It takes spirit to get things moving, and there is no doubt about it, that when it comes to bringing a dream alive, the risk takers, those with true entrepreneurial and innovation spirit running in them – where ROI isn’t the sole motivation… those people and organizations are sadly, located thousands of miles from where I am.

Reading about NYTVR, is nothing short of euphoric. They are bringing the world – the real world- closer to all of us through Virtual Reality. But, the NEWS in Virtual Reality… will it affect us emotionally?

Alternative Reality, and Human Perception:

If there’s any doubt about the psychological impact that a 3D VR scene is capable of on people’s minds, look no further than the military. Why does the military spend millions on state of the art Stereoscopic 3D visualization and display systems? The answer is simple – A Simulation of a real life scenario is the next best thing to actually being there.

CAREN, is a system built to help soldiers deal with PTSD, and other associated psychological and physiological battle scars, as is the BraveMind system.

Unless you’ve been living in the real world too long, you will have heard of the Virtual Reality renaissance, courtesy of corporations such as Facebook and their $2billion acquisition of Oculus, as well as every major player from Sony to Samsung, set to bring cost effective Virtual Reality eye-wear to the market.

Systems similar to BraveMind, are now affordable (via the current wave of VR HMDs and computers) and within reach for treatment of patients suffering from a multitude of such ailments. For the first time ever – Virtual Reality will affect Reality – on such a large scale.

Not too long ago, we came back from a 3D feature film, about life on an alien planet, and couldn’t but help feel that we actually had visited a fantastic planet with it’s beautiful jungles and natives. There are reports that the movie even spawned an Avatar cult following and provoked thought in many people about climate change, environment protection and senseless destruction of life and our planet. If such powerful emotions could be evoked for life on an alien planet… what about closer to home?

The News in 360 Virtual Reality… Will it affect us?

There is an on-going debate on the future of 3DTV, The reasoning being lack of compelling content to drive the 3DTV at Home initiatives. It is worth arguing that the news, if presented in look-around-Stereoscopic 3D, i.e in VR, might:

Galvanize us into action? – As passive consumers of the news, we have quickly become desensitized to human suffering, but just as soldiers are being immersed in VR, maybe the realism of 3D Virtual Reality news reporting could move us into positive action against the plague of war?

Or make us push that Donate button on the telephone, when we are “Standing” right there in the middle, wearing our Rifts, seeing the suffering of refugees or famine victims?

[youtube id=”wvXPP_0Ofzc”]

While the “Hunger in Los Angeles” video above taken from ImmersiveJournalism.com, is a recreation of a real life event… being immersed in the scene, wearing VR headwear, does have an effect on the wearer. Now imagine what might happen if this were the aftermath of a man-made disaster or natural calamity. While the news is sometimes manipulated – it might be just a bit harder to do so, if the audience can “look around”. Staged events to sensationalize a situation might be harder to pull off in a live 360 VR telecast.

The BBC – pioneering an investigation into 360 Virtual Reality Broadcasting?

Taken from the BBC blog: “…One of the experiments that we did was around our news operation in London. Using a 360 degree camera set up, we filmed our newsroom, live editing gallery and Fiona Bruce in the studio – we then ‘stitched’ together the various images to create a virtual reality experience that could be viewed on an Oculus Rift device…”

Today, credit should go to the BBC for spearheading the investigation into 360 immersive video.

Back in 1999, I was in talks with Remote Reality who donated two 360 parabolic lenses for my research into look around 360 video. Remote Reality was not involved in the project, but their donation made it possible to experiment with the leader in interactive TV back then – Open TV. The idea was to generate interest in local cable companies to offer 360 coverage of entertainment events (Soccer, Fashion shows, Film awards).

This was forward thinking from 12 years ago, but the project never really took off. For posterity – Immersive Television.com is enshrined by the Internet Archive’s waybackmachine.

VR and Social Networking

Facebook and Social VRTV Broadcasting?

The news in Virtual Reality does not have to be about suffering alone. Sports news, the red carpet at the Oscars and other feel good moments can also relieve stress from a hectic day at work, for people who come home, and tune in to their VR news channel.

Recent sporting events such as the FIFA worldcup brought the realism of having goal side seats and perimeter like first hand realism when viewed by audiences in 3D at Cinemas in many countries. With Virtual Reality eye-wear providing an almost 110 horizontal field of view, in effect, it is like having an Imax strapped to one’s face.

Will VR be the future of Broadcast Television? Will VR spell the end for Cinema? The argument has been made that going to the cinema is a social event.

Perhaps Facebook sees it differently- Facebook Canvas offering full immersion VR movies could give rise to a new house-hold acronym FBBO (FaceBook Box Office). It’s not hard to see Face-Book Payments being used as a gateway to live 360 Events streamed in look-around 360 while leveraging the Facebook API to seamlessly engage with friends across the world while watching FIFA 2018.

*edit*

The previous two paragraphs were from my 2014 essay. As of today (Nov 2015) Facebook does have OCULUS SOCIAL ALPHA running on their GearVR platform, which does about 95% of what I’d written about. Netflix has also embraced VR as will HULU, who is said to be releasing a VR interface this month.

The news in Virtual Reality might give us a glimpse of reality that exists outside our living rooms… and ironically, bring us closer to the real world.

(this article is adapted from the 2011 article, The News in Stereoscopic 3D – will it affect us emotionally?)