Oculus debuts new prototype HMD with head tracking, OLED display

Newsbrief: In Las Vegas at CES, Oculus has unveiled the latest prototype of its virtual reality head-mounted display hardware, codenamed "Crystal Cove." The new iteration of the system has received some significant upgrades from the HD headset the company showed last year; most notably, it now comes paired with an external camera to allow for accurate head tracking (via LED markers on the exterior of the HMD itself, pictured below.) Thanks to this, the system now tracks three supplemental "degrees of freedom" -- forward/backward, left/right, and up/down. Meanwhile, the 1080p screen in the unit has been upgraded from LCD to OLED, a display technology capable of much faster refresh times. Thanks to its low image persistence, the new display allows for images to be shown in a way that is more like natural vision in the real world. "With low persistence, you can continue to stare at an object or read text while you’re moving your head," CEO Brendan Iribe tells Wired. Gamasutra is meeting with Oculus today at CES and will have more on the company's latest developments soon.