[minimaxir]

> The development of VR has been surprisingly tied to science fiction. Authors in the field have envisioned the futures that engineers set out to build

Incidentally, the high romanticism of VR one of the reasons why I am highly skeptical of the industry. The article argues "VR will also enable immersive concerts, reinvented museums, and live, court-side sporting events", but what is it doing now outside of games, which have been hit-or-miss? (the Samsung Gear VR commercials make VR look ridiculous, IMO)

AI is a similarly romantic industry, but the difference is that there are many practical, non-gimmicky applications of AI now and already implemented on your phones/PCs.

[mattnewport]

We have paying customers for our VR surgical training - ossovr.com - I left the games industry in 2014 to work on non games VR applications because I believed (and still believe) that commercial applications of VR will be more profitable in the near term than games. Architecture is another field that is seeing rapid adoption of VR as a real business tool and not just a gimmick.

[strictnein]

Interesting, I pitched VR training as part of a hackathon at [my very large employer] who offers platforms for employee training and onboarding. One of the studies I cited during my presentation was on VR surgical training [0], showing that it decreased surgeon error. I lost to a multiuser wiki document editor (think Google Docs, but less exciting). Because that's a huge market for a multi billion dollar company. No, I'm not bitter... sigh

Another was how Siemens was able to reduce training times for oil rigs by significant periods [1] using VR tech.

> "Architecture is another field that is seeing rapid adoption of VR"

My architect is going to bring over a SketchUp model of the work he has planned on our house and I'll be loading it up with some software for the Vive [2]. He doesn't usually do that final step, but he's very interested in trying it out.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1422600/

[1] https://www.siemens.com/innovation/en/home/pictures-of-the-f...

[2] https://www.kubity.com/

[mattnewport]

Cool, we're in discussions with a major medical school to run a study to compare performance after training with one of our modules vs traditional training materials.

Even outside of studies that specifically look at VR there is a lot of research into general learning, training and education that tends to support the hypothesis that VR will be a powerful tool for this type of application.

[AlwaysRock]

Not quite architecture but I'd love to have a interior designer be able to see a vr version of my apartment or be able to see a VR version of a apartment instead of having to go apartment shopping. I believe stuff like this is out in the world but just not widespread enough yet.

[gautamb0]

Have you guys experimented with LeapMotion?

[BatFastard]

I love LeapMotion, just wish more apps supported it.

When I use LeapMotion I dont get motion sickness. Huge win!

[haydenlee]

immersive concerts - TheWaveVR [0]

reinvented museums - TiltBrush [1]

court-side sporting events - NextVR [2]

Not to mention architecture [3], communication [4], collaboration [5], medicine [6], 3d modeling [7], game development [8], film [9] and the myriad of other industries I'm forgetting. Also if you haven't tried any of the latest games on Oculus Rift or Vive you're really missing out. They've gotten incredible since the consumer launch last year.

[0] http://thewavevr.com/ [1] https://tiltbrush.com/sketches [2] http://nextvr.com [3] http://insitevr.com/ [4] https://web.facebook.com/spaces [5] http://bigscreenvr.com/ [6] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601911/better-than-opioid... [7] https://www.oculus.com/medium/ [8] https://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/12/15/editorvr-experimental-b... [9] https://www.oculus.com/story-studio/films/henry/

*Disclaimer: I work or have worked for a few of these co's.

[aaron-lebo]

I've found the gaming experiences pretty mediocre.

It's $900 + big clunky thing on your head vs $500 for a really nice 4k monitor.

Something like Onward is pretty special for its realism, but its not a better game than Rainbow Six was 20 years ago. There are some other fun games but the novelty wears off quickly. It's like a really expensive ($1300 setup) Wii. The current experiences aren't worth the money.

[mattnewport]

For me there's no comparison between the experience of firing a gun or a bow and arrow in VR with hand tracked controls vs in a traditional game with a monitor and a mouse or gamepad. Even virtual target practice with very little 'game' around it is pretty fun I find.

