【Street Stall (2015)】

LAS VEGAS — It's no secret Intel is Street Stall (2015)investing heavily in virtual reality.

Intel's CEO Brian Krzanich reiterated the company's commitment to pushing VR forward with Project Alloy, the company's self-contained VR headset reference design, during CES 2017 on Thursday.

SEE ALSO: Here's when Intel's standalone wireless VR headset will arrive

I've tried every major VR headset and many of the lesser known ones, so I jumped at the chance to try out Alloy.

It's important to remember that the Alloy headset I tried was a prototype reference design. Intel's not going to produce the headsets itself. Instead, its hardware partners will use the existing reference design model and design their own. The first of these headsets will arrive by Q4 of 2017, the company says.

That said, the headset is a lot bulkier than it looks in Intel's official images. That's not surprising since the headset contains more computing bits than, say, a mobile VR headset like the Samsung Gear VR, which is really just a plastic shell since the entire VR experience is powered off the attached smartphone.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The head strap is not too different from the one on the PlayStation VR. Instead of using velcro straps like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, Project Alloy has a plastic hoop that sits on your head, almost like a crown. The design also serves a second purpose: to hold up the front-heavy portion of the headset where the Intel processor, vision processor, RealSense cameras, display and lenses are housed.

Even after adjusting it, the headset kept falling down over my eyes and I had to hold it up with one hand several times during my demo. My hope is the headset gets significantly lighter by the time actual headsets based off Alloy launch.

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

But I can't knock the hardware for being unfinished since it's just a prototype after all.

So what's it like to try out a "merged reality" experience that makes the real world a part of the virtual world? Not too bad, actually.

The game demo I tried out was the same one that Intel showed off during its CES press conference on Wednesday:

Project Alloy let's users see each other, cable-free and transforms rooms into immersive gaming arenas #CES2017 #MashCES pic.twitter.com/Bqtmxnx02H

— Raymond Wong 📱💾📼 (@raywongy) January 5, 2017

Using the outward-facing RealSense 3D depth cameras, the headset was able to scan the roughly 15- x 15-foot room I was standing in and detect the furniture and objects inside as well.

I was given a wand-shaped controller and told my objective was to shoot the drones out of the sky. It wasn't a technically complex demo and the drones weren't hard to take out.

What makes Project Alloy unique isn't the mere fact that it's a self-contained VR headset, but that its cameras can scan the objects in your room and make them a part of the game.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

So for example, the table in the center of the demo room turned into a generator inside of the VR world and I could walk around it without bumping into it. And the sofa turned into a storage container.

It sounds like a great idea at first until you realize that there's no way to tell the difference between real objects that are now a part of the game world and completely virtual objects.

I prefer a holographic experience, like the kind with HoloLens, where virtual objects are mapped on topof real objects and you can still see them.

Though I was a little underwhelmed with Project Alloy, there's no denying that the headset is a glimpse at what's in store for VR headsets. Right now, VR headsets can generate these massive immersive digital worlds, but they're pretty dumb when it comes to actually understanding your physical surroundings. Alloy will help make them smarter.

---

Featured Video For You

---

1 laptop, 3 4K screens, the ultimate gaming experience

---

Topics CES Intel Virtual Reality

• Entertainment
• Tech
• Digital Culture
• Games
• Social Good
• Science
• Shopping
• Life

• How to Squeeze the Most Out of Your iPhone's Battery
• Wordle today: Here's the answer and hints for July 27
• Last Call for Our Subscription Deal with McSweeney’s!
• A Look at the Dutch Tulip Mania, Which Ended Today in 1637
• The 10 Most Anticipated PC Games of 2016
• Facebook says it removed the internet's 12 most prominent anti
• Everything Samsung announced at its Galaxy Unpacked event
• On the Chinese New Year, the (Fearsome?) Story of the Nian
• Samsung Unpacked stream is set for May 12, 2025
• MI5 joins Instagram: 'Insert your own joke about whether we will be following you'

• Travelers flying to the U.S. from Mexico and Canada will now face additional security screenings
• Amazon Alexa on the HTC U11 sucks and isn't ready for prime time
• Are Amazon's prices too good to be true? The U.S. government wants to find out.
• Lenovo wants to be a serious player in the world of AI
• 'Despacito' deemed too saucy for Malaysian radio
• First look at 'Marvel Powers United VR' with Deadpool
• What's the plural of emoji? The founder of Emojipedia ends the debate
• A melty duck is the biggest internet mystery of our time
• China won't let Justin Bieber perform there because he's been a bad boy
• Jon Watts is in talks to direct the 'Spider

• Best Apple deal: Save $19 on AirTag 4
• How 'Barbie' became the American monoculture of the moment
• Indonesia bans Elon Musk's X.com under country's laws on pornography
• These vintage Apple sneakers can be yours for $50,000
• Watch how an old Venus spacecraft tumbled before crashing to Earth
• The Morning News Roundup for February 4, 2014
• Tomato Pie and Culinary Failures
• Life Is One Never
• Operation Mensch
• Elon Musk takes @x handle from its original user. He got zero dollars for it.

• AMD Radeon RX 550 + Intel Pentium G4560
• Instagram will let you filter abusive messages so you never have to see them
• Samsung invited K
• Clubhouse teams up with the NFL for 2021 draft week shenanigans
• Amazon Prime Grubhub deal: Save $10 off orders of $20 or more
• 'Quordle' today: See each 'Quordle' answer and hints for July 27
• The Morning News Roundup for February 5, 2014
• The Morning News Roundup for February 5, 2014
• Dyson V8 Plus cordless vacuum: $120 off at Amazon
• I Hung Out at William Burroughs’s House When I Was Nineteen