Well she sounds like all sorts of awesome. Some choice quotes:
"I love Oculus, but it's a sit-down experience. They don't really want you walking around," says De la Peña. "And I can spend $3,000 on my goggles instead of $300 right now. Right? I can get higher-end components to make it crisper and get a wider field of view. And I can set up my own tracking system. This is a phase-based tracking system, which I have to tell you, is still one of the best in the world. You know what? It's really good."
I would love to experience this system, sounds great.
In the near-term, however, Emblematic is gearing up to release an affordable VR viewer. Think of it as Emblematic's competitor toGoogle Cardboard. Zig Zag, as she and her brother have deemed it, is a collapsible VR viewer that, when closed, resembles a hard, plastic eyeglass case. De la Peña showed it off to me during our interview and admitted that it was "hot off the 3D printer this week."
Zig Zag works much like Gear VR and Cardboard in that it requires the use of an Android phone to power the experience. The actual "hardware," however, apart from its lenses, which she independently sources, contains no moving parts or processor; it relies entirely on the smartphone to power the experience. And, unlike Google's flimsy Cardboard, it's durable. "It's not going to break or bend," she says.
Ultimately, De la Peña would like to distribute Zig Zag through Emblematic's site, but she's also considering a Kickstarter campaign and is in talks with an unnamed partner that's interested in ordering 10,000 units. She's confident that Emblematic can offer Zig Zag for a relatively inexpensive price."
Well I want one of these! Seems like she's really building something special here, in the article it mentions her wanting to be like the CNN of VR news coverage. Really cool we have people like her leading the charge for experiences like this. Her final quote in the article is just heartwarming,
"I don't know why people get so terrified by technology. ... Look, I'm the one that could tell you. I would know. I would know. I took so many hits," she says. "The criticism I've gotten over the years, you have no idea. It's really nice not to feel vulnerable anymore. I think Keri Putnam, the head of the festival here, put it best when she said to me, 'You don't have to justify yourself anymore.' And that is the truth. That's why being at this moment with everybody here ... it's so gorgeous. So again, thank you Palmer Luckey."