The only drawback I can see for the Sim crowd is that this is not for the casual simmer.
To get the most from this unit you'll need to contruct the screen/dome and IR placements.
I like the concept, but i don't have the space to use it properly.
The footprint of the OR is much more friendly for me.

There are pro's and con's on both. CastAR would be greast if you had an enclosed pit, you could really get something special up and running.

I wonder if 'popup displays' like these could be adapted for home use:

If I understood Jeri's (post-kickstarter) Youtube video correctly, there is a clip-on that redirects the projection properly to give you a self-contained VR display (similar to the Occulus Rift). That should eliminate the need for the retro-reflective material in that mode, but I imagine you would still need the IR emitter(s) for directional orientation.

Build a Pit with a Covered Canopy...

It's interesting tech but I just don't see how this can be applied to current games unless you are prepared to have a large dome of reflective material in your house. Hardcore sim pit builders for flying or racing might be interested but no one else. With the OR all you need is the mask, that's a huge advantage.

I'd like to see a demo of this working with an existing first person game as OR has. This seems to be generating a lot of interest from tabletop gamers though.

Ask yourself how a modern PC screen can serve games with a small viewable surface. Just because head motion can be the way the eyepoint moves doesn't mean it's the only way. Maybe the mouse moves it around and you stare forward at the screen material.

While the concept is interesting, I doubt you can get enough brightness out of the tiny projectors to make the world outside of the cockpit appear convincing. But it's interesting for a new kind of tabletop games.

MAC

sounds pretty convoluted and overly elaborate just to achieve something close what the rift will do. Sure, it gives you access to the keyboard, but how immersive is the game going to be when you're watching ti projected on your hands and keyboard when you look down.

I don't understand her hatred of Radio Shack. /shrugs

It isn't ~ it is projected onto the 'retro reflectives' your hands are in front of and "blocking" the image for that portion. You will see the reflected image from the 'reflective' background, but not from your hands.
Not too sure how the 'multi-user' stuff is supposed to work ~ my experience of retro-reflective material for other purposes is that it isn't purely a single direction material so presumably other users in the same 'space' would contaminate each other's image??

It is like a 3d tracker and screen but with proper 3d viewing ~ and interactions with real-world objects, rather than an occulus rift type device.

I'm sure that a full 'dome'/'cylinder' might be possible, and there is a VR 'reflector' indicated as an add-on, but that would eliminate accessibility to the external world. Still, a wand/glove for 'clicking' 3d switches is potentially highly immersive even if the tracking needs to be exaggerated like TIR.

Normal scattering screens and retro reflective material are very different in terms of projector power needed. At 5 feet the 12x12'' square of your face is 1/1000th the area of a 12x12' area of a room and so the power required to project is also about 1/10000th. Home theater screens have to balance how retro (mirror) like they are vs how scattering to prevent hot spotting while keeping transmission efficiency high.

Multi-user should have unnoticeable cross talk unless you are within narrow angular position of each other (cheek to cheek). 5-10 degrees should be enough which is a natural minimum spacing (shoulder to shoulder).

The clip on retro reflector isn't opaque to the outside world so you should be able to see your hands, keyboard, etc. There's yet another opaque clip on (on top of the "near screen" clip on) to block out all far light so it'd be like a closed VR system.

A smooth spherical booth shouldn't be necessary as the off-axis reflections are very good. Just a box with slightly smoothed corners should be indistinguishable from a sphere.

I definitely think a glove is a great idea. It's a shame they seem to require a camera on all the active parts but perhaps that could be reversed.

They blundered into something that while NOT in current game tech be vary useful... IS quite useful for more social sorts of gaming. Old board game sorts of things could get a REAL boost. Something you and a bunch of your buddys at a social gathering that reach entirely new markets for "video" games.

Valve was stupid. It did not fit where they wanted to go.. But other folks can find good uses for such a thing. In Valves defense... it would have next to no use in a more tranditional model console sort of game. This is more like a new wii. A gimmick that does not at first glance fit a given model. It makes a new one. Make that work with a next gen console and market as social gaming device for party's or table top war/fantasy games and they make BANK.

Yep, I see this the same as the recently demoed iPhone controlled remote cars running on a special track surface. With the RFID "base" tags, this can give you miniature wargaming - or any other kind of tabletop game - with augmented vision, effects and scoring/calculations.

It is actually kind of visionary because it might well change how we play social games, bridging physical (haptic) and virtual world. The Rift by comparison is old tech, i.e. polished and optimized but not something entirely new.