A selfie in virtual reality.

A new age of VR is here.

Oculus Quest, the company’s first all-in-one gaming headset, does not require a PC connection (unlike its predecessors Oculus Rift or the more recent Rift S). It’s wireless, just like 2018’s Oculus Go, which was much more basic than Quest.

Quest tracks head and hand movement and body positioning within a room sans the need for external sensors. And it — along with its 64 gigabytes of storage and 128 GB version — starts at $399. The Rift and Rift S — and all prior VR tech — each requires a minimum $2,000 investment in a VR laptop.

Stanley G. Weinbaum’s story Pygmalion’s Spectacles

A Brief History of VR

In the 1930s science fiction writer Stanley G. Weinbaum’s story Pygmalion’s Spectacles features a pair of goggles that enable the wearer to experience a fictional world through holography, smells, taste, and touch. The description of the goggles in the story paints a picture similar to the VR goggles of today.

While 1968’s Sword of Damocles is often viewed as the first ever head-mounted VR display, Morton Heilig patented his Telesphere Mask, called Sensorama, in 1960.

Heilig describes his 3D video headset as “a telescopic television apparatus for individual use.” Instead of connecting to a smartphone or PC, like the modern VR rigs of today, the Sensorama used miniaturized TV tubes.

“The spectator is given a complete sensation of reality, i.e. moving three-dimensional images which may be in color, with 100% peripheral vision, binaural sound, scents, and air breezes,” according to the patent filing.

Although a commercial failure, Alex Lambert, Creative Director at immersive experiences company Inition, commented: “It’s amazing that someone did this with the rudimentary technology of the 1960s. That’s some serious ambition!”

He adds: “The Sensorama really stands as the definitive early example of a concept that everyone is striving for: how can we use technology to create alternate realities?”

Ivan Sutherland and his student Bob Sproull created Sword of Damocles, the first VR/AR head-mounted display connected to a computer, not a camera. This large contraption was too heavy for users to wear and so hung from a ceiling. Users would have to be strapped into the device. All this for wireframe graphics.

The term “virtual reality” was first used in the mid-1980s. Jaron Lanier, the founder of VPL research, had begun to develop gear like goggles and gloves for a “virtual reality” experience.

In 1972, General Electric Corporation built a computerized flight simulator featuring a 180-degree field of vision using three screens around the cockpit. By 1975, the world could view its first interactive VR platform on display at the Milwaukee Art Center. Called VIDEOPLACE, this early VR platform used computer graphics, projectors, video cameras, video displays, and position-sensing technology sans goggles or gloves. VIDEOPLACE required users to enter dark rooms with large video screens surrounding them.

SEGA Mega Drive Console and SEGA VR Headset

Fast forward a couple of decades to 1991 when SEGA announced its SEGA VR headset. The headset, intended for use by the general public, was designed for arcade games and for the user to grab a seat in the Mega Drive console as seen in the photo above. LCD displays were placed in the visor and included stereo headphones and sensors for tracking head movements. Although four games were made for the SEGA VR headset, the rig was never released.

In 1995, Nintendo’s Virtual Boy played 3D monochrome video games and marked the first portable console displaying 3D graphics. A lack of color graphics, software support and comfort doomed the rig to commercial failure. By 1996, Virtual Boy had been discontinued. Also in 1996, Virtual IO released the I-Glasses (a Virtual reality Head Mounted Display with head tracking) and Forte released VFX1 (a consumer-level head-mounted display).

Fast forward to the 21st century, to the year 2010, when 18-year-old Palmer Luckey created the first prototype of the Oculus Rift headset, which featured 90-degree field of vision (a first for VR tech). The rig depended on a computer’s processing power for images. The excitement towards VR had been reignited, and, in 2012, Luckey launched a Kickstarter campaign for the Oculus Rift, raising $2.4 million in the process.

Facebook bought the virtual reality company Oculus in early 2014 for $2 billion, marking a turning point in the history of VR. That same year, Sony announced work on Project Morpheus, DIY stereoscopic viewer for smartphones; and Samsung revealed the Samsung Gear VR using a Samsung Galaxy smartphone as a viewer.

VR became increasingly popular. For instance, the Wall Street Journal launched a VR roller coaster following the ups and downs of the Nasdaq Stock Market, the BBC created a 360-degree video where users can go inside a Syrian migrant camp, and the Washington Post released a VR experience of the Oval Office at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.