The industry is still figuring out how to create gameplay that takes advantage of VR rather than just porting over gameplay mechanics from traditional games. There are also limitations on how ambitious VR games can get given the current size of the market. There's some very compelling experiences starting to appear already though in my opinion.

I think it's a mistake to put too much emphasis on the current relatively high cost of hardware as a guide to the future potential of the medium. We know that price will come down and if you compare it in real terms to the cost of early PCs it already looks quite affordable.

[aaron-lebo]

I agree with you and expect experiences to get better as the industry learns.

With nothing to back this up, I think the VR headset is a mass market item at $400 (or the price of a console) and better tech (mainly lighter headset, slightly improved panels). I guess with that belief the question is will the industry continue to subsidize those hardware improvements while developers figure things out? Or perhaps VR hardware will improve regardless of gaming success.

[georgeecollins]

VR hardware will continue to improve because it drives all sorts of demand for chips and software, and nobody wants to be left behind. The Hacker News audience may be jaded about it, but it still is interesting to average people. It's just too expensive and too confusing, and the software isn't very good yet. I have no idea how popular VR will but I know better headsets will come out in the next two years and prices will come down.

[moosingin3space]

I believe VR will become a mass market item when you can buy a "VR console" for $400-600 -- until then, the effort required to set up a VR gaming system will be regarded as "not worth it" by much of the market.

[Impossible]

One issue with VR is the market is so small, the quality of even the best games is relatively low. Onward is basically made by one person, and although you cannot directly compare Onward's development with Rainbow 6 in 1998, mostly because of easy and cheap availability of 3D engines and assets, the original Rainbow 6 had a significantly larger team, budget and sold roughly 10x (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Clancy%27s_Rainbow_Six_(vi... Onward has sold so far(http://steamspy.com/app/496240)...

This might be an unfixable flaw in the VR market, but really all of this stuff seems like good business opportunities to me. If what people want out of VR is cheaper, better hardware and better games, and there isn't a fundamental flaw with the concept of VR, of course.

[stale2002]

VR is the same as any other gaming market.

It is a two sided market, with a chicken and egg problem.

Gamemakers don't want to invest in a market with very few consumers, and consumers don't want to invest in a headset with very few games.

[JauntTrooper]

Which is why console makers need to make a few blockbuster games to encourage adoption.

The Nintendo Entertainment System came with Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt at no additional cost. Sega made the Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog.

[haydenlee]

Going back to 2D games like CS:Go after playing Onward is such a let-down personally. I'd choose Onward over them any day of the week. The adrenaline you get when bullets are actually flying over your head continues to blow me away.

To each their own.

[aaron-lebo]

Heh. I still find CSGO horribly addictive after 16+ years off and on CS games and I attribute it to CS's core mechanics being so great. It's not an "experience" like the most recent Battlefield but the gameplay carries it.

Onward is a vanilla game that's improved because of the "experience" of VR (and yes, it's very cool), but I'd take better gameplay any day. The game that finally combines gameplay with VR, that'll be exciting.

[ptenk]

Completely agree. CSGO any day. If they port it to VR, then I'll be sold

[whicks]

> It's $900

The Oculus Rift is $500, $598 with the Touch controllers and and extra sensor.[1]

[1]: https://www.oculus.com/cart/

[aaron-lebo]

It's $800 + tax for the Vive (you probably want to buy some light stands, too).

What's the Rift at that price missing compared to the Vive?

[drzaiusapelord]

There's a real Hyundai/Honda relationship here. They're similar products but the Vive has a slight edge as the more premium VR headset. The lighthouse based tracking is rock-solid while the CV based tracking of the Rift has been historically iffy. Worse, you'll need to spring for a 3rd camera if you want to get serious about roomscale. So that's another $79.

