Whatever happened to virtual reality?

[AnitaPeterson]

I was just talking to a co-worker about this "mysteriously gone" technology. Where is virtual reality? I mean, we've come a long way since the early 1990's, when I remember trying the glove and helmet for the first time...

Fast-forward 10 years later... we have multi-GHz processors and fantastic rendering engines... and yet, VR is out of the picture. I mean, can you imagine playing Doom 3 in VR, on a current machine with the latest videocard available? In all seriousness, you can probably piss your pants when attacked by an imp...

Whoever uses this in the next gaming console or computer technology will gain a huge market share, and secure it for a good couple of years...

 

[bobbybe01]

Things that make you go hmmmmm



Hey, why don't you and me join forces and make the money instead of other people?

 

[Pepsi90919]

i think it was like a "LOOK WHAT WE CAN DO!" technology, rather than something really useful.

 

[LtPage1]

interest died when games that looked photorealistic started being released. as soon as the technology starts being truly immersive, well see a resurgence.

 

[bobbybe01]

On second thought, virtual sex would be a lot better.

Not that I need that or anything.

 

[maddogchen]

yeah i thought its useful application in pron would bring huge interest and huge investment...

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Does anyone here have a helmet and glove? I mean, there must be industry people around. Can these devices be hooked up to a current machine?

 

[everman]

I don't think the VR visors ever had really good quality screens. You could probably still buy one with head tracking capability, but it would be really poor quality as I don't know of any that are currently produced.

Now we can project an image directly onto your eye with lasers, so maybe in the future.

 

[SportSC4]

the arcade industry has been on a decline since the early mid 90s.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Arcade? If Microsoft adds VR to XBox 3, they got the market by the balls.

 

[Hankerton]

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
Arcade? If Microsoft adds VR to XBox 3, they got the market by the balls.

Definitely, I would buy that in a second.

I remember going to the mall years ago and they had VR machines setup for $4.00 a game which was outrageous at the time. But I remember it being really impressive then, now I'm really curious as to where this technology has gone.

 

[Injury]

Cost versus budget of average consumer.

Cost won.

 

[Shawn]

I thought it was kinda stupid.

That kinda stuff makes me nauseous!

 

[Demon-Xanth]

I think the main problems included people getting dizzy and headaches. Not to mention the cost. VR is going to make a comeback, just not as fast as people expected. The current "hot application" for VR technology is augmented reality, where information is overlayed ontop of your normal vision. Imagine going through a museum, and having the history of a painting scroll beside the painting, or getting directions to a place just by following the arrows.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The other real-world use of VR is "telepresence" to allow, for example, a specialist doctor in the US to diagnose and someday even operate on a patient in another country.

But since the pr0n industry never "got behind" VR it was doomed for the consumer market.

 

[Phoenix86]

VR has gone by the wayside. The only real application is games. AR, augmented reality, has many-many more applications. AR is like a VR helmet, that only gives you a HUD style overlay to whatever your viewing. It augments what's already there instead of building a virtual room. So a doctor can see heart rate, pressure, brain activity, while performing surgery w/o having to look at external devices.

 

[kalster]

another example of a technology which has/had great interest in the research community but which found it hard to be commercially successful


there is still a lot of active reserarch going on

i know for a fact at my school, there is lot of research going on, check out ( imsc.usc.edu)

hopefully one day you will be able to buy and actually use some of this stuff

 

[Hyperblaze]

I personally would be scared if a first person based shooter game came out in VR.

You can definitely tell the difference between fiction and reality when you are behind a computer monitor...

however, if it comes to VR, some folks might not be able to tell the difference anymore and start shooting folks in real life!!!

Don't think it's possible? Think of all the morons out there who had the internet.

You would be suprised the IQ level of some folks....

IE. do you remember a movie called existance?

 

[NakaNaka]

I always thought because it wasn't that immersive, made people sick and was too expensive. I think we need a little time before the cost goes down and the technology improves the immersiveness/sickness.

 

[WhiteKnight]

It's still there, it just isn't mainstream. I work on it almost every day.

 

[aircooled]

back in the early 90's when I was in fabrication, I worked for the sub-contractor making some 1st generation mass-produced Virtual Reality glasses... we made the plastic frame pieces through injection molding but non of the electronics....