{"id":342,"date":"2015-02-05T13:30:34","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T13:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itnigblog.live-website.com\/5-good-reasons-why-you-should-get-your-hands-on-virtual-reality-in-2015"},"modified":"2024-04-10T10:41:19","modified_gmt":"2024-04-10T10:41:19","slug":"5-good-reasons-why-you-should-get-your-hands-on-virtual-reality-in-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itnig.net\/blog\/5-good-reasons-why-you-should-get-your-hands-on-virtual-reality-in-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"5 (good) reasons why you should get your hands on Virtual Reality in 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andreessen Horowitz<\/a>, the $4 billion venture capital firm (yes, the one that invested in companies such as Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook and Airbnb, among many others), published last January their top 16 tech trends here<\/a>, and guess what? Virtual Reality is #1.<\/p>\n

Many of us lived the Virtual Reality (VR) hype through the 90\u2019s and the following disenchantment. Simply put, neither the technology nor the market was ready<\/p>\n

\n<\/figure>\n

But Palmer Luckey<\/a>, a (then) 19 year old \u2018kid\u2019 from Long Beach, California, after having spent his teenage years tinkering with up to 50 head-mounted displays and building more than five cost-effective virtual reality displays, finally put the first version of what he called the \u201cRift\u201d<\/a> as a DIY-kit on Kickstarter on June 2012. In just 36 hours the campaign surpassed $1 million in funding, eventually ending with $2,437,429<\/a>. Almost two years after, on March 25, 2014, Luckey\u2019s company, Oculus VR<\/a>, was acquired by Facebook for US$2 billion.<\/p>\n

Picture: http:\/\/www.tweaktown.com\/news\/37828\/oculus-vr-founder-palmer-luckey-makes-the-cover-of-wired-magazine\/index.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Since then, it seems that every big media or tech company (Sony, Pixar, Disney, Facebook, Google, Samsung and Microsoft among others) is interested on VR technology. But why this sudden crazy interest in VR technology? In short: the first time you experience VR through a headset like the Oculus Rift, you understand why (read: you\u2019ll be mind blown). Just in case you haven\u2019t (please, try!), I\u2019ve compiled five reasons why I think this technology will be highly disruptive (in the \u201cPeter Thiel\u2019s sense<\/a>\u201d) in 2015:<\/p>\n

#1. Presence has finally\u00a0arrived<\/h3>\n

In the early days of VR (pioneered by Jaron Lanier<\/a>), two main issues plagued VR developments: \u201cmotion sickness\u201d and lack of \u201cpresence\u201d. You get motion sickness when wearing a VR head-mounted display if you move your head and the scenery do not change fast enough. You can get symptoms like dizziness, nausea or even vomiting. On the other hand, \u201cpresence\u201d is the feeling you get when you wear a head-mounted display, and aside from the realistic 3D rendering, you feel as if \u2018you are there\u2019. I\u2019ve personally witnessed more than fifty people trying the Rift for the first time, and almost half of them try to \u2018touch\u2019 the \u2018things\u2019 they see with their hands (you can also watch \u2018first-timers\u2019 reactions here<\/a>). Yes sir, that\u2019s what can be called presence.<\/p>\n

The Rift achieve presence and lack of motion sickness through a wide field of vision (more than 100 degrees) and a really well engineered (fast plus accurate) head rotation tracking. If you are curious about the details, I recommend this<\/a> book from Manning Publications.<\/p>\n

Picture: http:\/\/static.oculus.com\/connect\/slides\/OculusConnect_Epic_UE4_Integration_and_Demos.pdf<\/p>\n

#2. VR is a new medium and a new interface<\/h3>\n

VR is both a new medium and a new interface.<\/p>\n

As a new medium, it\u2019s characterized as a post-symbolic medium, meaning that you do not need a \u2018language\u2019 to communicate in that medium, the user just \u2018experience things\u2019 there. Some people have even called VR \u2018the empathy machine\u2019<\/a> after projects like this one, funded by United Nations<\/a>, in which you experience (via immersive video) the day-to-day reality of a Syrian refugee. VR as a medium is storytelling on steroids.<\/p>\n