The Vive already has an accessory ecosystem as companies are more willing to invest in the more 'open' system. You can buy a thinner cable, various comfort gaskets, a complete wireless solution (only in China for now), non-controller trackers to attach to your body or objects in your playspace (still mostly devs doing this), a foveated rendering plugin (just anounced), etc.

You get a slightly wider FOV and a lot more room if you wear glasses. Also a built-in camera, which is a little gimmicky, but a godsend if you want to move a chair, read a text message, move the cat, etc without taking your headset off.

You're also supporting Valve and SteamVR which does not engage in the dirty business of exclusives or "walled garden" approaches like the Facebook/Oculus model. There are also privacy issue with the Oculus software. Even when its not running it has a encrypted connection to Facebook's server constantly.

Lastly, it seems to be the dev favorite. A few of the betas I've been involved with have been Vive-only.

That said, the Vive needs a price cut. It occasionally gets $100 off. I'm hoping they make that permanent.

[agar]

Sigh. Each HMD has pros and cons. You do the industry a disservice by warping facts.

Lighthouse tracking is indeed excellent, and tracks a larger volume. However, the Rift's sensor approach is /currently/ almost indistinguishable from Vive's tracking. Its historical performance, significantly hampered by a bad software update, has no relevance to someone considering an HMD today.

A third sensor is only $59, not $79. Saying "worse, you'll need to spring for..." implies this is somehow a severe negative, when the reality is that the extra cost of a third sensor still leaves the Rift over $100 less than a Vive (the magnitude of price difference depends on shipping costs and how you value the bundles of free software).

Again, while Lighthouse tracking can be considered "more premium", the general consensus is that the Rift has more fit and finish, is significantly lighter in the front and thus more balanced, has better optics (larger sweet spot and less screen door effect), and the convenient integrated audio (which can be removed if you have high-end headphones) all lead to it being thought of as "more premium" in other ways. The Vive's design, while exceedingly functional, is more "hacker chic" than "honed design".

Of course, the above positives on the Rift are traded off by a slightly smaller field of view, a somewhat dimmer screen, and less compatibility with glasses vs. the Vive.

Additionally, complaining about the cost of a third camera is disingenuous when you then talk about all of the other incremental (added cost) options available to the Vive. Some will come to Rift (e.g., wireless), some bring the Vive to parity (e.g., thinner cable, comfort gaskets, and [unmentioned] a more comfortable head strap with integrated audio), and some are truly cool (e.g., eye tracking and trackers) for those wishing to really be at the cutting edge of VR. But all significantly increase the cost delta.

Finally, implying something nefarious about the "encrypted connection to Facebook's server" is really beneath the level of discourse I expect from HN. The Oculus software checks for updates over a TLS-encrypted session - that is all, as has been confirmed by network analysis. Frankly, I would be upset if it didn't use encryption to protect my information.

The Vive is a fine product, and stands on its own. You do not need to provide misleading or biased information about its competitor to promote it.

The fact is, both HMDs are great. Do you have a 15'x15' space? Buy a Vive. Is price a factor, or do you run on lower-end hardware? Buy a Rift.

Otherwise, try them both, see which fits your face better, see which trade-offs work for you, and buy the one that makes you happy.

You can't go wrong, and VR is SPECTACULAR.

[TwoBit]

Rift is still cheaper, and wims on a number of other fronts, especially quality of applications. Optics are better, less screen door, sharper to edge of view vs Vive which gets blurry. Oculus controllers are clearly better.

The fact that you bring up Facebook shows that you are a technology zealot, and such people are always adverse to facts.

[mattnewport]

Vive tracking is better for room scale (Oculus doesn't handle facing away from the cameras well in a standard two camera setup and three camera tracking is still a bit experimental, plus it can be trickier to get the floor calibrated at the right position).

In most other respects Oculus is a bit better than Vive IMO: better ergonomics/comfort on both the Rift headset and Touch controllers, built in headphones (a big plus for convenience and comfort over the Vive), easier setup, slightly better optics, better handling of dropped frames thanks to timewarp.

