The Future Of Technology: Virtual Reality

by: Vansh Mattraa, 16

The idea of Virtual Reality was first thought up of during the 1900s, where people thought of scenarios wherein they would be able to go into virtual worlds different from our own. That idea was recently put into perspective with the release of technology such as the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive. These headsets and their relevant controllers allow the common man to experience a virtual land foreign from our own. They allow the individual to dabble in sword fighting or they might allow the individual to dabble in warfare in a virtual simulation, but that’s not all. They allow the individual to communicate with others around the world with virtual avatars.

This is only the start of the virtual era; later we might be able to immerse all our senses in the virtual world, not just our sense of vision and hearing. We might be able to perform superhuman feats in a virtual universe where even the sky isn’t the limit. We can already immerse 2 of our senses in a virtual environment, the technology is only going to get better from here. This all sounds like a fantasy but it really isn’t. AR (Augmented Reality) has already enabled us to combine the real world with the virtual world, there are smart glasses out there on the market right now that allow you to do this already. They give your vision its own mini HUD (Heads Up Display) that sounds very video game-esque but it’s very true and currently already possible.

All of this paired up with current extensive research already being done and we’re looking at a technologically rich future where nothing is impossible and everything can be done virtually. However this also gives us a scary future where people stop going outside as all our work is done by machines and our lives become connected to the virtual worlds without our control. This is but only one of the possible scenarios but it is definitely far off from now.