How Long Until Virtual Reality Becomes Our Daily Reality?
I came across some news today that an Australian virtual reality education start-up called Academy Xi has just secured a large chunk of its first round of capital raising.
Academy Xi currently runs classes for companies and individuals wanting to learn more about virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. It now has hubs in Sydney and Melbourne, but has a vision to expand its educational reach globally.
In the article, the author references a statement by the co-founder and chief executive of Academy Xi, Ben Wong, who says 60% of Australian students are currently studying or training for jobs that won’t exist or will be unrecognisable in the next 10 to 15 years. He also says that within only 7 or 8 years, as many as 40% of current job roles will no longer exist.
I’ve written before here about how we are facing an education crisis in the western world, and it’s good to see new companies like Academy Xi working to address it. As state schools continue to lag behind, they will become increasingly more irrelevant. I have no problem with that because history has shown that the less government controls education the better.
But all of this made me ponder how long it will be before virtual reality becomes our daily reality.
How long will it be until we no longer show up for business meetings, but instead meet in a virtual world?
How long until our children no longer go to school, but instead attend a virtual school, one that can offer not only head knowledge but experiential learning?
How long, if ever, until virtual reality is indistinguishable from our current daily reality?
Will virtual reality ever be able to bring full immersion – the full range of the human experience that we enjoy in the real world – movement, touch, smell, taste?
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Here’s what well-known futurist and Google head of engineering Ray Kurzweil believes:
"In the 2030s, we are going to send nano-robots into the brain (via capillaries) that will provide full immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system and will connect our neocortex to the cloud. Just like how we can wirelessly expand the power of our smartphones 10,000-fold in the cloud today, we'll be able to expand our neocortex in the cloud."
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Apparently, Kurzweil has an 86% accuracy rate when it comes to his 147 predictions since the 1990s. Will this one be in the 86% or the 14%?
What do you think?
Will the 2020’s bring us a partial immersion virtual reality experience that is real and useful enough that it becomes functional, and not just entertaining?
How far off are we until a full immersion virtual reality experience? Or is it even possible?
How long until virtual reality becomes our daily reality?
Back to 1995, I was taking my M.Phil course, my research subject was how to use Virtual Reality on study of Architecture. At that time, we were using a Silicon Graphics Mini Computer (talking about mini computer, it was still bigger than most of the refrigerators you can buy now) and you need 2 sets of sensors to detect the position and direction of your head as well as a controller in your hand for navigation in the virtual world.
VR is not a new technology but it only starts to take off after more than 20 years. Partly because of computation power needed behind, partly also due to the acceptance ability of human body (this is what I believe, based on the no. Of people we came across with the system we had before).
I do believe VR will have a much wider applications in every aspect of our live, but will it become a "daily reality"? I will not bet on this.
Great post @jasonstaggers ! I'm familiar with Academy Xi , they actually only do VR Design at the moment, as a software developer it would be great if there was somewhere to do specific VR Dev courses!
I live VR, for entertainment. I played a zombie game recently at a place called Zero Latency which is going global, they also recently got a lot of funding , and it was such a good experience!
I think there will become a real life problem with VR addiction in the future, but probably no more so than the gaming and Netflix addictions of today!
Thanks! My only VR experience is Arkham Asylum roller coaster at Movie World. That was pretty insane. :)
But yeah, I've been thinking about the addiction issue especially with my younger kids.
Great write up i have been listening to a few podcasts lately of people travelling around to all the tech shows it is mind boggling what they are talking about and how soon the tech giants think they cant impliment it..it has potential good things about it..but also very bad i think, there going to be heaps more mental dissorders from people losing jobs to people not knowing if they are in the real world or the vr world...certainly entering into interesting times!
That's true mate. It could become an easy place to escape to from the world's problems. But it can be a great tool for increased productivity and learning. Interesting times indeed.
The goggles that came with my S7 are pretty fantastic.
My 7 year old son was doing a tour of the solar system one morning, when I told him to take them off to go to school. To learn the same stuff, but from books.
Lol! Perfect example of how current VR technology is already superior to traditional education.
I am looking forward to augmented reality glasses or contact lenses that provide me information that I need to be more productive. Facebook is already rolling out this technology with the facial recognition photo filters.
Thanks @jasonstaggers, I love Augmented reality that is best technology to change the WORLD.
Nowdays we see better and better hardware for VR. Sooner or later VR will be more commonly used :)
My prediction is 2023 with hardware in widespread use, but full immersion I'm not so sure about.
Oh goodness, I hope quite some time still. Before you know it the world is going to be like that move "Surrogates" where everyone has a real life robotic avatar walking around for them while they lay docile in a pod...hahaha.
Haha! True, hard enough to keep my kids out of xbox world :)
Good article Jason. I don't believe we're too far away from virtual reality in mainstream society. Think about the use of simulators for racing drivers and aircraft pilot training. The military have used sims for training purposes for a long long time also. It's only a matter of time for that tech to filter down. Imagine your car buying process done by sims and VR. All those car salespeople left with nothing to do. There's a multitude of applications. I was in Kmart a couple of weeks ago on an evening and saw two (2) staff, one at the front entrance and the other manning the self-serve checkouts. I wonder what all these people are going to do when theier jobs don't exist anymore.
Great point. It will bring a massive economic disruption.
Thank you for your good post. Have a good mood.
You're welcome. And thank you, I will make sure my mood stays good :)