[hesdeadjim]

Oh man they aren't even comparable. The tracking on the Vive is for all intents and purposes, perfect. It is truly room-scale and the headset and controllers have sub-millimeter tracking resolution in a space up to 15x15'.

The Oculus on the other hand uses image sensors with a limited field of view, so it is much easier to lose tracking on your hands when you move quickly, bend over, or turn around. They will sell you a third sensor to expand tracking to 360 degrees, but at that point you are basically buying a shitty Vive.

[haydenlee]

Most people I speak to find the Oculus Rift much more comfortable and the addition of built-in headphones is amazing. I still haven't figured out how to put my headphones on while putting on the Vive.

The FoV is pretty good on the Oculus cameras albiet a bit less than the vive's lighthouse. With two cameras I don't run into many issues unless playing Onward or something that requires me turning 360. I'm travelling atm so I actually just use one camera.

Very "comparable" and I'd argue you're actually getting more value for the $200 cheaper Rift than the Vive due to comfort and ergonomics of the HMD and controllers.

[TwoBit]

Room scale tracking is just about the only aspect which the Vive is better. Rift is better at everything else. Comfort, performance, controllers, optics, audio, microphone, apps, screen door.

[whicks]

Nothing, as far as I'm aware. At $598 you'd get the headset, controllers, and two tracking cameras. Also any of the free games that come with the Rift/Touch.

[andybak]

I've barely played a single non-VR since I got VR. That's going back to mid-October 2016 so hardly a flash in the pan.

[ekianjo]

That's just 6 months. Wait another year before having a final conclusion on it.

[andybak]

Sadly I will cease to be a useful test subject as I've decided to learn VR dev and develop a product. My time spent in VR has dropped in proportion to my time spent in Unity...

[strictnein]

> court-side sporting events

I still want to stand on the 50 yard line during a live game, or position myself wherever the action is, with fully realized 3D models of the players.

[nostalgiac]

NBA does this already.

https://watch.nba.com/page/vr

[intrasight]

I've long thought this to absolutely be the killer app for VR. And just imagine the advertising options.

[kirrent]

That sounds like what virtually live is promising: http://virtuallylive.com/

[chadgeidel]

I'd like to "ride along" with my favorite rally team. Wow, what a great experience. Even if pre-recorded that would be simply amazing.

[mbesto]

How much of these companies are actually making money?

[haydenlee]

Almost every company I mentioned is already making money.

[cmollis]

shameless plug for my brother's VR startup: http://www.patchworkvr.com (also in real estate/architecture). Think of it as matterport, only with cheaper commodity cameras.

[thenayr]

One good example as of late is The Wave VR. http://thewavevr.com/

A crossover between game / social experience / musical fantasy. They have live shows once a week and have been gaining momentum within the VR community quite rapidly.

Important to remember we are quite literally still just beyond the one year mark since consumer VR devices hit the market. It will only get better.

I agree the Gear is not where VR is going in the future. You need full room-scale immersion to really "feel" like you are experiencing something truly new and exciting. 360 sports videos are NOT the future of VR.

[Nemo157]

> Fans won’t have to travel the globe or miss out [...] - http://thewavevr.com

> This item is currently unavailable in your region - http://store.steampowered.com/app/453000/

Really great internationalisation there. I'm guessing they're having the standard problem of not being able to get worldwide licenses for the builtin music.

[avaer]

> The article argues "VR will also enable immersive concerts, reinvented museums, and live, court-side sporting events", but what is it doing now outside of games, which have been hit-or-miss?

It's literally doing all of the stuff you mentioned, if you look for it. The blocker is that most people don't have a headset to experience it.

The same thing could be (and was) said about the early internet.

[jarsin]

The CEO of unity believes that AR/VR will be bigger than the internet and develop in much the same way [1].

