Torkel

I would add technology to your list of things we need to save this planet. And I'd say it's useful to know that making things that burn fossil fuel more efficient is not a viable solution to the problem of global warming.

We are now beginning to have good products on the market that are sustainable: electric and solar. Making internal combustion engines more efficient seems a dead end. Or worse - making them more efficient may delay the move to what is actually sustainable.

Side note: I regret adding my comment about downvotes. But I will leave it to preserve sense of thread and to remind me not to go there again.

Interesting, and I fully agree that sequestration would be a solution.

I root for electric propulsion and solar power (go Elon!). But I support all efforts in this fight.

I will read the references you gave. Edit: "Burning Buried Sunshine" is a great read! 86 m3 of ancient biomass for 1 gallon of fuel..

Thank you for this comment! I think your advice is correct: better not talk about it, and move on. Btw I am now in a weird situation - should I remove my edited comment or not. But I'll let it sit there, this thread makes no sense without it :)

I'm assuming the purpose of developing a more efficient engine is to reduce emissions and thus "saving the planet"? That may seem commendable, but from what I have read it is actually a wasted effort, unless you can make it 99%+ more efficient (which you cannot). So, even if this engine is all that it claims (which most other comments here seems to question), it still uses oil and therefore is part of the problem and not the solution. (Wrote abit about this a while back with more references: http://torkeldanielsson.se/reducing-emissions-is-not-enough)

Edited comment: Man, I don't get hacker news... Why do you downvote this? I thought I was adding a valid and important point - that an increase in efficiency is fighting the wrong battle. I even added references via link. I would be super happy if I could be informed of what in this post is offending or off topic!

I think making a stand-alone VR headset makes a lot of sense. Dual-purpose devices don’t work out. VR is good enough for people to want to purchase a stand alone device. Or it’s not good enough, and then it doesn’t matter either way.

Also, a well made VR viewer that attaches to a phone (i.e. Gear VR) is just as big and almost as heavy as a stand alone viewer would be. So there are only marginal space savings to be made.

Making the best VR experience is not the same thing as making a mobile phone. Screens needs to be optimized differently, possibly using more than one screen. Chip cooling is a thing in VR. Faster sensors. Different appication stack. Support for positioning and control input. So many things are different from what needs to go into a phone.

Compared with desktop/console, the mobile eco-system is 10X the size and revenue and longterm this is where you want to build your product. Desktop and console VR, were the headset is attached with a cable to a big loud box, may make some sense in gaming and short term. But longer term that seems a bit silly. Look at the iPads benchmark scores - those things are already rediculously fast.

Ok, I finally got my order through. (If anybody had the same issue: Don't think I did anything differently than before though so it's probably just some part of Oculus' payment system that is under dimensioned...)

I for one is super excited that the Rift consumer version is finally released!

I experIenced a lot of overload issues: "Something went wrong. Please try again." in red when I try to pay. I solved it by just keeping on trying. Issue was oveload, not my credit cards. See followup too.

"paying 20USD for a couple of bears and drinks is nothing yet when it comes to pay for music"

One geek, two bears and lots of drinks - what a sight :)