Imagine a spider crawling out from behind your laptop, scurrying across your keyboard and onto your hand, then hot-footing it up your arm and into your ear.
Imagine a spider crawling out from behind your laptop, scurrying across your keyboard and onto your hand, then hot-footing it up your arm and into your ear.
Then imagine it crunching and munching its way through your brain matter, and popping out the other ear.
Not for you?
Okay, how about tearing along at 100km/h on a roller coaster with more twists than a koeksister?
Well, you can do it, while not doing it, and have just as much fun.
Recent developments in Virtual Reality (VR) technology are blurring the lines between experience and the illusion of experience so much so that it’s becoming difficult to tell the difference in some regards.
VR devices have been around for a while now, but they’ve mostly been gimmicky. None of them have really been convincing enough to the point that their users have had to continuously remind themselves that what they’re experiencing is purely digital trickery of the brain.
There’s a new VR headset on the block called the Oculus Rift, and it’s poised to be a game-changer of note.
It’s simply a sizeable pair of goggles with a screen for each eye, but the immersive, interactive 3D experience it creates is entirely believable and a helluva lot of fun.
I was privileged to give one a test run last weekend, thanks to a friend who has managed to get his hands on a development version (the commercial version will only become available sometime next year).
I can confidently say that the Oculus Rift is without a doubt the coolest piece of new tech I have ever laid hands on.
The Rift makes it scarily easy to suspend your disbelief and enter an alternate reality without leaving your current one.
Go for a roller coaster ride, float through space, wander through remote villages – all without leaving your house.
The graphics are indistinguishable from reality, but what really makes the Rift experience so memorable is the accuracy with which it tracks your movements.
As you physically look around (in any direction you choose), the Rift instantly and very accurately updates what you’re seeing on the screens. The field of view matches what you’re accustomed to, and depth perception and perspective are also absolutely spot-on.
The technology is so promising, and the experience so convincing, that Facebook has bought the company that makes the Rift for a cool $2 billion. That pales in comparison to the $20 billion they paid for WhatsApp, but is a pretty solid indication that Facebook is confident that VR will be the next big thing after mobile.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said this after the acquisition: “After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face — just by putting on goggles in your home.”
Using Google Street View with the Rift would allow you to ‘teleport’ yourself to Paris, New York, London or anywhere else that’s been captured by Google’s Street View cameras – no plane tickets required.
You won’t be there in real-time, but if you just want to get the lay of the land, it would be perfect. And it doesn’t end there.
Already people are experimenting with rigging up two cameras in front of the Rift, which function as ‘eyes’, enabling the user to use the cameras to view their actual physical environment, while introducing virtual elements into that environment. So you could look down at your own real hand, and ‘try on’ a range of wristwatches, for example, or look around your lounge and experiment with different decor possibilities.
The Rift has a host of useful and entertaining applications, but it’s not going to replace real, all-senses-included life any time soon.
I’m quite okay with the brain-munching spider remaining virtual, but perhaps a rollercoaster ride is not quite complete without the g-forces, the wind in your face and maybe the puke from the kid behind you in your hair.