Obviously he is biased but still pretty big statement from a CEO of the most popular game engine.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODXMhaNIF5E

[haydenlee]

Bit of a cringey statement to say "bigger than the internet" considering almost every AR/VR application will rely heavily on the internet. I think the spirit of his statement was that it'll be bigger than the Web.

[SimbaOnSteroids]

Not really, platforms like the hololens are essentially the Commodore 64 of AR. It's neat, and has some practical application, but it can't quite deliver on its full potential. I don't know which AR headset will be the Windows/Apple of this technology but I can describe it. Lightweight, stylish, essentially a smartphone on your face.

What AR not-so-obviously does is takes the internet and changes it from a limited access interface, wherein its a technology that has points of access that are limited to terminals that you have to actively access to an interface that you passively interact with.

An interface that you have to seek out, to an interface that seeks you out.

[JKCalhoun]

He meant to say "bigger than the Beatles".

[mbesto]

> big statement from a CEO of the most popular game engine

You mean someone that has a personal financial interest in a market growing is talking about how that market might grow. That's not very surprising to hear, don't you think?

[goatlover]

Can't be bigger than the internet if it is one of the things that runs on top of the internet.

It's like stating that computers are bigger than electricity.

[smacktoward]

With the important difference that getting on the early Internet only required a telephone line, which everybody already had, and a modem, an inexpensive piece of hardware you did not have to physically strap onto your face.

[sbarre]

No it also required a computer, which a lot of people did not have back in the mid-90s, and not everyone was prepared to shell out the money to get one (it was certainly not "inexpensive" if you were buying one for the sole purpose of getting online).

My source on this? I worked at one of the first consumer ISPs in Canada, and we regularly had people coming in to sign up because they heard about "this Internet thing" but did not have a computer.

Most people thought we provided one with the service, and some people just didn't understand that you accessed the Internet through a computer.

[smacktoward]

I left that out because VR also requires an expensive computer -- expensive at least compared to what most people have. Rift, for instance, requires not just a discrete GPU but a pretty serious one (GTX 970/1060 level), in a market where only about a third of PCs sold at retail in 2016 had a discrete GPU at all (see http://www.anandtech.com/show/10864/discrete-desktop-gpu-mar...).

So, if by "VR" you mean Vive/Rift-level VR, very few people will have a computer already lying around the house that can cut the mustard, even if they bought that computer relatively recently.

[plokiju]

Buying a VR headset and a new gaing computer today is still significantly cheaper than buying a home computer in the 90's for the early internet

https://pifflelab.com/2012/07/22/computers-the-1990s-you-pai...

[sbarre]

I was not disputing your point that VR is expensive to get into (I own a Vive), but rather that getting online in the 90s was not expensive.

[avaer]

It also required ridiculous metered long distance fees, forced you to lock up the family telephone line, and buying and installing a modem was much harder without the help of the internet.

I would advance the hypothesis that the prospect of the internet back then seemed much worse compared to dropping a few hundred to have Vive hardware shipped to your door and plugging it in. But the people who built the internet saw what it could be, not the garbage that it was.

And we're still in the beta stages; this stuff only gets better with time.

[Pica_soO]

Lets not forget ruining two perfectly fine rubber plunger, if you did it DIY.

[drzaiusapelord]

>The article argues "VR will also enable immersive concerts, reinvented museums, and live, court-side sporting events"

As a day one Vive owner I also agree these kinds of statements are fairly bullshitty. VR doesn't remotely compare to the real experience of a real outing. Nor is it able to do much outside of gaming and there are probably valid reasons why. Gamers are used to being in virtual spaces, using VR is fun, etc but its also isolating, uncomfortable, expensive, and low res.

The good news is that "games" encompasses many categories of experience. Social fun like Rec Room, or RPG's, or MMOs, or shooters, or playing pool, or pingpong, etc. Its a varied experience and I think its a little dismissive to say something like "Oh but its only games now?" Games are huge! Why are we discounting this incredible part of the human experience and something part of all human cultures? This is like saying, "Oh you're in love and getting married? That's just endorphins and patriarchy." Its dismissive to an extreme.

