Most people i have talked to recently believe that VR is just another fad and will go away as fast as it will be introduced. Back in the 90’s there was another attempt to make VR mainstream but it failed miserably. Reason was the tech wasn’t sophisticated enough to make sense for something like VR, it was mostly wishful thinking from people that loved science fiction. The difference between then and now, is that now we have reached the technological level needed to take the first steps into this new field.
VR just makes sense as the next logical step of human-machine interaction, why limit yourself to a keyboard and a monitor while you can be part of the system yourself. Eventually the technology could evolve in levels similar to Star Trek’s holodecks, creative digital worlds you can explore and use. If you think about it, this is the first time after a century of human evolution that we try out a new interface medium, till now it was just monitors.
Of course there are people that believe by utilizing this technology we might lose real world perception and prefer living inside a virtual world in a way similar to Bruce Willis’s movie “Surrogates”. I say all of that talk is a big pile of bullshit. Just imagine this for a moment, what would you believe 20 years ago if you saw today’s people spending most of their time talking in front of a monitor or chatting via IM’s. You would definitely say something in the lines of “Those people are like zombies, they prefer staring a phone or a monitor and not spend time with their friends/family.” Sounds familiar? Yea it sounds abit like what people are saying now about VR, it’s just something that not everyone can comprehend right away, give it time and it will become “normal” for society, just like smartphones have become these past years.
There are multiple VR devices coming out this year, Oculus Rift, Playstation VR, Steam VR (HTC Vive), Razer OSVR and others down the road. I foresee a healthy competition that will force companies to take it a step further with each new hardware release. Maybe in 10 years a holodeck won’t sound like science fiction and i’m looking forward to the new experiences this technology will offer us, and so should you.
