1. Virtual Reality

VIRTUAL REALITY

You’ll never make it to Jupiter. You’ll never climb Mount Everest alone, live in ancient Rome, or stroll with dinosaurs. Not in this reality, at least. We’re in the midst of a revolution, one in which technology is on the verge of democratising access to experiences previously considered beyond of reach for the vast majority of people. Virtual reality (VR) software developers will be able to take us on spectacular trips anywhere on or off the globe (or to locations completely imagined) from the comfort of our homes by providing users with vision-enveloping headsets powered by more competent computer processors.

ENHANCED LIVES HROUGH VIRTUAL WORLDS We’ve already had a peek of the possibilities that virtual reality experiences may bring, with the first generation of virtual reality headsets already in households. Do you want to go shark cage diving? You can do just that using Sony’s PlayStation VR headset. Do you want to travel the world from the comfort of your own home?Puton Google Cardboard VR to see the world’smost famous places. Would you like to create a digital sculpture while floating through space? Its possible.

What about intercontinental meetings conducted through an avatar, a virtual you with all the gestures and body language that we currently perceive in face-to-face interactions? You’ll also be able to create the meeting’s environment — why discuss the month’s sales data in the boardroom when everyone would prefer to do it on a virtual beach? Such liberty has the potential to create entirely new global communities, giving each resident the illusion of actual proximity to their neighbours. Within virtual environments, this will pose crucial problems about identity and the self. What will it mean for human relations when you can programme your virtual-reality avatar to look anyway you want it to – perhaps vastly different from your real-world body? Would it even matter if all aspects of the imagination could be examined at will? How many of the real-world

Figure 14: Oculus quest 2 by facebook.

01 Sensors

Magnetometers, accelerometers, and gyroscopes are all used in conjunction with one another.

02. High-resolution Displays

The higher the pixel density, the better. Virtual reality experiences demand excellent screen images and a very high refresh rate to be really immersive. 03 Processing Units

These should be fairly powerful, as producing sophisticated 3D images in high definition with a quick refresh rate is a difficult operation.

societal standards will we want to maintain in an alternate reality established from the ground up? Virtual reality’s potential is enormous, and it appears to be endless. There may come a time when the distinction between your physical reality and your virtual reality is blurred. The possibilities are both mind-boggling and stunning.

From pre-school to higher academics, educational VR has the capacity to scale experiences. For example, flying a youngster from the United States to the Louvre in Paris to view the Mona Lisa would be prohibitively expensive, but for a few hundred dollars, an entire class could traverse the gallery’s hallways in virtual reality. Perhaps virtual reality will allow veterinary students to marvel at the intricate ligament systems inside a horse’s leg without dissecting a body. Once we’ve mastered haptic engagement systems - interfaces that allow us to feel the digital environment around us – all of these experiences will become even more immersive.

Figure 15: Oculus lens by facebook In the future, we may be able to wear full body suits that allow us to feel the gentlest of caresses or minute temperature changes in a software environment, as well as gloves that allow a virtuoso pianist to perform an intricate piece on a piano made of bits and bytes in front of millions of people, all with front-row seats.