Reality is What You Make It!

Hey its Brent with another Tech Tuesday post! I want to switch up my tech Tuesday post with a new series of posts once a month that will focus on products or technologies that are poised to explode this year. These include wearable tech, 3D printing, VR tech, and others. So check back throughout the year and take a tech ride with me (I know its corny but I couldn’t help myself).The first post that we will tackle this year will be VR tech and see if it will be a hit or miss.

First VR stands for virtual reality and is defined as an artificial environment that is created with software and presented to the user in such a way that the user suspends belief and accepts it as a real environment. On a computer, virtual reality is primarily experienced through two of the five senses: sight and sound.(http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/virtual-reality)

Now that we have an idea of what it is the next big question is why does it matter??

People have long wanted to be able to change locations, lifestyles, environments and physical abilities instantly. Many movies come to mind about vr such as Tron, Total Recall, and most notably The Matrix just to name a few.  In 2016 though vr has taken a sizable foot hold in a new market of at home vr devices that allow this experience to be truly personal to the user. I have had a lot of pieces of tech over the years from various companies and the products that do the best typically capture their following in 1 of two ways 1. building product that does what others do just better (quality, availability, customization, marketing). The other way is if the product can be transformative by either doing something new or being useful to multiple sectors of the population (having a device that is useful for home, work, government, private sector, popular on foreign shores as well as domestic).

The wave of vr really boomed in 2015 from 5 different stand points headsets are improving in size and comfort, gaming growth continued to expand, it has expanded beyond just gaming, new uses were found for vr and the most important part was that more money was invested into this tech(https://convergent1.com/5-biggest-virtual-reality-breakthroughs-2015).

So what exactly does this look like

most headsets are of three varieties

1.the the ones you hold

 

2.the ones you wear

 

3.the ones that are plugged in

So what does it do?

In a nutshell it does or will do basically anything that software developers can engineer. The basic uses will allow for truly immersive games that allow you to be in the game and not just a player. The other uses mainly have to do with training since almost any type of scenario can be simulated and that allows for the truth growth because everybody does not have a need for games but every company has a need to train for a multitude of situations (emergency response, fire rescue, plane flying, as well as used to show houses and restate, and these are just to name a few). The future of vr is big not just because it showcases new uses for the tech but because it shows that when the funding and usage for a product are on the same page the people and business will come!

some early vr game images below

 

Brent