If you were playing videogames or frequenting arcades around the early-to-mid-90's, you probably remember "virtual reality"... you were maybe even convinced, like many people were, that it was the future of video gaming. We were taunted with the concept of people in full-body suits, connected to VR headsets, and spinning around in oscillating harnesses--participating in an experience so hyper-real that we would lose ourselves in the game world!

Of course, reality turned out to be quite different. The games you probably saw in the arcade did indeed feature stereo-vision 3D visors and maybe some sort of simple apparatus for movement, but the graphics were rendered by machines that had no business trying to create a convincing world. The result looked a lot like Star Fox on the SNES, but with even lower framerates... hardly immersive. The only VR game I ever tried featured admittedly impressive head- and gun-tracking, but was so painfully simple and on-rails that it didn't even warrant a second try.

Thanks to a rather poor first impression and the decline of arcades, Virtual Reality is a thing of the past, with only elements of it living on (headsets still exist, and gyroscopes and accelrometers are being used in today's game consoles).

But still, I wonder: Now that we have much more powerful computers and graphic chipsets, and 3D visuals are becoming popular, and motion-gaming is the latest thing, do you think Virtual Reality would have a chance if it came back? Assume for the sake of discussion that there was actually a place (like at the mall) where you could go, pay a fee, and strap yourself in to try it. Would Virtual Reality be accepted better now that our technology has possibly caught up with its promise?

I think it comes down to two things.

While the technology is arguably there, is anyone going to invest enough for public recreation, say, to feature it in a prominent mall as a novelty? The idea is a pricy chance, and in this day of remakes, prequels, and other mediocre safe bets, I have a hard time imagining there's an investor who wants to try without beads of sweat running down his neck. Could it happen. Sure, anything's possible. I just don't see it happening right now.

As an arcade rat, I remember the old one... it was little intimidating looking (the thing was a monstrosity) as a youth and the screen I watched didn't particularly impress me. The cost was equally prohibitive to play, something like five bucks a pop. Sure, it was new. But it didn't make a desire for anyone to really want to play it more than perhaps once for the novelty value.

Second, would they make anything worth playing? I remember there being several games, but most prominently 'Dactyl Nightmare'. No one seemed to understand what they were supposed to do in the game other than plunk in money and ambiguously lose while struggling to figure out what to do.

There's some good articles online about this topic, some which touch upon the idea that certain games might be better than others for VR, such as flight simulators. Frankly, I'd enjoy a little VR Pacman!

Come to think of it, there's the immersion factor. The old unit didn't give you a normal range of view whatsoever. That could probably worked around, but the more technology applied, at least at the start, the more gear a person might be required to don. It might get kind of irritating to wear a sweaty helmet/visor plus gloves and whatever else for longer periods of time. Sony supposedly patented some process to beam wavelengths at the user to simulate the five senses, though. In that sense, the potential technology is still evolving.

Virtual reality was an important step to introduce new hardware mechanics, but tried to do too much too soon. The hardware required was too expensive (and still is as some people still use headsets for PC gaming) for the consumer market and really only appealed to the wealthy or obsessive gadget communities.

I doubt that kind of gaming will make a return, at least not in the same form it was presented to us in back in the 90's. Instead, a number of companies are really pushing to bring costs down and create working augmented reality devices. I honestly believe that as hardware gets more streamlined and the devices we use become more unified, we will start to see augmented reality devices take the place of standard TVs, computers, gaming systems, etc. Such devices could integrate with all sorts of electronics from a central hub in the house to provide basic information about the home systems, create virtual worlds, talk on the phone, browse the internet, or display movies, to acting as cell phones, to integrating with cars to provide less distrating HUD displays while driving, complete with GPS and internet provided "hotspots" and traffic monitors.

A major advantage would be the system could be set up to overlay data on top of the real world, use sensors to detect real world obstacles, and since it is stereoscopic, it would automatically present the virtual elements in 3D and support 3D displays in a natural way without shuttering, tints, micro-lenses, or image distortion. For movies, you could set your "viewing distance" and either lock the image so that it doesn't change as you move your head, or allow for head tracking. The devices could interface with wireless hubs for direct connections to networks and systems or use cellular connections for basic phone and web services. This would allow it to serve as a display and control device for entertainment systems like gaming, TV, music, reading, and the internet, as well as for productivity applications and as locked integration (your unit ID would need to be added to their specific network to gain access) for businesses or entertainment centers.

