UPDATED: The History Of Virtual Reality - Cardboard Headsets, Reviving Toys and Changing The Porn Industry

Adam Milton-Barker | Feb 13, 2015 | Virtual, Mixed & Augmented Reality | 5068

 

One area of technology that began getting a lot of coverage in 2014 is Virtual Reality. The history of Virtual Reality stretches back around about 70 years. Cinematographer Morton H Eilig built a special moving chair connected to displays, a stereo and speakers, allowing people to watch In 3D. Back in March 2014, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook were acquiring Oculus VR (Virtual Reality) which marked the first stages in the evolution of modern Virtual Reality. Oculus Rift was born and the world has gone VR mad! Before this point, VR had mainly been known publicly for playing a large part in the gaming community, but Oculus pushed the limits of the technology and other companies started to follow suit. Also in 2014, Samsung introduced the Gear VR. Gear VR is a Virtual Reality headset that was developed by the combined efforts of Samsung and Oculus. This headset is designed to connect to the Galaxy Note 4 but is not available on any of the smart phones. One very well known advancement with VR was when Google made Virtual Reality accessible to everyone with a smartphone by providing an app that you can download through Google Play that allows you to turn your phone into a VR headset using nothing more than cardboard! The app is still free to download and you can either purchases the card board headset through suppliers linked on the app page, or you can download the instructions and create it yourself. Google and Mattel have also recently teamed up to to reinvent the historical View-Master by combining it with the Cardboard Virtual Reality platform. Virtual Reality continues to grow stronger than ever with VR headsets popping up everywhere. One example is a campaign that is running on Indiegogo which will be an affordable hands-free head set controlled using your Apple or Android smartphone with an optional Bluetooth controller. The VR headset allows you to watch movies and play compatible games that can found in the Google Play store and on their official website (http://4real3d.com). Early this year there was a lot of fuss about how Virtual Reality is now even being used in the porn industry, if you look around online you will find quite a few videos and articles from people that have tested the new technology which gives you the feeling you are actually in the middle of the scene, you can apparently even swap sexes which seemed to make a few people feel uneasy, unfortunately I haven't shared any of the videos but feel free to check them out online. One of the major benefits of Virtual Reality is that the technology is so cheap and accessible, development kits are available that allow developers to integrate the technology into their own projects bringing unlimited possibilities and crazy new apps. Augmented reality is definitely not a technology of the future anymore, soon everyone will be using it, just how far the rabbit hole will go is another question. Check out the images and videos below to see how virtual reality is being used today.