The future of virtual reality Today it is reawakening the interest of large companies as they realize its great potential and that is why certain companies have carried out new research that has led to the development of new devices that will be capable of providing a new future for virtual reality.
The future of virtual reality
After the immense initial boom caused by companies like Oculus or HTC and its Vive, then the world shrugged off expensive devices, which on several occasions require an additional computer that is powerful, which manufacturers do not give them. They have dedicated a lot of interest to develop it.
This makes sense, since it is more profitable to develop for a mobile phone market that today has hundreds of millions of potential customers around the world instead of investing time, resources and personnel to develop a virtual reality phone whose demand is limited. to a few thousand.
Likewise, the various attempts that have been made to democratize these Types of technology have been based on the potential offered by smartphones.
In fact, the big developers like Daydream, which is the virtual reality platform developed by Google, as well as the Samsung company that incorporates the Modern technology in virtual reality on your Samsung Galaxy Note 10, have been removed from continuing their research advances in virtual reality technology.
Is there hope for the future of virtual reality?
With all of the above, it seems that a revolutionary advance is absolutely necessary to guarantee the future of virtual reality, managing to attract the attention of investors to the virtual reality market again. So companies like Facebook seek to be responsible for this revolution by developing Oculus Connect 6 VR, which consists of a conference for developers.
Within this platform, headlines have been achieved that have attracted attention, as we will present below:
Hand Tracking: Future of Virtual Reality
Since the first virtual reality devices emerged, the use of external accessories such as joypad gamepads has been necessary to move and interact within a virtual reality experience. this represents a disadvantage since these additional implements are not necessary to use them in augmented reality devices.
In augmented reality, only glasses have been required, such as those offered by Microsoft such as HoloLeans or MagicLeap, which have allowed users who have experienced extended reality to interact using only their hands.
In order to eliminate this complexity, certain companies have developed different models of haptic gloves that eliminate the need to hold a controller. This has made it possible to provide a feeling of greater freedom and additionally provides a sensory response, which certainly complements the experience of the illusion of virtual reality, which makes the user feel that he is experiencing said reality the sensation of holding an object with his hand.
Possible solutions for the future of virtual reality
However, Facebook has managed to go a little further by developing devices like the Oculus Quest. This device will be able to interpret the motor movements of our limbs, including the fingers, without requiring any additional accessories, including special gloves. It is possible that this new functionality will be released at the beginning of 2021, although it was scheduled to be presented at the beginning of 2020, however, due to the global pandemic by covd-19, it had to be postponed.
From the social network it has been explained that for this to be feasible it is necessary to develop a whole new methodology that makes use of the cameras that are already integrated into the devices. These cameras would need to be programmed to count. With deep learning in order to automatically interpret the position of the hands and also the gestures that are being made at all times.
This has drawn a lot of attention because, as Facebook states, in order to achieve this goal, it has not been necessary to incorporate new cameras or develop a new iteration that incorporates new depth sensors or more processors. In fact, using only the devices that have been presented for a few years, it has been possible for the software, using its neural networks by applying deep learning, to have the ability to infer the movements and positions of the hands in real time. This new functionality will begin to be offered in beta prototype and will also be offered to developers as an SDK, which can be incorporated into games and applications.
FacebookHorizon
Ernest Cline describes in Ready Player One in the world which was the promise of the new virtual reality for many people. Subsequently, Ruben Fleischer brought to the cinema a world of virtual reality that he presented as totally open and practically infinite, which is presented as an improved version of reality where you can play, study, go to the movies, go sightseeing, do shopping. , start new social relationships, and other activities that any person would do in real life.
Currently, the experiences offered by virtual reality are very far from all this. Certainly, there has been considerable improvement in fields such as video games, multimedia productions, and even in some professional fields such as engineering. However, on the social level, they have only been able to offer certain chat rooms in virtual reality. although all this could have a significant change when Facebook finally introduces soon Facebook Horizon, which can be considered as its version 1.0 of the Ready Player One described by Ernest Cline.
Facebook Horizon intends to present this project as an infinite space where users can create their worlds and virtual reality experiences where actions can be carried out between users such as playing, exploring new worlds and what can be allowed. It can be considered as a second Life designed to be transported to virtual reality.
