De la Pena and her brother built the VR headset for Use of Force in his garage. But Facebook's $2 billion Oculus Rift purchase marked a new virtual reality mainstream.
De la Pena is acutely aware of the power of virtual reality. Since 2012, she's created journalism pieces for events like Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals. For her first piece, Hunger in Los Angeles, de la Pena recreated a food bank line in Los Angeles when the city's homeless and low-income residents faced food shortages. She centered the experience around a man who fell into a diabetic coma while waiting in one of the lines, an event witnessed and recorded by her team.
As Oculus Rift and other headsets become available, the public will probably clamor for experiences like what [USC's Mark] Bolas wants to build. Others will seek out the violent VR experiments someone else creates.
See the full story here: http://mashable.com/2014/06/26/virtual-reality-memory/?curator=MediaREDEF