Earlier today a friend of mine was showing me the reactions of professional video-game testers to VR video-games, and I was thinking about how awesome VR is as a concept, but also how dangerous and detrimental it could be to society.
What is VR?
"Virtual reality is a computer-generated environment that lets you experience a different reality. A VR headset fits around your head and over your eyes, and visually separates you from whatever space you're physically occupying. Images are fed to your eyes from two small lenses. Through VR you can virtually hike the Grand Canyon, tour the Louvre, experience a movie as if you are part of it, and immerse yourself in a video game without leaving your couch." [1]
When was it first conceived?
Starting in the 1950's, experts of all sorts of disciplines have talked about or alluded to the idea of virtual reality. "The first references to the concept of virtual reality came from science fiction. Stanley G. Weinbaum's 1935 short story "Pygmalion's Spectacles" describes a goggle-based virtual reality system with holographic recording of fictional experiences, including smell and touch." [2]
People from areas like theater, literature, and computer science have found interest in this and, one of the very first applications of it was in 1968, when "Ivan Sutherland, with the help of his student Bob Sproull, created what is widely considered to be the first virtual reality and augmented reality (AR) head-mounted display (HMD) system"[2]
References:
[1] https://www.cnet.com/special-reports/vr101/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality
Image Sources:
[3] https://www.google.com/search?q=virtual+reality&biw=2144&bih=1051&noj=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiO-rmO5pDQAhUEQiYKHYcGCfsQ_AUICygE&dpr=0.9#imgrc=COd8Rc2BkzorGM%3A
I've always found VR to be fascinating; it must be somewhat similar to augmented reality, no? Although, having never used it myself, I must confess that the first thing that comes to mind when I think of it is some large-scale oppressive utilization of it a la the Matrix. That's probably a little extreme. The real danger of it, I think, would be that when you're wearing a HMD you're not entirely aware of your surroundings. That's definitely an aspect of it I think we should consider moving forward with the technology.
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