Last month, I presented a webinar concerning some developments in emerging technology. One of the topics I didn’t really cover was virtual reality (although I did spend some time discussing augmented and mixed realities). The actual technology itself hasn’t made much progress since it was originally introduced. Many of the original problems have not yet been resolved, such as the lack of eye-tracking and vertigo in users. Just a month ago, the news surrounding VR was, essentially, uneventful. Yet here we are, only a month later, and the VR news has been much more interesting.
- All-you-can-stream VR porn will cost you $25 per month [Engadget] “VR porn is many things, but cheap isn’t one of them. Just like conventional movies, you’re going to pay a pretty penny to own anything that isn’t free. For VRPorn.com, the solution is obvious: turn virtual smut into a subscription service. “
- Virtual reality improves offenders’ empathy [Science News] “Researchers have developed a virtual reality system so that men who committed a domestic violence crime can get into the victim’s shoes. The study shows that these violent people have a lack of emotional recognition and that virtual experience improves the participant’s perception of emotions.”
- The One Reason Why Many Millennials Would Use Virtual Reality Products At Work [Forbes] “The above study reported that 66% of millennials believe that VR for training purposes will allow them to train from anywhere and on their own time schedules. And AR/VR training experiences, because of their realistic nature, provide a realistic experience for those involved in the training.”
- Welsh police force is first in U.K to use virtual reality to train its officers [DigitalTrends.com] “The technology makes it possible to train officers to deal with situations that they may encounter on the streets, and to test how they react to various scenarios, which is difficult to ascertain under routine training conditions, but can potentially be replicated (or replicated as closely as possible) by using immersive VR.”
From the Ohio Web Library:
- The Illusion of Reality: The shocking power of virtual reality was all the buzz once before—about 150 years ago (Thompson, C. (2017). The Illusion of Reality: The shocking power of virtual reality was all the buzz once before–about 150 years ago. Smithsonian, 48(6), 18. )
- Why Virtual Reality Will Transform a Workplace Near You (Kugler, L. (2017). Why Virtual Reality Will Transform a Workplace Near You. Communications Of The ACM, 60(8), 15-17. doi:10.1145/3105444)
- 1 Billion People in Virtual Reality (1 billion people in virtual reality. (2018). Adbusters, (136), C5. )