Virtual reality was a concept ahead of its time, and likely still ahead of its time. We don't have the technology to create Matrix style worlds that we can interact with physically, as was their original goal, but augmented reality is here now, and not out of reach if the companies working on the technology could come up with a reliable standard for consumer use. We already see apps for modern phones that implement a number of these features. Having a separate "interface device", which simply housed the basic I/O equipment and the ability to uplink with cell phones and other devices would not be that big a stretch with today's technology, and hardware gets smaller and more affordable every year.

Well, I don't see how flight simulators are that suited to VR, at least not with the full-body participation that Hawk was talking about. I mean in a flight sim you'd just sit there. :]

I dunno. The closest I've come to that sort of thing was the old nintendo mat, you could step on circles to register running a race or jumping in nintendo olympics. It was fun but I was what, twelve? I wouldn't want to do that nowadays, I'm old and I like my comfy chair. I'm also slightly worried about this 3D tv stuff, 3D actually makes me a bit nauseous and I'm just not interested in it at all. I thought there was a study which said that 3D hinders eyesight development in kids.

I would be cool with the kind of thing Isukun was talking about though, like the information displayed on car windshields (which I've heard about before). If that sort of thing were implemented into video games (to bring it back to Hawk's question, sort of) I could see "virtual reality" in the form of game information, menus, etc being displaced from the game screen and moved elsewhere, controlled by some movement or gesture perhaps. They do things like laser-projected keypads already, so something like that could link into a game pretty readily.

Believe it or not, the stuff seen in fiction does have a huge impact on real-life technology. And since everything in this topic that's been mentioned has appeared in movies, it's most likely been considered in actual development as well.

But I think Cherno brings up a good point - whether we see this stuff in the market or not comes down to practicality. The stuff we want to see in the future, for instance hover cars, won't come around for the general public until they end up being marketable. It's funny, hover cars actually do exist right now and are fully functional (though the mileage is a bit low) but what sort of dealership would honestly want to put them out? There really isn't that much of a demand for it, especially in the middle a crisis where alternative fuel sources are the bigger pressing issues.

When it comes to VR, it's had quite the history in the military sector. In fact, much of the equipment found in arcades first appeared in military training sessions. As of right now, military technology is going two ways. It's either improving manned suits to provide more sensory functions or controlling some sort of "drone counterpart" remotely. The latter is already sort of done with aircraft, but it's not, well, virtual.

So where am I going with this whole military thing, right. I feel like the whole virtual reality concept from the sciences got shifted into video game development at some point because of the potential appeal and innovation it would have. Even Nintendo came out with their own little device. But it really never lived up to anyone's expectations, and I'm sure the companies that made that leap would consider it a flop in retrospect. So now there has to be something really big before they jump back into the VR concept so as not to make the same mistake twice.

You guys made some interesting points. It's kind of like Virtual Reality didn't really die, it just divided its interests into more practical venues. Still, I can't help but feel like the videogame industry has nevertheless been secretly (or even unknowingly) working its way toward a more perfect Virtual Reality experience. I mean, here we have people waving motion-sensing wands in front of 3D televisions with expensive 3D glasses... It's like we're taking a roundabout way to get the same thing. Apparently the real Virtual Reality experience will get to us when both technology and economy allow it.

I'm glad isukun brought up Augmented Reality. I hadn't even thought of its relation to Virtual Reality, but it's just one more fascinating direction for the technology to go. I haven't yet played a truly excellent Augmented Reality game, but I'm sure they're on the way. The Playstation Move and the 3DS are taking their first steps into that realm.

There are some elements of that technology that do factor into augmented reality, but I find stuff like Layar to be a far more impressive use of it. It's also a much better indicator of where they are trying to take it. Augmented reality has a lot more potential than just gaming. If you're into anime at all, a great series to watch to see the sort of thing I'm talking about is Denno Coil. Although they really focus on the internet and gaming applications, the glasses they use pretty much work the same way as what I described, although I see the glasses as more of an I/O device with the motion sensors, GPS, accelerometer, and screen, but would still need to interface through a wifi connection to an actual computer system to process data. It's basically a lightweight, low power monitor and controller.

The screen could use a dual layer approach with the same LCD tech they use in the current 3D shutter glasses, but with a microchip which allows for more precise pixel and transparency control. Overlayed on top of that would be an OLED mesh which creates light and color. When a virtual object physically blocks something behind it, the LCD screen creates an opaque backdrop, over which the OLED creates an image. This would eliminate the need for backlighting and allow for an adjustable brightness on the screen. Dual sensors on the upper corners would detect motions and physical objects so the computer interface could interpret the data and actually have the virtual objects interact with or pass behind physical people or objects.

