The future of virtual reality
From museum tours to staring into an erupting volcano, virtual reality (VR) already allows users to experience some incredible things. Every year, new technology is making the experience o f virtual reality even better – but how far can we take it?
Will we one day be able to enter a gam ea nd feel everything around us, just like real life?
VR is a computer-generated environment that gives the user the sense of being inside that environment. The environment can be computer-simulated, like a game, or it can be footage of real experiences, such as a museum tour. Users put on a special headset that allows them to look around the environment.
Many companies, such as Sony, Oculus, Google and Microsoft, have created virtual-reality headsets, and are used with games or specially designed environments.
A company called Tesla revealed its plans to make a virtual-reality suit last year. The outfit is called a Teslasuit and its creators say that wearers will not only see the computer- simulated environment, they’ll be able to feel it as well. For example, in the VR world, gamers will be able to feel the soft touch of warm rain, a heavy impact and freezing cold. The suit will also be able to sense the motion of your body and mimic these movements in the VR world. It doesn’t stop there. One thing scientists hope to do in the future is to use nanotechnology to upload a person’s consciousness (a state of being aware) into a computer.
Nanotechnology is the science and technology of small things. One nanometre is a measurement that is so small it is invisible to the naked eye. For example, a single sheet of paper is 100,000 nanometres thick. If scientists were able to use nanotechnology to upload someone’s brain into a computer, then the computer simulation would feel exactly like the real world. However, even though this sounds exciting, it is still just a theory – scientists haven’t worked it out how to do it just yet.