I FINALLY JUST WOKE UP TO REALITY. VIRTUAL REALITY.
Before you get me confused with a hardcore science and technology nerd, I’d like to point out that I still haven’t seen the new Star Wars movie and I don’t have a UNIX computer. I haven’t played a video game since Nintendo 64. All that said, what I’ve discovered is that all you probably think you know about virtual reality has been rapidly evolving this year and it’s set to alter your life in the immediate future. The way you get information, entertain yourself, shop and travel is likely to change.
If you’re old enough to have seen The Net when it first came to theaters, you may remember being intrigued by this “Internet thing” that seemed to suddenly appear out of nowhere. Two decades later, we shop, meet people, watch movies, look up directions, read articles, and do pretty much every other activity that we used to have to drive somewhere to do—on the Internet. But not everyone jumped on the cyber-train in 1995 when we first heard about it (do you blame them after seeing what the Internet put Sandra Bullock through in The Net?). Some thought it was just a phase we were collectively going through. It quickly caught on however, and has been the biggest life-changer since the printing press. Well, I’m here to tell you: the next life-changer is here and it’s virtual reality.
So what does this have to do with travel? If you’ve never tried out the Vive or Oculus Rift system, you should find someone who has it and experience it for yourself. As soon as you put the cabled headset on, you are immediately transported to another reality. Imagine taking a 3D IMAX movie and wrapping it around your head. Not only are you right in the middle of a virtual world that is frightening real, but you can move inside of this world and interact with characters and objects. You can visit virtual museums and go to places you’ve only dreamed about. The technology has been around for years, but we’ve only recently gotten to the point where computers are fast enough and high-end graphics cards are affordable enough that an average person can own a system.
The HTC Vive and Oculus were just invented and released this spring so if you haven’t heard of them, you’re not alone. Computer techies and serious gamers were the first to grab up the trickle of available sets, but now they are becoming easier to find on Ebay and electronic stores. I tried both for the first time a couple of months ago and was blown away. VR uses a proprietary network called Steam that organizes and runs applications where you can do things like painting in a 3D environment with impossibly cool colors and brushes and then walk into the middle of your art, animate it, and even toss it into the sky. You can take a ride in space or shoot zombies that will scare you even if you don’t believe in zombies. Then there’s TheBlu: Whale Encounter (See video below). It’s 90 seconds of standing underwater and watching a whale swim by. Doesn’t sound exciting? It is so incredibly realistic that you might start worrying about running out of air underwater. In the VIVE system you can’t see your body, but you can look around, look up, look down and the scenery is flawless. Tiny fish swim by you and dart around as if you are actually there.If you ever wanted to watch a whale underwater and don’t want to have to get a SCUBA certification and book a trip to the Maldives, then VR is for you.
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Source: Houstonia Mag