Nausia from 3D is often caused by minor variations in eye composition. The point of perspective for each eye varies slightly from person to person. Eyes are spaced out differenty, many people have distorted eye shapes, or other factors which can change how each individual views the world. Current 3D uses a standard which does not take into consideration that variation. As a result, people whose eyes differ from the norm (which is actually a majority of people), see things differently from how 3D film represents it. As a result their brain, which is calibrated to how they see the world normally, has to readjust to how the 3D film represents the world and is forced to do more work. In addition, it flips a trigger in our brain which interprets the distorted perspective as the effects of a toxin. The headaches and nausia are usually the result of your body trying to fight a non-existant toxin. This probably wouldn't help much for modern movies, since the two perspectives are already set, but for future technology and games, it would be possible to shift the perspective of the eyes slightly to calibrate the software to display things as the individual sees them. It's a MUCH better system than what we use now, plus it would allow people to basically set their screen size to whatever they wanted. Resolution and screen size could be standardized and people wouldn't need bulky TV sets to get a good sized picture.

The only problem right now is that due to a lack of standardization, such a device would be costly to manufacture and hard to develop for. You'd probably be looking at the same kind of price tag you see on high end cell phones ($600+) just for a single unit. Considering you wouldn't need major advancements in the technology, apart from making new, more streamlined models, though, the price would probably fall fairly quickly. As much as I had Apple, it's the kind of technolgy I would like to see them push forward. They have a reputation as trend setters, even if their ideas are basically just rehashes of existing technology, and they have a knack for getting developers behind new tech.

I'm actually still not sure how a pair of glasses would be able to sufficiently provide superimposed data or this augmented reality just yet.

The technology in the 3D shutter lens glasses do provide higher resolution stereoscopic view, except that's with the conjunction of a LCD monitor providing the projection for you. An idea proposed a few years ago suggested that a tiny monitor be placed inside the lens of the glasses to aid with that projection - in theory it worked. But in practice it turned out to be so detrimental to the vision of the wearer, much in the same way you should distance yourself from a regular monitor so as to retain quality of vision, that the idea was tossed. I even saw a commercial for the product before never hearing of it again.

I feel like the research should be put more into providing more "main screens" and working on those projections of augmented reality and using glasses as visual aids. Sure, it will eliminate the possibility of providing an enhanced environment everywhere you go, but I feel this would segue into an explosion of digital replacements of everything (books, magazines).

But maybe this wasn't your idea anyway (overlaying data on the real world anywhere), with the mention of a required connection, obviously leading to some proximity parameters.

I say all this though after experiencing nvidia's 3D vision technology, and I'm liking the direction this is heading in.

An idea proposed a few years ago suggested that a tiny monitor be placed inside the lens of the glasses to aid with that projection - in theory it worked. But in practice it turned out to be so detrimental to the vision of the wearer, much in the same way you should distance yourself from a regular monitor so as to retain quality of vision, that the idea was tossed.

You have to consider why the technology didn't work as planned, though. I'm sure they weren't using the method I described and instead used outdated CRT or more recent backlit LCD technology, both of which are far worse for your eyes than the new OLED screens which are able to create light sources, colors, and contrast far closer to the real world. Also, I have a feeling they still weren't taking into consideration the calibration issues.

I don't really care for the separate screen approach. I feel we've gone as far as we can with that approach already and stuff like EyePet isn't really augmented reality. Sure, it shows you a video representation of the space with the object in it, but you're still controlling and manipulating images on a screen, while augmented reality is about creating and manipulating virtual objects in the real world. Plus when you rely on the separate screen, it keeps us moving in the currnet direction of continuing to make TVs larger and more expensive. We're getting to a point where resolution no longer matters and people really don't have the space for these monstrous TVs and projectors. It's creating a divide in the electonics market which drives average consumers away from new technology.

But maybe this wasn't your idea anyway (overlaying data on the real world anywhere), with the mention of a required connection, obviously leading to some proximity parameters.

No, it wouldn't be a universal link. That would be stupid for the same reasons flying cars are stupid. It's impractical to have a virtual world superimposed over the real one and an unecessary hazard. Who would want their kid running out into the street chasing down a virtual monster in an MMO? That's why the device would not have the actual data processing hardware built in. It would require an uplink to another device to work to ensure safety. Plus it's unrealistic to expect any sort of sattelite uplink will be able to reach the device no matter where you are.

I say all this though after experiencing nvidia's 3D vision technology, and I'm liking the direction this is heading in.

3D Vision is just your standard 3D with shutter glasses. It's the same technology we're seeing in the movie theater, just modified for the PC market. It has all the same pitfalls and really not much to do with virtual or even augmented reality.