Virtual Reality is reality - Aftenposten

I’m in a hotel room in Oslo. In my head I have an advanced helmet that covers my eyes. While my body is in Oslo think my brain that I’m in an Italian country house. The grass is green and the birds sing, I can see the sea and mountains on the horizon. A beautiful little house is behind me. I walk past a fountain and into the house, up a flight of stairs and out onto a balcony.

Strong experience

helmet called Oculus Rift and consists of two computer screens shaped lenses that you put in front of your eyes. Using motion sensors in the helmet head record my movements so that the picture on the two screens follow my head movements. The displays are right up my eyes and thus fills the whole field of view my.

short, it feels like you are actually inside the virtual world to see.

It is a powerful experience, so strong that the individual is physically sick of trying. It’s something that your body will react to the eyes experience. When I move in a direction your body will instinctively lean in the same direction. The gap between the brain and the body experiences are too large for the individual who responds with a feeling of nausea.

Oculus Rift is currently on trial stage and are scheduled for release in 2014. The potential uses are many, even outside the game industry.

Historic buildings can be recreated as they did hundreds of years ago and visited virtually. Housing industry can create virtual apartments and houses that prospective buyers can visit before they are built. Skype conferences can be replaced with virtual meeting room.

Virtual Reality in the 90s was held back by expensive technology, poor usability and credible virtual worlds, Oculus Rift has over come all these obstacles.

Concern

immersion and the feeling of being present in a virtual world is the strength of Oculus Rift , but can also be cause for concern.

Parents who think kids spend too much time in front of the screen is hardly less worried about the kids now can disappear into game worlds with a helmet that covers their eyes. What long-term impact it can have on the eyes and brain to receive signals that do not match the body experiences we do not know much about yet.

Oculus Rift feels anyway like a taste of the future.

experience is unique, with a sense of presence I have never felt in games or simulators before.

Science Fiction author William Gibson predicted a future in which the Internet was a virtual 3D world to connect directly into the brain of the iconic cyberpunk novel Neuromancer . Oculus Rift is one step closer to cyberspace-vision Gibson.