And certainly not multiple Cray 2 supercomputers with dozen-megabit/s multi-mile wireless networking accessing darn near the sum of human knowledge - in your pocket, costing a mere few days' pay.
Sometimes the "will never happen" is just waiting for someone credible and insightful to pull together off-the-shelf technology, commoditize some magic stuck in a lab, lead a team to weave it all together, and present the world with something everyone wants but nobody is willing to buy into until everyone else does.
A couple decades ago I had a Virtual iGlasses HMD. (Still have it. Anyone want it?) Sure it had its limitations, but the capability was phenomenal for the time ... alas, between the state of technology and nobody including support in suitable software, it went nowhere. Now we have the off-the-shelf technology to leverage (current dev kit is a mere $350), $2B to commoditize the magic needed, and Carmack to validate the implementation for universal buy-in and support.
The only thing missing is normalization of strapping opaque goggles to your face for prolonged periods while thrashing around on the couch.
I don't think that's true, especially since the internet's already facilitated most of "virtual reality". I can skype with people across the world, order anything I want and have it show up in days. I contest that "virtual reality" is basically already a reality.
But sure, if you keep moving the goalposts then I guess VR won't be a reality :|
And certainly not multiple Cray 2 supercomputers with dozen-megabit/s multi-mile wireless networking accessing darn near the sum of human knowledge - in your pocket, costing a mere few days' pay.
Sometimes the "will never happen" is just waiting for someone credible and insightful to pull together off-the-shelf technology, commoditize some magic stuck in a lab, lead a team to weave it all together, and present the world with something everyone wants but nobody is willing to buy into until everyone else does.
A couple decades ago I had a Virtual iGlasses HMD. (Still have it. Anyone want it?) Sure it had its limitations, but the capability was phenomenal for the time ... alas, between the state of technology and nobody including support in suitable software, it went nowhere. Now we have the off-the-shelf technology to leverage (current dev kit is a mere $350), $2B to commoditize the magic needed, and Carmack to validate the implementation for universal buy-in and support.
The only thing missing is normalization of strapping opaque goggles to your face for prolonged periods while thrashing around on the couch.