Brief History of Virtual Reality
Link C3 Flight Simulator
The first tech-based Virtual Reality concept was designed in the 1920's and was meant to serve as a flight simulator for novice pilots. Since then, we've dramatically redesigned the hardware involved and have made strides to making Virtual Reality a revolutionary experience. However, not only until recently have we actually noticed any significant advancements in Virtual Reality applications. Currently, firms are betting heavily on the odds of VR actually becoming a standard in areas such as gaming, medical training, and national defense training. However, rather than turning a point in history we've mostly become consistently disappointing and have flooded and overwhelmed the VR market. One of the major issues surrounding the acceptance of VR in the tech community is the real lack of comfort and safety issues involved regarding a user's experience. Consequently, these two negative binding forces have not allowed VR to grow to its true potential.
Lack of Comfort
Although we have come a long way since the Link C3 Flight Trainer we're still miles away from developing mainstream-ready hardware. Currently, the industry relies heavily on clumpy head-gear with large fields of view that may cause an individual to experience VR motion related sickness. The motion sickness experienced in VR causes the brain significant issues with the movement the eyes are seeing when immersed and the lack of motion the body is feeling. Because of this, many users experience a lack of comfort and will stop using the system completely due to fear of simply getting sick. Consequently, this display technology may cause individuals to trip and fall- making for some entertaining videos.
Health and Saftey Issues
It is not possible to accurately tell what the long term effects of VR immersion are- one can only speculate from current indications. First, the most obvious safety issue regarding VR immersion is the strain on your eyes it causes from looking at a screen so close to your face. According to scientific trials conducted on rats, this strain on the eyes and lack of physical awareness caused by ordinary VR hardware has been shown a drastic shut down of 60% of neurons in the brain (CNBC). This major shut down in brain activity has the potential to damage our mapping of our physical location of space, memory, learning, and dreaming (livescience). Although the true long-term damages of VR technology are still unknown it is important to understand them in order to develop hardware and software that can mitigate the risk involved. Understanding the health and safety issues regarding VR will be detrimental to the success of VR technology becoming a successful standard.
So, What Can Be Done?
Essentially, we don't know yet. Mostly because we're still trying to understand the true effects of the system and what we can do to allow the brain to act and react normally when immersed. We don't know how negative the effects of long-term VR can be on the brain- we can just speculate. Nevertheless, some of the steps that can be taken in order to increase the level of comfort and improve long-term safety issues concerning VR are:
1. Reduce hardware barriers- create slicker, lighter, and friendlier headgear
2. Increase the number of gaze sensors in head gear
3. Creating a more organic experience
4. Restricting the field of view to reduce motion sickness
5. Focus on human-machine interference. How do we process information?
Sources
CNBC- http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/08/virtual-reality-are-health-risks-being-ignored-commentary.html
LiveScience- http://www.livescience.com/49669-virtual-reality-health-effects.html
CNET- https://www.cnet.com/news/the-dangers-of-virtual-reality/
https://www.cnet.com/news/virtual-reality-is-taking-over-the-video-game-industry/
NewAtlas- http://newatlas.com/columbia-university-vr-motion-sickness/43855/
TechCrunch- https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/03/virtual-reality-is-about-to-go-mainstream-but-a-lack-of-content-threatens-to-hold-it-back/
TechRepublic- http://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-ways-virtual-reality-is-revolutionizing-medicine-and-healthcare/
Recode - https://www.recode.net/2015/3/2/11559592/its-official-there-are-too-many-virtual-reality-headsets
Army- https://www.army.mil/article/84453
So, What Can Be Done?
Essentially, we don't know yet. Mostly because we're still trying to understand the true effects of the system and what we can do to allow the brain to act and react normally when immersed. We don't know how negative the effects of long-term VR can be on the brain- we can just speculate. Nevertheless, some of the steps that can be taken in order to increase the level of comfort and improve long-term safety issues concerning VR are:
1. Reduce hardware barriers- create slicker, lighter, and friendlier headgear
2. Increase the number of gaze sensors in head gear
3. Creating a more organic experience
4. Restricting the field of view to reduce motion sickness
5. Focus on human-machine interference. How do we process information?
Sources
CNBC- http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/08/virtual-reality-are-health-risks-being-ignored-commentary.html
LiveScience- http://www.livescience.com/49669-virtual-reality-health-effects.html
CNET- https://www.cnet.com/news/the-dangers-of-virtual-reality/
https://www.cnet.com/news/virtual-reality-is-taking-over-the-video-game-industry/
NewAtlas- http://newatlas.com/columbia-university-vr-motion-sickness/43855/
TechCrunch- https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/03/virtual-reality-is-about-to-go-mainstream-but-a-lack-of-content-threatens-to-hold-it-back/
TechRepublic- http://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-ways-virtual-reality-is-revolutionizing-medicine-and-healthcare/
Recode - https://www.recode.net/2015/3/2/11559592/its-official-there-are-too-many-virtual-reality-headsets
Army- https://www.army.mil/article/84453
I like this topic because it is become super relevant as of late. With VR for PS4 out and for Samsung phones, this subject is definitely becoming more of a talking point for gaming and training. I watched a documentary where pilots have to go through extensive virtual training before they can fly Marine One.
ReplyDeleteOur classmate, Ben, has VR for PS4 and I can most definitely vouch for the strain on eyes health concern. After about 35 minutes or so with the headset on, you can tell that your brain gets a little stressed and the eyes take a little bit of time to recover.
As Chris stated, I own a PSVR, which is considered at least relatively top of the line today. Some of these points hit home, as the headset is uncomfortable, massive, and I can only use it for 30min at a time due to the motion sickness that it causes in some of the more fast moving games (virtual rollercoasters, car racing, etc.). I mostly don't use the device anymore, as it's not fun spending the rest of the day with a headache. I look forward to seeing the new advances in VR technology, and hopefully ironing out these motion sickness and other long term issues.
DeleteVery interesting topic. It is amazing how far virtual reality has come since its inception a century ago. This made me think about this video that I came across while doing research for my tech topic. It explains that there is a very large chance that we are in fact living in a simulation, and everything we do in our lives is part of some computer program. The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0KHiiTtt4w
ReplyDeleteIt is so hard to accept the fact that VR headsets can have negative effects for your health because they are so cool to use. I have seen some videos on how they are trying to make applications less motion intensive. As well as Oculus preparing to create a wireless headset which could help people avoid physical injuries that come with spinning around in wires.
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