That said, I've watched a bit of youtube with my Vive and can certainly see it making in-roads with consumption of media, but even the best pool simulators, gun range, or pingpong simulators not only feel nothing like the real thing, but they're barely a fraction of the fun of the real thing. If futurists are banking on VR replacing many real experiences, well, they better be ready to be disappointed. VR's strengths aren't being a digital version of real experiences, its making fantastic worlds and experiences of its own that feel 'real' and interesting.

[blhack]

This stuff takes time.

I know of at least one music venue that is currently being built with VR attendance as a major goal.

For concerts and sporting events, you need the right cameras, video pipeline, and bandwidth. One potential camera is here: https://www.orah.co/

But how many music venues were built with the bandwidth requirements of high-resolution 360 streaming video in mind? My guess is almost none. The bandwidth to support things like that is an industry in itself.

As far as after-the-fact concert attendance, I know that at least Red Bull had a major presence at Bonnaroo (a major music festival with an attendance of around 70,000) last summer, and they were shooting concerts with 360 cameras with the intent of sharing them online.

(According to this article, they may have actually been live streaming, but I'm not sure: https://www.axs.com/bonnaroo-2016-to-be-livestreamed-on-red-... I know first hand that they were there shooting stuff on gopro rigs, though, which requires post processing, so probably wouldn't have been live)

[jraines]

Google Earth VR is incredible, as one non-game example.

[jamesrcole]

> but what is it doing now outside of games

Clearly VR is still in very early stages of its development, so I don't see how what's being done right now provides any valuable insight into its potential.

> the high romanticism of VR one of the reasons why I am highly skeptical of the industry.

Whether that romanticism exists or not doesn't change the technology or what can be done with it, so I don't see why that's a reason to be skeptical of it.

[Sir_Substance]

CAVE virtual reality[1][2] has been available for quite some time, and has quite a lot of industry penetration. There are multiple off-the-shelf software and hardware packages available, and it's fairly commonly used in the automotive industry.

It's quite something to use one of these systems, I was responsible for maintaining one a few years ago. Our demonstration trick for visiting guests was to put a chair inside the cave that matched the coordiantes of a virtual helicopter cockpit command chair. We could sit guests in the chair, turn the system on, and ask them if they could comfortably reach the switches above their heads. They'd stretch out their hands and be able to give a confident yes or no within seconds.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environ... [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STMcWUtQr1Y

[vincentschen]

I agree that there are much fewer applications of VR "now", but let's consider its timeline: the first mainstream HMD (Oculus Rift) was released in 2012. Last year (2016) was the first time that hand-tracking was introduced by Oculus and HTC. If anything is holding back the industry right now, it's the lack of content, but keep in mind that we are still incredibly early!

[santaclaus]

The timeline goes further back than 2012... VR has been around for what, 30+ years?

[cr0sh]

VR as we know it today basically started when NASA built a rig sometime in the 1980s, using portable "pocket" TVs for the screens (Casio brand, IIRC). You can find pictures of these early systems (as well as early VPL datagloves) with a google search of course.

Before that, there was Ivan Sutherland's "Sword of Damocles" - arguably the real beginning of AR/VR (Philco had an earlier system, but it was meant for tele-operation, whereas Sutherland's system used computer generated graphics):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Damocles_(virtual...

Interestingly about this system - and isn't mentioned much - is a part of it called the "Twinkle Box" - it was a three-dimensional position tracking system that used light "beams" (generated by some form of slit-scanning mechanical system) to track an object...sound like anything familiar?

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1500278

Further back than that? Well - Hugo Gernsback had some kind of idea about a TV or such you strapped to your head:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/05/ralph-124c-41-a-...

[GraffitiTim]

We are using VR to help people overcome fears at Fearless.

http://FearlessVR.com

It is based on lots of research showing that VR exposure therapy is extremely effective.

