Will I Get Trapped in Virtual Reality?
I really feel the need to preface this with the fact that I am not a computer scientist. Or a hardware engineer. I am but a humble observer of our society’s embrace of technological advancement. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t too long ago that the very best of civilizations would go on brutal and murderous witch hunts when confronted with an unfamiliar technology. Sure we don’t do that now, at least not in most parts of developed nations, but how comfortable are we really with tech’s next logical step: an integration into the very fabric of our observable reality.
By the end of 2013, Google Glass was on deck to be the leading user-friendly, consumer available, peripheral to introduce a relatively hassle-free and intuitive method of augmented reality. Someone may notice that I said “augmented” reality. There is a difference between augmented reality hardware and virtual reality hardware. According to Dictionary.com augment means to “make larger” but in this context it means to add on top of. What Google Glass did was add a digital interface layer over your standard non-augmented point of view (your eyeballs). Imagine Google Maps blue path line but on the ground actually in front of you. Picture being lost in a unfamiliar and foreign territory and being able to translate road signs on the fly. These were a couple of the capabilities of Google Glass and it seemed really cool. Of course it drew a healthy amount of retractors but what doesn’t that isn’t cutting edge. But for some reason it... flopped. Now, one could argue it flopped because of the marketing and promotion strategy, the price tag (a hefty $1,500 plus tax), the fact that Google had promised to introduce a consumer model cheaper than the previously priced “Explorer” model and didn’t follow through on that or the fact that people made a very big fuss over being recorded without their permission. They are all extremely legitimate in their own rights but I don’t think any of them are responsible for the stake in the heart that was the Google Glass program. I have strong reason to believe it is a problem much simpler at its core. A person can be smart, but people can be stupid. People are not quite ready to have their bubble burst. Even though it is becoming less uncommon, there is still a healthy percentage of the populace that is uncomfortable with NSA monitoring, government run CC camera surveillance and even some who are unfamiliar with these things all together. I mean how does it feel to know that in this day and age the wrong set of keywords can earn you a spot on the NSA’s watch list? So the thought of a third party organization crossing the boundaries of technology and privacy is rudimentarily nerving.
For brevity’s sake we will just look at the top three most promoted virtual reality headsets in the game (note: this doesn’t mean they are the best) and why they will most likely once again fall short of the mark. Year after year it is the same story, or at least in the case of the Oculus Rift. With a release set for 2016 Q1 there is a good chance we will see some sort of adaption take hold by a die-hard core fanbase but for the most part it will do worse than the Kinect and maybe even the PS2 Eye. The underdog, the Samsung Gear VR is the budget option for 2016 going for $99. And lastly, the one I want to pick a bone with, the Microsoft Hololens. Microsoft was foaming at the mouth during their E3 reveal showing us some very suspicious demo video in hopes of getting the market to salivate, claiming that Hololens would be available at the release of Windows 10 but has since then been pushed back to 2016.
The big problem with all these headsets, including the Google Glass, is that so few of us can definitively speak on the experience because so few of us have had ample time to become adjusted to them. Testers, devs, probably even executives and fellow inner circle members may have time to fiddle around with these toys but most of us have not. Which means it’s hard to give an objective opinion, especially for such a controversial product that can affect people differently. What we should ask is this: Are we ready to play Alice and go down that rabbit hole? Are we prepared for developers who will stop working on the next level based achievement app that becomes the subject of every choreographed dance on Twitter and instead ways to see other people’s heart rates, in real time? And statistics and algorithms being used to direct you through the safest route home? And all being able to see each other's backgrounds in the blink of an eye? Will it do more harm than good? How can we gauge that? We have to choose to make the transition as a whole or not at all. I'm confident this won't be the last I mention this so I'd like to leave you with an example and just sympathize, or empathize. A young woman is walking down a suspicious avenue at a very late hour. Approaching from behind, about 10 meters away, and your discreet, mounted heads up display (think Halo) sets off a small trigger and informs its user the authorities will be alerted if any damage or pain were to be inflicted upon her. Yes, that is a slippery slope but if that type of technology were available to keep your loved ones safe would you try to get everyone on board with it?