"Virtual reality was once the dream of science fiction. But the internet was also once a dream, and so were computers and smartphones. The future is coming." - Mark Zuckerberg

For all the non-techies out there, Virtual Reality is a team used to describe a three-dimensional, computer generated environment which can be created, entered and explored by a person; This can be done most commonly through headsets, such as the Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR and even through your mobile phone! Going further, there are peripherals coming out in the near future (such as gloves, sticks and treadmills) that allow you to interact with different objects within these virtual worlds, fully immersing you in the alternative reality using haptic feedback (the sense of touch).

Virtual Reality can be used for everything from gaming and sports, through to medicine and even architecture, and is often used when testing things that can be seen as too dangerous or impractical to do in the physical world (e.g. training surgeons or fighter pilots). Because of this, the possibilities for where it can go are endless!!

Has anyone tried the Oculus Rift, or do they or someone they know own a PlayStation VR headset? As someone who has yet to try it, is it all it's made out to be?

I’ve been wanting to try out VR because whenever I go to Vegas the mall has these showcases for it but I never got around to it. From what I’ve seen, it looks pretty cool, but I think the main drawback for me would be the possibility of motion sickness, so I guess there’s a way to curb using it for large periods of time

I get to use a Vive for my dissertation, it's nothing exciting just a specially made program where you move around n a virtual space for the sake of the experiment I'm running, but it's still pretty cool even in a basic format like that so I'd love to have the PS4 VR and play games that way! It's so expensive which is my main reason I haven't got it, but I guess it is adding basically a whole new console with a new set of capabilities onto your existing console or PC.

It's definitely something I want to look more into.

 

For Camden's Masters dissertation he's delving into the world of 'Smart Cities', and he's been given access to a detailed virtual scaled model of the entire city area of Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead to use. I don't know what he's going to do with regards to it but he's fascinated by it so hopefully it'll be something he can show me.

It's at least a much more interesting thing to do than "fill out this questionnaire for me" :lol:

It's at least a much more interesting thing to do than "fill out this questionnaire for me" :lol:

 

:lol: I remember going to my local pub on quiz night and handing a couple of questionnaires out on each table. Once I got them all back I suddenly remembered that we were the youngest team by about 40 years and so all the answers to my "social media" questionnaire where a right laugh! :lol:

I have always wanted to give VR a go but I don't think its very suited for my disability most vr games you have to stand up and move around :(

I have always wanted to give VR a go but I don't think its very suited for my disability most vr games you have to stand up and move around :(

 

 

I wouldn't say that's necessarily true. Yes, it's probably going towards that with the addition of the peripherals I mentioned earlier, but for now I think it's perfectly fine to be sat down when playing a VR game (I see lots of people on YouTube sitting down whilst doing it, heck I would definitely sit down unless it was a necessity as knowing my luck I'd get motion sickness and probably collapse! :lol:).