Virtual Reality on the road to replacing your television.

Virtual reality is fast becoming ever so popular maturing from what was just a few startups developing it to some mainstream companies joining in.

Yesterday Acer Starbreeze, Google, HTC VIVE, Facebook’s Oculus, Samsung, and Sony Interactive Entertainment announced creation of a non-profit organization of international headset manufacturers under the name Global Virtual Reality Association (GVRA).

This organization is set to be a board for carrying out further research and issue out regulations for VR technology making sure it is consumer ready and consumer worthy. Here is a snippet of the press statement.

VR has the potential to be the next great computing platform, improving sectors ranging from education to healthcare, and contribute significantly to the global economy. Through research, international engagement, and the development of best practices, the founding companies of the Global Virtual Reality Association will work to unlock and maximize VR’s potential and ensure those gains are shared as broadly around the world as possible.

Just going on the internet you will find a whole universe of VR headsets and it is fast becoming the most popular form of consuming media, even overtaking 3D because of how immersive it is. Believe me you have to experience it for yourself, words just don’t do it justice. Let me try and give you a quick look at some of the uses of VR.

Shopping

With VR you won’t need to waste time trying to figure out if Edgars has that suit you want with the right colour and size. All you do is put on your VR headset and launch an Edgars VR shopping application which then gives you a virtual tour of the store near you.

Throw in your frame details and a virtual mannequin pops up and you can clothe it and see the fit. Done shopping you just order and there you go, shopping in the comfort of your own home.

Medical

Now you urgently need a heart surgery but the only qualified doctor is in another continent. The equipment is there but no one qualified to use it. Well then the doctor puts on his VR headset and does the operation remotely. For critical, time dependent life or death cases this could revolutionise the medical sector.

Virtual tours

Museums could get a whole lot more interactive and engaging with live moving specimens. More so if it’s developed with the ability to interact with the specimens. Same goes for virtual planetary explorations or even some sights of the world.

Gaming

Gaming in VR is far more immersive than the best setup you can put up. (for me that is). It is far more engaging and entertaining and i’m pretty sure natural motion gestures have faster response compared to a pad or a mouse and keyboard.

There seems to be a solid future in VR. As a new technology it will not be replacing your LCD television any time soon but it definitely is hell bent on getting there as can be seen from the recent partnership of  Nokia and Sony Pictures to produce VR content.

The big game changer will most definitely be Augmented (mixed) reality dubbed Microsoft Hololens which is an interactive hologram that places virtual assets in the real world promising a life beyond the screen (though technically it will utilise some sort of screen).