🍉⚪🌹@foone This is how The Peripheral starts
Kevin Boyd (he/him) 🇨🇦
Simon Frankau
Andrew@foone Styling reminds me of the PS VR stuff
Ken M. Haggerty@foone Very cool! Definitely interested if lights & eyetracking are in fact to test reducing motion sickness or medical research (e.g., epilepsy) as others have suggested. Any indication if eyetracking hardware resembles that used by SMI?
amd
Rairii@foone what's on the emmc? have you dumped it yet?
@Rairii haven't figured out how yet, but I'm gonna try if I can.
SkaveRat 🐀 
@foone the logo looks suspiciously like the varjo logo. and they have similar tech
Richard M^2@foone given the camera pointing back at the eyes and NIR LEDs I’d wager it has eye tracking built in. We have some dedicated eye trackers in the lab that use that tech. I’d also guess the magnet in there is used with an external tracker to gauge head orientation. Some early mocap systems used that technology.
Stewart Russell@foone looks very like the assistive technology augmented communication devices for nonverbal people I saw a company demo a few years back (2019?). Based on head tilt and gaze it would select words/phrases for the user to say.
Giles Goat@foone
At first sight seeing how it's designed I'd suppose "looks like a Sony PSVR prototype". I mean I don't know of any other VR headset I've seen that had that sort of head rest. HOWEVER, IF it really would be Sony it should NOT BE ANYWHERE "in public", it should be well closed "in a vault". Or it's not that or someone went against the NDA and kept it/threw it away. It could be a 3rd party something but again all prototypes should be or destroyed or locked away if it'd be "the big corps".
At first sight seeing how it's designed I'd suppose "looks like a Sony PSVR prototype". I mean I don't know of any other VR headset I've seen that had that sort of head rest. HOWEVER, IF it really would be Sony it should NOT BE ANYWHERE "in public", it should be well closed "in a vault". Or it's not that or someone went against the NDA and kept it/threw it away. It could be a 3rd party something but again all prototypes should be or destroyed or locked away if it'd be "the big corps".