It's been known for quite some time that Valve has been working on a wearable computer. A piece of hardware that you can wear and view the world through via an augmented reality. Though it may have just been a small side project, it has since grown into a larger hope for both Gabe Newell and Valve.
Michael Abrash leads the charge forward for Valve's wearable computing initiative. He feels as though the next step in technology is a pair of glasses that project games in front of a player's eyes, a step forward from a static screen found on laptops, PC's, tablets, and smartphones.
Perhaps this explains Valve's love of ARG's for game updates and new game reveals?
Oh, just one more thing that really doesn't fit well into its own dedicated news post. Most people tend to love working at Valve. There may be an exception here and there.
(via New York Times)
Valve also recruited Jeri Ellsworth, an inventor and self-taught chip designer, whose pinball machines decorate Valve’s offices. Ms. Ellsworth recently gave a tour of Valve’s hardware laboratory, proudly showing off 3-D printers, a laser cutter and other industrial tools used to cobble together hardware prototypes. While interviewing for the job, she said, she was dubious about Valve’s interest in hardware.
“At one point, I said a hardware lab could be very expensive, it could be like a million dollars,” she recalled. “Gabe said, ‘That’s it?’ ”
“At one point, I said a hardware lab could be very expensive, it could be like a million dollars,” she recalled. “Gabe said, ‘That’s it?’ ”
Michael Abrash leads the charge forward for Valve's wearable computing initiative. He feels as though the next step in technology is a pair of glasses that project games in front of a player's eyes, a step forward from a static screen found on laptops, PC's, tablets, and smartphones.
While Google’s glasses will display texts and video conferences, Valve has greater technical challenges to overcome with augmented-reality games. It has to figure out how to keep stable an image of a virtual object (say, a billboard) that is meant to be attached to a real-world object (the side of a building) while a player moves around. Otherwise, the illusion would be shattered.
Mr. Abrash said glasses capable of credible augmented-reality games could be three to five years away, though he said virtual reality glasses would arrive sooner. He said Valve hadn’t decided whether it would make glasses itself. But its ultimate goal is to share its designs freely so other hardware companies can make glasses, too.
“Gabe has a saying, which is, ‘We will do what we need to do,’ ” Mr. Abrash says. “We don’t particularly want to be a company that makes hardware in large quantities. It’s not what we do.”
Mr. Abrash said glasses capable of credible augmented-reality games could be three to five years away, though he said virtual reality glasses would arrive sooner. He said Valve hadn’t decided whether it would make glasses itself. But its ultimate goal is to share its designs freely so other hardware companies can make glasses, too.
“Gabe has a saying, which is, ‘We will do what we need to do,’ ” Mr. Abrash says. “We don’t particularly want to be a company that makes hardware in large quantities. It’s not what we do.”
Perhaps this explains Valve's love of ARG's for game updates and new game reveals?
Oh, just one more thing that really doesn't fit well into its own dedicated news post. Most people tend to love working at Valve. There may be an exception here and there.
New employees aren’t even told where to work in the company. Instead, they are expected to decide on their own where they can contribute most. Many desks at Valve are on wheels. After figuring out what they want to do, workers simply push their desks over to the group they want to join.
A few years ago, a Valve hire who had worked in special effects in Hollywood balked at wheeling his desk. The news reached Mr. Newell, who promptly picked up the desk himself and carried it to the new location, to the new employee’s embarrassment.
The man, whom Valve declined to name, is no longer with the company.
In an interview in a conference room at Valve’s headquarters, Mr. Newell says that relatively few people have left Valve over the years. When they do, it’s often because a sick parent needs help. In one case, Valve moved an employee’s parents to the Seattle area, where one of them was also able to receive better cancer treatment.
“I get freaked out any time one person leaves,” says Mr. Newell, a bearded bear of a man with John Lennon-style glasses. “It seems like a bug in the system.”
A few years ago, a Valve hire who had worked in special effects in Hollywood balked at wheeling his desk. The news reached Mr. Newell, who promptly picked up the desk himself and carried it to the new location, to the new employee’s embarrassment.
The man, whom Valve declined to name, is no longer with the company.
In an interview in a conference room at Valve’s headquarters, Mr. Newell says that relatively few people have left Valve over the years. When they do, it’s often because a sick parent needs help. In one case, Valve moved an employee’s parents to the Seattle area, where one of them was also able to receive better cancer treatment.
“I get freaked out any time one person leaves,” says Mr. Newell, a bearded bear of a man with John Lennon-style glasses. “It seems like a bug in the system.”
(via New York Times)