Facebook Horizon is presented as a space where the imagination will be the limit. Although it is early to determine if this platform will have the capacity to support and meet expectations, there is no doubt that if there is a revolutionary future for virtual reality, it will arise from these types of experiences.
Oculus Link
One of the goals left by the latest oculus connect 6 VR is to achieve as much as possible to democratize the adoption of solutions based on virtual reality. Commonly, at this point two impediments have arisen:
- For the solutions to be more advanced, a greater investment and installation of more sophisticated equipment is required.
- None of the solutions that have been presented, either from the start or even the intermediate ones, have been able to guarantee an experience similar to what the most advanced glasses can offer. This is because many times these solutions are based on mobile processors.
However, Facebook has achieved with Oculus quest that users become independent of a computer. In addition, by delivering these glasses, which even though they are not as powerful as its more advanced version called Oculus Rift, users have been able to access high-quality virtual reality content and experiences.
In the last conference that the company held, it certainly managed to capture attention with the presentation of Oculus Link, which consists of a USB – C cable support that, when connecting the Oculus Quest to any computer, will allow the glasses to run on the glasses. more advanced games and applications and that at the moment were only possible to listen to on the most expensive devices. In fact, Facebook will launch its own USB cable, however it seems that this device will be able to work with any quality USB – C cable that is on the market.
Passthrough +
One of the most characteristic distinctions that virtual reality has is the complete isolation of the user that it produces when living the virtual reality experience. Although this allows for a slightly more realistic virtual reality experience, it certainly has a downside. For example, if the user needs to carry out an activity in real life such as answering a phone call, or when performing the movements he accidentally bumps into an object.
For this, the new Passthrough+ was developed, which facilitates the change between virtual reality and physical reality without having to remove or remove the glasses to achieve it. This is possible, since only a button press on the joycon is required for the virtual reality experience to be interrupted.
When the Joycon button is pressed, the video cameras contained in the glasses immediately reflect the real environment surrounding the user. If the joycon button is pressed again, the glasses resume the virtual reality experience in which the user was immersed.
CTRL-Labs Wrist Band
Currently, Facebook is carrying out work together with CTRL-Labs in the most experimental area, which consists of a project whose objective is to interpret the neural signals of the human brain in order to convert them into concrete actions within a virtual reality experience. or an augmented reality experience. This project is planned to be completed in a long-term period.
The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has explained this project in the following way:
«In the future we want to achieve an input in which it is enough to think of something so that it is produced in a neural interface. Crtl-Labs are working to develop a bracelet that collects electrical impulses generated by the nervous system and converts it into a digital signal that we can use to work in virtual reality or augmented reality in a completely non-invasive way.”
Practical applications in the future of virtual reality could allow users to interact with virtual objects with the simple action of thinking about them or feeling their physical characteristics such as weight, textures, colors, among others. In fact, they may be able to interact with objects that only exist in virtual reality.
Currently the development of this device is in the early phases of research and development, so it will be necessary to wait several years before seeing this device on the market.
Mixed Reality
As expected mixed reality involves aspects of physical reality with features of virtual reality. However, for companies like Microsoft and Facebook, mixed reality is not only going to involve aspects of both, but can actually overlap or combine these two environments, which is capable of providing another level of experience.
In fact, it is thought that in the near future the platform will be able to scan a room and adapt it to be used in a virtual reality scenario where you can be and share with other users.
Basically this has already been reflected in the world of cinema as can be recalled in scenes from some movies. For example, the Avengers were able to hold meetings and interact with each other as if they were in the same room.
Another example could also be the movie Avatar, where the protagonist was able to feel, touch, smell, even eat all objects through his Avatar.
Today you are Facebook's commitment to the future of virtual reality. A future where this reality can be democratic in terms of costs, with less use of cables, which allows easy installation, as well as simple maintenance, and of course, offers the user greater freedom.
However, the biggest challenge that this presents is convincing users that the future of virtual reality would not only be virtual, but that it could also become a real experience and that therefore it is worth buying this product. .