With the creation of the Oculus Rift and other Virtual Reality platforms; many gaming developers are trying to use Virtual reality to revolutionize the video game industry. There are many great ideas on how the Virtual Reality technology could be implemented or applied to create the best VR games but better yet, in regular life outside of gaming.

The application of Virtual Reality technology provides MANY uses outside of the gaming industry, particularly as a teaching tool that would allow hands-on learning of dangerous tasks, without any danger involved.

Software could be implemented to improve current flight simulators for pilots in training and also provide them with experiences their flight simulators can’t replicate without the immersive virtual reality which makes the whole experience even more realistic than the current training platforms. This idea could be brought to the law enforcement industry, allowing cadets to run through simulations of various high-risk situations so that they can learn proper protocol without the risk of actual lives.

Applying virtual reality technology will also likely be used to better interface with drones and robots, enabling the military to operate robotic assets from a safe distance (even better than now), or enabling them to scout out things from a bird’s eye view (maybe even using a life-like bird scout drone) over hostile or unforgiving terrain. Doctors, on the other hand, could use virtual reality technology with robotic machinery to perform delicate surgical procedures, controlling the machine with their hands and performing surgery as normal but with more precise machines doing the dirty work. This could also allow them to get their eyes in spots that were previously difficult to see without the help of robotics and virtual reality technology.

In the future, deep sea oil rigs could be repaired utilizing robots controlled from within a ship, operated by human hands controlling the robots, yet using the robots (in conjunction with other virtual reality technology) as eyes and a sort of exo-suit, performing delicate repairs using human input without a human needing to risk their safety to dive deep enough to perform the repairs.

A lot of these things sound like science fiction, but honestly, the sky is the limit and by transmitting live images to the virtual reality headset so that information is received and sent in real time will change the way we do things and hopefully improve a lot of stuff for a lot of people at the same time.

The virtual reality technology isn’t there quite yet but with virtual reality headsets hitting the market for video gaming purposes, it is only a matter of time before someone finds a way to add new functionality or software for a variety of other uses. On sites like Kickstarter you already see a bunch of new ideas for VR but they are not quite there yet. Future generations might learn a whole slew of things with the help of Virtual reality; all the while the video game industry might become something entirely new. When the DVD was released, no one could imagine storing large amounts of data on a disk; and now with Virtual Reality, the possibilities have opened themselves up once again.



