Welcome to the new virtual reality

In the 2015, a variety of consumer virtual reality (VR) equipment prototypes are emerging, Beau that this is similar to the 1994 years of the Internet, its application is in the academic spring jump from the public lowbrow moment. This paper analyzes the reasons for the turn of VR, and analyzes the present situation of VR and the problems that need to be solved to realize the popularization of the consumer market from the aspects of human, system, standard and application, which is a good generalization of VR.

Like 1994 years of the Internet, the virtual reality is crossing the gap, from small to popular.

Timing is important for entrepreneurs and investors vying to bring new technology to market. Getting to the market prematurely can make people feel that this is obviously a mistake. But to put it another way, many of today's hottest technology companies actually do what they've been trying to do over and over again, and those people are very smart, but they're not doing it right.

This is also true of virtual reality, the ultimate vision of this technology is already clear, but given its dream beyond the reality of cost-effective, in its long 50 years of history, many technical experts and companies failed to try.

Frankly speaking, VR has made a lot of progress, although most of it has been achieved in the less-known areas of high cost, such as military training, resource exploration and so on. But the basic requirements for a large market-low-power computing, fast reality, micro, precise sensors-have never been met. Thanks to the smartphone supply chain, all of these components have evolved rapidly in recent years, and Low-cost, high-quality, compact VR systems are now possible. Consumer VR is really coming soon and things are starting to get really interesting.

It is tempting to observe a transformative universal technology that jumps from ivory towers and industry applications to broader markets. This is always unexpected, but history can provide clues to the future. If we compare the evolution of VR with the Internet, we can see that the moment we are in is very much the same as the 1994 years of the Internet. At that time, the Internet and its related technologies have been in the field of research for several years. But while academia shares these technological underpinnings, this scholarly network is not the same as the consumer web at the end of the 1990.

I had the first Internet experience in 1993, when the Internet could be called Web 0.1,netscape, and there was no sign that graphical browsers and hypertext would be the key to a web-overwhelming protocol like FTP or gopher. The internet, on the eve of the boom, shows a distinct degree of recognition and priority over the successor, and can recall how the technological ethos changed when the public began to surf the web. The logic of development has gradually shifted from satisfying academic and engineering needs to meeting the needs of marketers, designers and consumers. Many of the key design options before the advent of the consumer Internet were very good, but some were adaptable and bad in the face of this new pressure. Some design errors have been shelved with the advent of better solutions (based on the table layout for CSS), and some of us are still struggling today.

VR is at this exciting and fleeting moment, and the times seem ready to come, but every important question that has to do with the morphological nature of VR adoption and the effects of social economics remains unanswered.

Like the 1994-year Internet, VR is poised to cross the gap between the small and the Mass. Philip Rosedale of High Fidelity points out that 1 million people may have tried VR so far, but in less than a few years the number may be over 1 billion. As with the Internet, the dynamics of this technology socialization are very different in this scale. This compares to a small web development team with modern tools and platforms and the level of productivity 20 years ago. This is not just because things are much cheaper now, and because thousands of seemingly boring or crazy ideas can now be tried with minimal risk. Of course, sometimes you get chatroulette, but sometimes you get Snapchat.

But the internet is the only metaphor. Let's take a closer look at the current VR situation.

People。 In addition to academia, VR has now been firmly grasped by fanatics and innovators who are willing to do their best to tackle development-level hardware and to spare time for trivial system configuration and device integration issues. The entire ecosystem is essentially a handicraft form composed of independent developers, hardware start-ups, podcasts, and everyone is doing their job to spread the benefits of VR. However, the Future 2, 3 years VR creators and users of the community, skill level and awareness will be greatly improved. In this case, the development agenda will evolve into a response to the needs of a larger consumer group, first of all early adopters, then larger markets. There will be new people and organizations to gain influence, its goals and programmes will also be more in alignment with this emerging environment; it is now emerging as a webvr effort by web designers and developers to create high-quality VR content with familiar technologies and to make it easier to bring these experiences to the browser. This means that most people will be new entrants, not the VR "veteran" who has been in the field for years. This may not feel comfortable for the latter, but this shift is necessary for the prosperity of the technology as a whole.

System。 There is a tendency to equate Oculus Rift with VR platforms, which is a deep misconception. Indeed, rift is just a way of thinking, and different scenarios are certainly possible, and it is likely that subsequent versions of Rift will reflect very different design and technical choices-perhaps with more sophisticated optics, or different tracking schemes.

On the other hand, rift is completely different from what it was before. Rift is the first of a new generation of VR, from a more ambitious VR company: A major subversive, a touchstone for the coming years. It is not surprising that a young outsider intuitively realizes that the emergence of new components is indicative of a pattern change. Palmer Luckey (Oculus VR founder) is a good student of VR history, but his extensive knowledge of previous systems is based on extreme dissatisfaction and the basic assumption that things can be better for the hacker. This view is unlikely to be a market for pedantic manufacturers who are committed to a progressive academic environment or a niche market that is accustomed to cost-sensitive niches.

Therefore, it would be more appropriate to treat Oculus as a starting point and not just the newest and most advanced equipment. If the internet is to be compared, it's a bit like "another" Internet app after Netscape is Lynx: In some ways it's right, but it misses a bigger point.

Standard。 Although rift does lead a new era, there are still many problems with the software platform and tools that allow developers to create and distribute immersive content. Is there a vendor-oriented middleware and standard? Can these things be widely adopted and valued? Or will it be "contained and extended" to become irrelevant? As with the web, it is easy to see strong standards as critical, and if the experience has to be ported to every new hardware system, the whole area of involvement seems inevitable. But if proprietary content authoring tools such as unity provide enough interoperability, the criteria may be considered a distraction. There is so much to hang on, including which organization leads the groundwork for these efforts.

Application。 Who will become the first wave of consumer VR explosive applications? This is hard to say because there are several big potential consumer markets: games, live entertainment, travel, communication, sharing of social experiences and education. All of these areas are likely to be transformed by VR, but the time window will be different. Who would be the first? One thing is interesting, Oculus recently announced a surprising (and possibly short-term) decision to move from gaming to narrative entertainment. This may be because the input device lacks a clear technical choice, which is critical to the game, but is not necessary for movie applications. In short, it is advisable to evaluate applications based on hardware requirements. For example, social application is the case, unless the additional tracking ability, especially to achieve eye contact eye tracking technology, it is difficult to advance.

The probability of a new computing platform is rare. VR is at this exciting but fleeting moment and the footsteps seem to be getting closer, but all the major questions about the morphological nature of the technology and the implications of social economics remain unanswered. Some possibilities for the future of VR are certainly preferable to others: more equal, more open, and more attractive to the good side of humanity. We should be thankful for the dream visionaries who took us to the present, but let us not be afraid to acknowledge the need for many new voices.

No one asked me to host the party, but I would like to say: Welcome to the new virtual reality.

(Responsible editor: Lvguang)