The music industry is also getting up to speed with the technology, with artists such as Paul McCartney, Jack White, Beck, U2 and Coldplay<\/a> experimenting with VR.<\/p>\n

As a new interface (just as the birth of the computer mouse allowed new kind of applications and human-computer interactions) VR will unlock interaction possibilities we\u2019re not, of course, aware as of now. As an example, Guy Godin has developed a \u2018Virtual Desktop for VR\u2019. I know, it may sound silly, but keep in mind that the natural interface for humans should be closer to immersive 3D than to a flat 2D screen.<\/p>\n

#3. Big companies have their hands on Virtual\u00a0Reality<\/h3>\n

Facebook bought Oculus VR, Samsung has partnered with Oculus VR<\/a>, Sony has its own VR device in progress, Google-backed \u2018Magic Leap\u2019<\/a> is trying to make the perfect Augmented Reality Device after Google Glass fiasco, and Leap Motion<\/a> has literally resurrected thanks to VR.<\/p>\n

A month ago, it was announced<\/a> that Youtube is developing 360\u00ba video streaming, VR ready.<\/p>\n

It all sounds like the early days of the Web, in which all the money from the Valley was suddenly redirected to the new technology. And yes, it may be well that a new bubble is coming bigger as ever, but also remember that the Web survived those days by filtering out noise from value.<\/p>\n

#4. VR development is progressing at blazing\u00a0speed<\/h3>\n

I ordered Oculus DK2 on June, 2012 (it arrived on September, though). At that moment, development was kind of \u2018low-level\u2019, esoteric or expensive (licensing). In just four months, WebVR <\/a>(an initiative to bring VR to the web, via javascript access to VR devices) has become really solid, Unity released their Oculus Rift integration for the free version<\/a> (this is huge!), and Leap Motion+VR integration is driving really innovative applications. Youtube is full of VR videos (mostly from drones<\/a>), VR (mostly three.js\/WebVR based) developments are starting to grow on Github, and Oculus\/Leap stores are really growing; not to mention the grassroots groups trying to make 180\u00ba videos cost-effective and VR-ready.<\/p>\n

\n<\/figure>\n

Picture: http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2015\/01\/23\/un-launches-powerful-oculus-virtual-reality-film-following-syrian-refugee-girl\/<\/a><\/p>\n

#5. Real world applications are already appearing and the spectrum is\u00a0huge<\/h3>\n

One of the problems with early VR is that it was successful at the industrial level, but not at the consumer level. Now, with around US$350 or even just US$20 (Google Cardboard<\/a>, or a DIY version, plus a smartphone) and some knowledge of Unity (or a similar game engine) or Javascript\/WebGL you can start developing your own applications.<\/p>\n

If you follow \u2018Road to VR\u2019<\/a> or \u2018Enter VR\u2019 podcasts<\/a>, you\u2019ll quickly notice that each and every day new applications are appearing: from immersive journalism<\/a>, to healing diplopia through virtual reality and everything in between: gaming<\/a> (of course), adult content, movies (Story Studio<\/a> and Zero Point<\/a>), mental ailments healing<\/a> and fitness. If you are interested in the applications of VR to Social Sciences, \u2018Infinite Reality\u2019<\/a> is a fascinating read.<\/p>\n

As a side note, at Outliers Collective<\/a> we are working to bring VR to Data Visualization (or Data Visualization to VR), developing D3.js-like capabilities into both Unity and WebVR. One of our early examples, a real-time network visualization experience can be seen here<\/a>. Seems like we are not alone, you can check also \u20186000 moons\u2019<\/a> (a data visualization\/simulation of nearly 6000 objects orbiting around us in space)<\/p>\n

***This is a guest post by Oscar Mar\u00edn
Data Engineer and co-founder at <\/strong>Outliers Collective<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andreessen Horowitz, the $4 billion venture capital firm (yes, the one that invested in companies such as Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook and Airbnb, among many others), published last January their top 16 tech trends here, and guess what? Virtual Reality is #1. Many of us lived the Virtual Reality (VR) hype through the 90\u2019s and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itnig.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itnig.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itnig.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itnig.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itnig.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/itnig.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12364,"href":"https:\/\/itnig.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions\/12364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itnig.net\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itnig.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itnig.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itnig.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}