[return0]

Great idea. I do have an irrational fear of cockroaches, but i am not sure overcoming the fear of spiders is a good thing.

[tripzilch]

assuming that spiders are actually a serious risk where you live, and if it's a phobia in any way like my own irrational fear of heights, then yes it's a good idea to overcome.

the sudden panic reaction when you perceive something that looks like a spider[0], really isn't going to keep you safe when it counts, while acting calm, rational and with common sense will.

heights can be dangerous but my fear of heights is not doing much of protecting me. the heights I may encounter but prefer to avoid aren't actually dangerous (see-through/grated floors are the worst :) ). the situations that are dangerous, I'd rather have my full faculties if I were to find myself there.

[0] i know people who react very strongly to just an image of a spider. living in NL where there's zero dangerous wildlife (just 1 or 2 endangered species of tiny poisonous snake, a lost/dead wolf every few years and 17M humans), that's quite an irrational fear but I won't mess with that because the panic reaction is very real and involuntarily. For fun, however, we tried an experiment where I very slowly drew a cartoon spider, to see at what amount of legs the reaction would kick in :) turned out drawing tiny hairs on the legs did way more for the response than whether I drew 5,6,7, 8 or 9 legs (at which point the other party didn't think it was fun anymore, so I had to end the experiment). and just in case you wondered yes I play with my own phobia in a similar way, whenever I find myself on a perfectly safe balcony that triggers my acrophobia, I like to see how many minutes I can enjoy the view before the GTFO feeling becomes overwhelming (on balconies it's not quite immediate, but still very strong when it kicks in, making it an interesting process to observe).

[burkaman]

I mean, did you click those links? All of those examples were things VR is doing now, not possibilities for the future.

[sidlls]

There is a large market for training simulators that are essentially very advanced virtual reality systems.

[photojosh]

In Australia (NSW specifically) we have the requirement for learner drivers to complete 120 hours of accompanied driving time before they can get a solo licence.

I think that's insane, and we should do what fighter pilots do... some hours of "normal" flying, and LOADS of time in a simulator dealing with extreme cases.

So... know of any good VR driving sims that attempt to model commuter traffic?

[JauntTrooper]

Desert Bus 2!

[lincolnpark]

We're developing a VR application for chronic pain management. http://karunavr.com I don't think it's too sci-fi.

[vincentschen]

This looks awesome! What are some of the engineering/hci challenges you've come across?

[sp332]

VR is still very new in the sense that there has been relatively little interaction research done on it. I've been watching what elevr has been coming up with, and it's exciting but they're still inventing basic building blocks. http://voicesofvr.com/515-embodied-cognition-experiments-wit...

[Para2016]

I think it might be interesting to have VR use in the military. For example, small unmanned recon drones fly/move through an area, get a very detailed virtual environment, and then mission participants get a walk-through beforehand.

[cr0sh]

DARPA has been using VR since at least the 90s for training.

One of the main players in that area is a man named "Rudy Darken"; he was instrumental in quite a bit of the "Dismounted Soldier Training System (DSTS)" - and developed quite a few interesting input devices (one was a 360 degree treadmill with force feedback - think of two overlapping treadmills at 90 degrees to each other, with the surface made of rollers place parallel to the direction of travel of the belts - the part in the "center" of the intersection is such where you can walk, and move both belts at the same time, and your direction of walking determines the relative speed of the belts).

They've also long had networked simulator training systems, which also were setup to participate as part of "real" on-the-ground training and war-game simulations (that is, ones using live bodies and vehicles, aircraft, etc).

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if your scenario wasn't part of that already.

[erichocean]

> what is it doing now outside of games

I'm using room-scale VR to build and explore virtual film sets (HTC Vive, Unreal Engine) and scenes.

[monk_e_boy]

Education. I taught over a hundred kids with google VR. None of these kids have had to opportunity to go to a big city or see the seven modern wonders of the world or go scuba diving. They loved it. They learnt a huge amount.