The Year Virtual Reality Becomes A Thing by Market Action Research
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Earlier this year at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, the MARS team perused through tons of technologies from big and small companies alike. Without a doubt we are definitely living during some amazing times with technology.
This year was the 5th year we traveled to CES which is one of the largest trade shows in the world currently. In years past there had definitely been some improvements from previous years, but it just seemed like most of it seemed like it was 50% cell phone case companies. In short, some of the improvements in years past were lackluster. This year however, CES which took place at the beginning of 2016 was a whole new year and experience than years past. We were seriously dazzled and amazed by the leaps forward that technology and the world had taken in one years time.
There were definitely a lot of takeaways from the show, and things the MARS team discussed as being the future of technology. We all walked away from the show this year agreeing that “this would be the year Virtual Reality becomes a thing.” For this article in particular we would like to point out some of the major breakthroughs in Virtual Reality (VR).
At the present moment, Virtual Reality is not very popular in the mainstream as of 2016. The cost of VR sets is expensive for most people, and the equipment and computer required to run these types of experiences can be very expensive. Additionally a lack of quality and quantity in content makes the high cost of virtual reality something that has been sort of a blocker for the average consumer to justify spending their hard earned money.
Also, less than par VR equipment had been released into the market that definitely gave a lot of people bad experiences with VR. The MARS team was lucky enough in 2014 to get their hands on a early version of a new Virtual Reality headset that was not yet available to the market for beta testing. At first, we were super excited to try Half-Life which was one of the first games to be programmed for the VR headset. This first version was definitely disappointing, and left a room full of tech nerds disoriented and nauseous. In fact, one of the guys was so sick that he had to go home for the rest of the day.
Although we were initially disappointed by this first experience, we had to keep reminding ourselves that this was still a first version and that there would be many improvements to be made. Fast forward to 2016, there had been huge strides in the technology. For one, many companies have figured out how to make the experience more enjoyable, while mitigating motion sickness people were experiencing. There are actually several factors that contributed to this, but some of the key points were screen resolution, FPS (Frames Per Second), and the mitigation of motion sickness with using more natural movements in VR.
In August, part of the MARS team went to the VRLA expo in Los Angeles to re-test the latest and greatest in Virtual Reality. We left amazed, and wanting more. The experience from before, and the experience now is truly a night and day difference. The best part about it all is that it will only be improving from here.
Just recently Intel announced they would also be entering into the virtual reality space with a new all-in-one platform called Project Alloy. This VR headset is packed with Intel’s latest technologies, sensors, and more. Unlike other Virtual Reality headsets, Alloy uses a Head-Mounted Device (HMD) allowing the user to go completely untethered. Additionally, Project Alloy also features Intel’s RealSense technology that is a real time 3D mapping sensor that can detect the world around it in real-time. We actually got to see some of this technology in person in January of this year, so it’s not something that’s “in the works”, but actually is here and ready to go.
There will be numerous applications for virtual reality. Some will use these platforms for fun, while others will find many applicable solutions for using it in their businesses. When personal computers were made available to the public, it literally changed the way people did business and it changed the world. We are excited to see how Virtual Reality will grow and shape the future of the web, because slowly but surely it’s already making moves!
