Preview

£TBC, oculus.com

Our round-up of this month’s

hottest tech, including the Oculus Rift Consumer Edition, the self-flying Lily drone and Cannondale’s new super-bike

Haven’t we seen this before?

The Oculus Rift has been a s-l-o-wgestating product. Tech boy genius Palmer Luckey started flogging the original developer-kit version back in 2013, and look – it’s 2016 now!

So what’s so great about this thing?

The Rift is a full-immersion virtualreality headset, enabling you to experience new worlds. It thrusts you right into the action in firstperson shooter games, and unlocks new possibilities in movies, music videos, marketing and education.

It’s hardly the only VR headset, though, is it?

No, but it’s more powerful than, for instance, Samsung’s Gear VR (which was made with assistance from Oculus, as it happens), and more fully realised than the HTC Vive or, at least for now, the PlayStation VR.

What’s its killer feature, then?

The high-resolution graphics are impressive, but the real standout is the optional Oculus Touch controllers. The Rift will come with a Microsoft Xbox pad as standard, but these optional controllers may arrive shortly after, and make much better use of VR’s 3D nature.

How so?

They’re like Wii controllers with knobs on (and buttons, and triggers and joysticks, and gesture-sensing technology). The most exciting moments we’ve had with the Oculus Rift to date have been with these controllers, firing two pistols at once like a total boss. Pew-pewpew-pew! Die, you bad mothers!

Is there really much to play on the Rift, though?

The range of games and other apps is cool, and it’s growing all the time. There’s everything from the interstellar space dogfights of Elite Dangerous to Henry, an adorable short film about a sad hedgehog. There’s also talk of a Tron VR game, which should have any true tech/ gaming geek excited.

So when’s it out?

We don’t know exactly, but within the first three months of 2016. What we do know is that it’ll be one of the year’s defining tech launches, so ready yourself. All good things come to those who wait!