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Virtual Reality Predictions For 2016 and Beyond (medium.com)
An anonymous reader writes: 2015 was an undeniably huge year in Virtual Reality, breaking down the doors and setting the stage for an all-out 2016 consumer VR frenzy. The adoption of VR is not simply like ‘just another’ new device, not like a new aspect ratio for display panels, not like just an upgraded generation of gaming console, but a fundamentally new kind of technology that enables a new kinds of experiences that haven’t before been possible or comparable to anything else we’ve had (in the consumer market at least). Here is an article of some of my predictions for the coming years. What are your predictions?
There...I said it.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
It seems to come and go in waves, and just seems like a solution in search of a problem. Even back in the mid 1990s, there were 3D headsets which worked with Duke Nukem 3D, but other than at Egghead, I never saw one purchased and "in the wild."
Eventually we will get past the VR stage of the goggles and the PowerGlove, but until we get to where equipment worn is light to none and we have something similar to a holodeck, VR will be in the fringes with cool stuff happening here and there, but tending to be too expensive and specialized for mainstream use. However, things can change. The same thing was said about MP3 players (expensive/specialized/only for a few people) until Apple got into that market, so I could be proven completely and utterly wrong about this in the coming year.
Just like the did with the Virtuaboy, right?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The timeline in the article is really fast about some of the adoption of technologies.
But you know what they say about predictions:
most people are short term much to optimistic and long term to pessimistic.
If they can fix the sickness problems for basically everyone, which need very low latency hardware and probably some tricks, then maybe adoption is going to be high. Before that, I think it's not going to play out in the timeline the article mentioned.
New things are always on the horizon
It's even easier to identify the people who don't actually have to wear eyeglasses.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I'm one of these that will grab the consumer model of Occulus Rift and build a brand new spanking rig to fit it. I figure Intel, nVidia, AMD and PC hardware vendors will be happy as it will drive hardware sales of new PC gear like crazy. VR will put good use of latest stuff like AVX-512, DDR4, etc.
Flying a drone with VR headset would be awesome, should feel like being superman flying around the city. Better get one of these gas powered ones running on ethanol RC engine that can stay up in the air for hours.
Horror games that will scare the shit out of you. Almost real LSD trips to wreck your brain. ;-) ;-)
Lots of uses in education, medical and mechanical engineering, etc. Social VR applications will be huge, app that allow one to hang out with your friends at a bar or nightclub. Watching 2D movies and TV series would rock, like going to a big screen teater but even better, should provide for a good movie experience as it shields the viewer from distractions. One can watch porn on the airplane, no one would ever know.
The article presents the most optimistic possible scenario, in which VR catches on like wildfire (or like smartphones did!), followed by massive investment and rapid technological progress. It's a scenario at one end of the spectrum of possible outcomes -- but it's not implausible, it's not crazy. We've seen this kind of shift before.
At the other end of the spectrum, it's possible that the awkwardness and expense of VR headsets (especially the high-spec ones for PCs) may hold things back, and VR may not explode into the mainstream. Even if this happens, though, I can't see it flopping completely. VR technology is simply too useful, and useful for too many things (beyond games), to just go away.
Interesting mention in TFA of Second Life. . . QUOTE: "In 2017 a clear leader will emerge in the field of social VR platforms, and it will look something like Secondlife but in VR. If it’s not facebook itself as the platform, then facebook will try to acquire whoever makes such a platform stably with good adoption during the 2017 year."
Of course, Linden Labs are still running Second Life (after all these years!) and are making steady money from it. They are adapting it to work with VR headsets, and they are also developing a successor world, called Project Sansar, which is designed with a focus on VR. I am very eager to see how this turns out.
The comparison with 3D is interesting. On the one hand, both technologies have been tried before and failed. But where 3D TV has failed despite it being offered for free on most modern sets, 3D cinema has succeeded. For movies that are available in 3D, the 3D screenings are vastly more popular than the ones in 2D. And cinematographers are learning how to properly use 3D to enhance immersion. The reason for 3D TV failing is a simple one: optics. 3D just doesn't work well on small screens with smaller view distances. But for VR to work well you won't need a large room or expensive equipment: it'll work just as well at home.
On the other hand, making great VR content might not be all that easy. Even 3D has proven to be more difficult than just shooting with stereoscopic cameras and adding a few stuff-flies/pokes-into-your-face gimmicks. The art is improving, though, and I'd love to see what someone like Cameron does with VR. But another problem might be cost: shooting VR seems to be a lot more expensive, and the result is something that is as suitable for home viewing as for the cinemas, perhaps even more so. That requires a different business model. But when it comes to content, VR has one huge advantage: games. Adapting games to VR isn't all that difficult, and using VR to play games adds a lot of immersion and possibilities to enhance gameplay, whereas 3D for games was just some visual meh.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
VR has been around over 30 years since Jared Lanier coined the term. The early stuff was basically 3D line drawings with noticeable delays to head movement. That gave some people nausea.
Flash to 2015 SIGGRAPH. I tried tried models from Oculus and Sony. They were so fast and good that they made nauseous in another way. When I tried the Sony tightrope walk demo I was scared of falling because it seemed so real. Another company's demo put me on a skateboard at 50 mph and I was scared too.
Hello, article author here. What a lot of commenters here seem to missing is the fact that almost every technology I'm predicting here for the coming years **already exists**, and the reactions among anyone who has used these new things is unanimously impressed, amazed, awe-inspired, and wanting more. Check the youtube clips within the article. As another commentor here pointed out, it's very easy to identify whom among us has not yet tried a current headset.