Virtual Reality: An Insight Into The Future

 


     We hope that someday, we would be able to escape into another world but we don't have to leave our world. We just have to put something over our  eyes and we are suddenly thrust into another world of someone's imagination.
                                                -Steven Spielberg-
 
     The concept of virtual realty suggests a stimulated experience which could be similar to or completely different from the real world. The idea is to replace your reality with some computer generated environment. Virtual, augmented and mixed reality are generally called immersive technologies.  Augmented and mixed reality( jointly extended reality XR) are actually digital frameworks of vr based technology.
      The historical journey of virtual reality began in the 1860s when Antonin Artuad
adopted the view that there is no distinction between illusion and reality. In the year 1962, Morton Helig built a vr based and multimedia device dubbed the Sensorama. This was one of the earliest vr devices. The term "virtual reality" was coined by Jaron Lanier in the year 1987. In 2012, a crowdfunding campaign began for a vr headset known as Oculus Rift. In March 2014, the project's parent organization(Oculus) was acquired by Facebook for a whooping $2 billion. In the same month, Sony invented a vr headset known as the PS4 nicknamed the PSVR. In 2016, another company Valve partnered with HTC to produce a vr headset named HTC Vive. In 2019, the same company released its very own headset named the Valve Index. Just last year, Oculus launched a vr headset named the Oculus Quest 2. It had amazing features such as a sharper screen, reduced price and increased performance and in collaboration with Facebook, its users are required to log in with a Facebook account. More recently, during the global outage of social media giants(Facebook), Oculus users could not gain access to the Oculus library. 
     Currently, standard virtual reality systems use either vr headsets or multi  projected environment to generate realistic images, sounds and other sensations that stimulates a user's physical presence in a virtual environment. Vr headsets consists of a mounted display with a small screen that immerse the user in a virtual world. Modern vr headsets ae grouped into two categories:
      Tethered(type 1) headsets which uses your smartphone as the vr engine and the screen. Examples are Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR and so on.
       Standalone(type 2) headsets have a gyroscope, accelerometer(tracks head movement), a screen and everything inbuilt. Examples are the Oculus Quest, HTC Vive and so on.
        Some of the best vr headsets  currently are Oculus Quest, Nintendo VR kit, Playstation VR, Lenovo Mirage and many more. This video gives some details about vr headsets.


Numerous companies are investing billions of dollars in the virtual reality sector.




      Virtual reality has many real life applications. Some of them are;
Class VR, an innovative technology in the education industry which uses vr technology with a user friendly interface to increase the knowledge potential of students of all ages.Facebook Horizon, an ever expanding vr community where you can explore, play and create. It helps you to experience the impossible. Vr 360, a 360o audio - visual simulation which allows the user to look around in any direction just as we look around things in real life.
     Virtual reality has been characterized with numerous and health safety considerations. It has been linked with a number of unwanted symptoms in children such as seizures, discomfort and so on. Vr sickness also known as cyber sickness occurs when a person's exposure to a virtual environment causes symptoms similar to motion sickness. These are factors that many companies are considering.
     In the aspect of privacy, the persistent tracking required by all VR systems makes the technology particularly vulnerable to mass surveillance. The expansion of vr will increase the potential as well as reduce the costs of information gathering of personal actions, movements and responses. Data from eye tracking sensors which are a popular feature of vr headsets may reveal personal information about an individual.
     In summary, the future of immersive technologies is bright. Virtual reality is a fascinating way to travel using nothing more than the power of technology. With headset and motion, vr let's you look around virtual space as though you're in it. Virtual reality has been gaining public attention in recent times all thanks to its compelling immersive experience. 




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