Virtual reality: future or fad Bashny.Net

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The problem of futurology — that is, trying to predict the future — that's impossible. Trying to predict the future accurately and reliably is like trying, uh, to predict the future. Revise "Back to the future-2", then look at our 2015. No hoverboards, no flying cars, to turn your pockets inside out is not fashionable. But we have plenty of technologies that represent a natural continuation of everything we were doing for the last 20-30 years, and a culture that takes the best elements of the past and improves them.

However, there are some things that lead us to thoughts like "the hell are we a hundred percent, definitely and live in the future." You probably remember the feeling when I first picked up your first iPhone, which had yet to unlock and discover a whole new experience, which was not your ancestors. Your parents may have felt something similar, sitting for the first time in a personal computer, and the parents of your parents — when I first saw the TV. Further, in the first person, drew Millard, Vice.

After this weekend's Virtual Reality Los Angeles Expo Spring, I thought that virtual reality will soon give people the same feeling. Although virtual reality has been opened to mankind and tested on consumers in the past (you may remember the short life of the Virtual Boy from Nintendo), but now our technological capabilities have caught up with our design and performance goals. We do not have flying toilets or something like that, but we can attach the strap the smartphone to face and go into a brave new world.

Of course, it's possible that I'm just sipping the Kool-aid of virtual reality. If you have not guessed, the guys who work at the exhibition VRLA, do dream future of virtual reality. While the words open, on screen was shown footage from "the Matrix" and "Inception", two dark sci-Fi films that have a direct relationship to the modern generation of virtual reality. Johnny Ross, one of the founders of VRLA, asked questions that visionaries like Elon musk, the Wright brothers and Martin Luther king (in that order) could do with the technology of virtual reality.

Despite the flow Vasiunyk platitudes, Ross said a couple things. First, virtual reality technology is no more outlandish than the headphones, only for the eyes, and more accessible to people than they may suspect. However, the era of virtual reality has not yet come. Cosmo Scarfe, another co-founder of VRLA, said: "We are still far from the peak of this technology. But pretty exciting to watch the interest and excitement around the things that are in fact its preproductive".

Scarfe is quite an interesting person. As a student at the University of southern California, in the 20 years he found himself in downtown Los Angeles a hub of virtual reality. He looked tired and during the 20-minute conversation repeatedly apologized for the confusion. "Anyway, — he said, — I never doubted that virtual reality is an explosion, and he was right."

When I asked skarpa what he thinks about the ultimate goal of virtual reality, he said, "the Ultimate goal we all run in the direction of the Matrix is the life in an artificially simulated computer environment. I don't know when it will happen or what will it be like, but it will happen in my lifetime". And to pin it, I said, "If you die in the Matrix you die in real life?". To my surprise, he replied: "Great question!"and continued to talk about the potential simulation pain in virtual reality.

 

Currently, most VR headsets act as a viewfinder for your smartphone. Others like the Oculus Rift connect to the computer and shake the content. The headset fit perfectly in the existing technologies and enable developers to keep a relatively low price. On the stand VRLA was given away for free Google Cardboard headset from Google, made of cardboard. They are extremely cheap to produce, and currently Google Play and iTunes offer a number of apps designed for Cardboard. Meanwhile, Samsung released the Gear VR headset, the average price of which is $ 200, but it will work limited to the Samsung Galaxy smartphones.

For almost every level of consumer there are options of virtual reality. There is a Homido headset from Hyper, which is compatible with Android and Apple and costs about $ 80. The Oculus Rift, which is still under development, will cost you $ 350. Scarfe himself has said, "Apple is definitely working on virtual reality devices, but nobody knows about it. I think they'll wait until he does it properly and does not wash the rest overboard".

Now a lot of content virtual reality is created to identify the particular sensations, places less emphasis on the content itself. This is best illustrated by a pair of sensors at the show, which had to be tied to the legs to run in virtual reality. When I asked the developers about the practical application of such sensors, they suggested that they could be attached to the penis and get virtual sex. Other stands showed demoivre (mostly unplayable), the technology motion capture in real-time, one — holographic installation DJ. On another stand, everyone could just play Counter Strike. Old habits die hard.

On another stand were offered a gig EDM in virtual reality. I found that I was not interested in the actual performance, and the virtual crowd around me — people checking their phones, talking to each other, applauded, having no idea that I watched them. If I were at the concert, these people at best would was not for me no interest, at worst annoying. But in virtual reality, the music went on the back burner.

Other stands offered a more holistic experience. Reload Studios is a new gaming company that will create games solely for virtual space. They presented World War Toons, first person shooter with cartoon soldiers world war II, fighting on realistic maps of Europe. Talked to Reload founder James Chung, who once helped make a popular shooter Call of Duty. Chang is so excited about the possibilities of virtual reality, because "for the first time in history the audience is not separated from the stage — it is in the middle of an action that changes the dynamics of narrative form."

When I sat down to play a rough five-minute demo World War Toons that worked for Xbox, I immediately understood what he was saying. For its rough shape World War Toons provided a dizzying dive. Although I played first person shooters since school was always a sense of separation, when the missile flew right into my digital face: between me and the screen always had a space that didn't let me forget that experience experience is unrealistic. WWT in the world everything was different. Can't get rid of the feeling that I am fully in the game world.

One of the problems with virtual reality is that our spatial understanding is not quite caught up with technology. A recent study showed that our bodies have internal and external monitors that track our position in space. When they resynchronized, strange things happen. When I turn my head left, I see in the game world. When I press the jump button or run, my perspective believes that the body is moving, even though I sit in a chair. This mixture of confusing signals my body and brain, causing dizziness and nausea. You have to drink water and wait until it was over.

Kevin Mack, meanwhile, wants to use the potential of virtual reality to create dissociative sensations to art. Virtual reality, he believes, "is better suited as a medium for art than for telling stories and for games." However, he knows whereof he speaks: he was a pioneer of computer graphics in visual effects. Mack received the "Oscar" for best visual effects in 1999 for his work on Vincent ward's "what dreams may come" with Robin Williams in the title role, and his father was an animator at Disney. Not so long ago, he left Hollywood to pursue virtual reality.

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His program Shape Space is almost the exact opposite World War Toons. Shape Space is an example of exercises which the author calls "involuntary attention" during which the user is sent a 90-second journey where you go through an abstract three-dimensional sculpture, as through the clouds. It's very Zen, which allows you to drift in disembodied condition in a surrealistic space. When I asked Mack, when he decided to seriously engage in virtual reality, he said the following: "In 1973. I dreamed about it. And it finally came true. It was fun, when computer graphics were new to visual effects and we were the pioneers who invented the process. But it is quite new, and I would like to be a pioneer in this field."published 

Source: hi-news.ru