When during the 2017–2018 baseball offseason the Chicago Cubs were courting Japanese baseball start Shohei Ohtani to become a member of their team, they created a virtual reality experience of what it would be like for the star to play baseball at the team’s historic park, Wrigley Field, in a game setting.

The technology has come leaps and bounds since the Facebook purchase. The recently released Oculus Quest, for all its imperfections, marks a gigantic step as people are far more likely to use virtual reality when it is so user-friendly.

Virtual Reality’s Explosive Growth

Decades after the fact, thanks in part to the work of Oculus, Heilig’s vision has become a reality. A report suggests that the global virtual reality (VR) headset market will see explosive growth year-on-year and is set to be worth $38.7 billion by 2024. Yet, not even a decade has passed since VR was revitalized by Palmer Luckey with his Oculus Rift prototype.

Future VR Predictions for 2019

Last year saw the proliferation of a new type of virtual reality which can be controlled with the user’s mind. Lots of hype has surrounded controlling VR and even augmented reality (AR) with your thoughts. But, this year marks a shift away from that: although seen as important in analytics for optimizing headsets, it’s been found to be inaccurate in the current technological landscape, as well as being impractical due to the amount of mental effort required.

VR in 2019 is more the year of wireless, standalone headsets with six degrees of freedom provided through 6DoF controllers. The release of the Oculus Quest poses to be game-changing. Before it, high-performance VR experiences have come at the cost of expensive specialist hardware and necessitated a powerful gaming PC. This is a headset, which offers to bring VR to more people: its performance rivals any other on the market, even though it’s a standalone device.

Wireless headsets are being cemented as a viable path for virtual reality in terms of wider use. At the same time, new tech such as the eye-tracking seen in the Vive Pro Eye, and better image quality with constantly widening fields of view, means that the VR experience is slowly becoming easier to jump into and, more importantly, more enjoyable.

With its external cameras, the Oculus Quest marks a real foray into virtual reality gaming as a viable option for the mass market, with gamers able to roam around in arena-sized worlds. Critics may say with some truth that the processing power is still no better than a smartphone, but VR graphics have improved quickly.

Not Just For Gaming

Virtual reality has found a home in many industries, although gaming tends to grab headlines. In healthcare, for example, it has manifold uses such as the ability to ‘go inside’ the human body and view areas that are otherwise impossible to reach. Medical students currently learn on cadavers but VR offers perfect 360 degrees CGI reconstruction of the human body. Progress here could revolutionize how future surgeons are trained. Medical Realities is a project doing just that.

The future of VR in health provision has such broad applications that would be great to see more of in 2019. From a realistic Parkinson’s simulation to raise awareness for healthcare professionals on what it’s like to suffer from the disease to immersion as a distraction from the pain of physical therapy.

There will be many more uses out there and the next wave of virtual reality may be set to push frontiers we weren’t even aware of. But, beyond gaming, this nascent technology could be ready to revitalize the healthcare industry and start saving lives.

At Nanome, we transport scientists like structural biologists, crystallographers, medicinal chemists, and to the nanoscale so they can import molecules from the RCSB Protein Databank and manipulate molecules with their hands in VR.

The emergence of the Oculus Quest improves this innovation in drug discovery, and we suspect leaders in other niches feel the same way.

What the Experts Think

While VR brings to mind a dystopic future for some, encountering the technology in daily life is becoming increasingly common. Some argue that VR could help humans more simply socialize.

“I think people tend to be worried about every new technology that comes along. Critics worry that if we spend time paying attention to that new kind of media or technology instead of talking to each other that that is somehow isolating,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “But humans are fundamentally social. So I think in reality, if a technology doesn’t actually help us socially understand each other better, it isn’t going to catch on and succeed.”

He added: “You could probably go all the way back to the first books. I bet people said ‘why should you read when you could talk to other people?’ The point of reading is that you get to deeply immerse yourself in a person’s perspective. Right? Same thing with newspapers or phones or TVs. Soon it will be VR, I bet.”

Until the Oculus Quest, would-be VR users had to purchase a $2,000 gaming laptop. The Oculus Quest represents a significantly cheaper alternative with improved capabilities.

“Moving forward, a lot of the VR haters that complain about resolution, ergonomics and minor details will disappear,” wrote Nanome CEO Steve McCloskey. “We will see a lot less negativity in the VR industry.”

If you want to learn more about the future of VR in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), contact us today.