CS855 Week 6 Blogpost: Analysis of the Futurist Prediction for Virtual Reality.
As I have been dealing with VR for my innovation, I thought that this would be the best prediction for me to work with. In Halal’s Technology's Promise, the prediction is:
“the Internet will be dominated by VR about 2015. . . Our experts agree VR is likely to enter homes and offices about 2016, allowing virtual meetings with life-like 3D images, intimate conversations with distant friends, and almost any type of social transaction.”
This prediction is based upon what the TechCast.org sees as recent advances in VR technology: 3D stereoscopic imaging in movies, computer screens and televisions; internet immersion applications that allow users to walk around virtual objects in virtual ‘rooms’ and hold meetings with other virtual users (avatars);video games that are presented in realistic 3D (though on a 2D TV or computer screen) and increased use of video conferencing systems, plus other technology announced as under development by SONY, the US DoD, CISCO and Japan.
In my opinion, some of the prediction is a little conservative, for recent advances in 3D projection/display for movies, TV’s and computer monitors are already here and 3D rendering of images for video games and movies is commonplace and is fast enough to no longer require years of “post production” work as was necessary for such earlier films as “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (1988).
Full 3D movies (requiring special glasses, though not the old-style blue-and-red paper ones) and computers and televisions providing 3D via electronic glasses, plus movies video games, and television shows with animated characters or special effects rendered to look 3D-on-a-2D-screen are all available now, with varying levels of success. Most successful are the 3D-on-a-2D-screen video games and some 3D movies. The recent failure of several 3D movies (“Mars Needs Moms” comes to mind) has shown that 3D alone cannot guarantee success, and people (children in particular) really hate to wear those special glasses to get the 3D effect! Both my Instructor and my son who works in Special Effects have reported that the glasses often give the wearer headaches. My son says it comes from major cognitive dissidence between what is being displayed to the individual optic nerves, but regardless of the cause, people that watch lots of TV (like me) or play lots of video games (like my other son and grandson) will not wear something that gives them migraines!
This seems to show me that people are willing to accept the less-than-full 3D effects as good-enough until the technology for no-glasses and headaches 3D becomes available.
Recent advances in VOIP and Video-conferencing systems, while not 3D, are allowing people to make video-calls for business and personal use, so VR is not really needed at this time, and until VR becomes secure, easy to use, and able to be quickly rendered for fast response, it will not be accepted into common use in the business world. The prediction assumes that the Internet interface is high-speed (Which is pretty much a given for most businesses) and that the video card of the user’s computer is able to adequately process the images, something that no PC that my business provided me could do, and something that I do not believe is available for all devices. Good response and 3D imaging for video games requires either a dedicated video console or an upgraded Desktop or laptop system with a fairly advanced video card and lots of video RAM. The movies and games produced for mobile devices are pretty good, but not at all up to video game console standards.
My class uses Second Life to demonstrate its capability, and, while some of the class and my instructor seem to get good results, my laptop (and others that I have access to) never produces anything except slow, jerky responses and even slower rendering that gives me a less than enjoyable experience. Second Life has many adherents, both personal and business, but is far from becoming the center-of-the-cyberverse that it has been hyped to be.
But that is now, the prediction was for internet “domination by VR [by] 2015” and in common use in homes and businesses by 2016. I believe that we will have glasses-free 3D by 2016 and full acceptance into the home and office by 2021. I base this on the fact that many of us, myself included, do not immediately go and buy a new media system until it has been proven that the bugs are out. Now, the 3D that I envision is one that is more of what the sci-fi novels used to call a “holo-tank”, one that projects objects out into the area in front of the “screen” of the device. In last year’s move, Gamer, the director showed the home of a rich, spoiled teen-ager with full 3D capability, virtual controls and screens floating in space around the user and reacting to gestures, while another user had regular, non-3D screens that also reacted to gestures, but still required keyboards and remote controls!
The final piece of the prediction is that VR on the web will allow “virtual meetings with life-like 3D images, intimate conversations with distant friends, and almost any type of social transaction” to done in 3D meeting areas, chat rooms, and VR Video calls. This I am not sure about. On the one hand, the present generation is actually moving toward texting, tweeting and IM’ing and away from live phone calls (I have to text my own sons and grandson to get any real-time response; phone calls go to voice mail and I get a call-back hours or days later! On the other hand, they are becoming very comfortable with interacting in groups online via the various video games such as World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. Should the VR avatars be able to ‘talk’ just with text and look like things other than just the user, then they may be readily accepted for personal use. In the video conferences that I attended at work, many folks did not want to be ‘on camera’, but wanted to see everyone else, so the VR meetings, where people could attend from their desks and always look well-groomed, and be able to multi-task without the others being able to see what they are doing (as opposed to obviously checking email in a real meeting room), might help that problem. Again, the PCs used by the average business employee would have to be strongly video-capable, but in the next 5 – 10 years the capability of the least of our smartphones will probably exceed that of the best videogame consoles available today!
In summary, here are my thoughts on Techrast.org’s predictions:
VR to dominate the Internet by 2015 | Optimistic. More like 2021 |
VR in our homes and offices by 2016: | Pessimistic – some already there As envisioned by TechCast, more like 2021 Until 3D tech (SW & HW) improves, it will stay on the sidelines and mostly used for entertainment. |
Meetings in VR in 2016 | Pessimistic – some already there, As envisioned by TechCast, more like 2021 |
VR conversations in 2016 | Pessimistic – some already ther As envisioned by TechCast, more like 2021 |
VR social interactions in 2016 | Pessimistic – some already ther As envisioned by TechCast, more like 2021 |
References
Halal, W. (2008). Technology's Promise: Knowledge on the Transformation of Business and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, NY. ISBN-13: 978-0230019546
Mars Needs Moms (2011). IMBD. Retrieved on 5/15/11 from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1305591/
Gamer (2009) IMBD. Retrieved on 5/15/11 from http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=Gamer
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