philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

The Virtual Reality Renaissance Is Here, But Are We Ready

This is virtual reality, or at least the American Museum of Natural History’s (AMNH) brand of semi-immersive virtual reality. With a large projection screen,Microsoft Kinect V1 and a gaming PC, the setup lets you control the flight of a virtual pterosaur by standing in front of the Kinect sensor, flapping your arms and bending.

Though I wore no head-mounted display or earphones, the large screen and responsive, stutter-free motion achieved a remarkably immersive effect. As I stood in the darkened room on the fourth floor of the museum, surrounded by the exhibit's curators, developers and swarms of schoolchildren, I found myself experiencing that “floating head” feeling one sometimes gets from virtual reality.

If a non-profit like AMNH could afford the requisite hardware and expertise to create this experience, could virtual reality for the masses be far off?

Bailenson’s lab still uses expensive, somewhat proprietary technology largely devoted to psychological experiments: what it feels like to be a different race or gender, for example. He's especially interested in how VR experiences can change attitudes and ideas. One of his VR experiments lets you virtually chop down a giant sequoia, which Bailenson hopes people will remember when they run out to buy another ream of paper.

Even though Bailenson is still looking more at the implications of VR as opposed to real-world applications, he can imagine VR in five years transforming “the nature of what it means to travel, education, really redefining what it means to be in a place.”

Imagine a science course where you learn about molecules from inside a cell, or a Civil War history lecture conducted at Fort Sumner as soldiers fight around you, Bailenson said. Perhaps you'd like to take a trip to Yosemite Park, without the tolls, fuel expenses or inconvenience of even leaving your home.

See the full, lengthy article here: http://mashable.com/2014/04/20/virtual-reality-predictions/?curator=MediaREDEF

See the full story here: http://mashable.com/2014/04/20/virtual-reality-predictions/?curator=MediaREDEF