VR Tech - Exploring the World on Your Face

The virtual world of immersion has been depicted in many books, movies and over the last decade, Virtual Reality (VR) technology has made it to the hands of consumers to bring a totally new experience in the virtual world. As 2020 draws closer, the world can look back at its whacky approach to a virtual experience. Exact inception of VR is disputed due to semantics and clear definition of what can be defined as a true alternative reality. Modern 21st century introduced the start of VR tech for commercial use and most consumers will have tried or heard of some of the more popular headset choices available on the market.

Oculus VR is one of the most popular choices among consumers wanting to dive into the realm of everything virtual. Palmer Luckey created the first headset in 2010 and would later form Oculus VR, LLC a couple of years later with partners. 2012 would be the very start of a movement to mix gaming with such technologies for something truly Kickstarter worthy. Needless to say, success would follow in many iterations from the very first Oculus VR Development Kit (DK) 1 all the way to the latest variants of Rift S and Quest. Consumer markets have been seeing leaps made with better displays and tether-less experiences that track movement without the need for multiple sensors in a space. Immersion gets deeper and along Oculus’ journey, acquisition from by Mark Zuckerberg for a whopping 2.3Billion USD would be finalised in 2014.

Facebook has since been able to drive it's VR tech and collaborate with various other technologies to be at the forefront of alternative reality experiences. Head Mounted Displays (HMD) are fast becoming the norm for PC gaming enthusiasts and those who want to dip into the world of VR, products such as Gear VR have served as a taster for curiosity. After trying multiple HMD’s across different platforms there is much to be discussed but Facebook is keen to be the leaders of the VR world and continue to double down. Earlier in 2019, their standalone Quest product sold over $5 million in software and has been going strong but this is still a substantial way off of Mr. Zuckerberg’s million headset target.

Commercial use including, Arts, Safety Training, Property Showcasing and so much more can leverage VR to realise multiple cost and risk efficiencies in a business. Gaming is of course the other big side of VR and those who enjoyed reading/watching Ready Player One would often wonder just when alternative reality would shift into a true open world without bounds. Such a concept might be a long way off yet but games like VR Chat have certainly shown the social element of a VR experience.

2020 seems to be the year of Facebook’s latest effort in breathing life into the world of VR. Horizon is touted as a sandbox universe that will be the ultimate social experience where users can build and explore all over. Second Life was a very successful venture that saw the creation of complex societies with real transactions. It remains to be seen if Horizon will follow suit but with introduction of Libra, perhaps this is yet another extension of a greater vision that binds Facebooks crypto world to its users. I’d love to go hands on with this in the future and will be following things closely to see how things tie together in the new year. It is certainly posed to be a most ambitious and strategic movement.

Watch Facebook’s Horizon Announcement