Bench Talk

From clunky ’90s arcade games to Star Wars-themed Disney attractions, virtual reality (VR) has gone from a novelty to a multibillion-dollar industry. Read on for VR summertime fun activities.

Have you ever watched a really bad movie that you couldn't get out of your head? That’s what my first experience using virtual reality was like back in 1995. Rather than being teleported to a virtual reality, I was in a red and black stereoscopic plane struggling through a few games of Mario’s Tennis. Nintendo’s early virtual reality games didn't set the world on fire. They did, however, plant the seed of virtual reality into the mind of the public. Today’s virtual reality delivers on the promise—finally!

Because virtual reality required quite a large amount of computing power, and the technology was very expensive, it never really took hold. Until 2012 that is, when the small startup Oculus introduced the first head mounted display with a visual field of 90 degrees. Now, with many other companies developing HDMs, the technology is more affordable, therefore spreading into different industries.

Pokémon Go is a new smartphone game by Niantic which uses augmented reality (AR) to allow players to find and “catch” the popular fictional species Pokémon. Using the phone’s camera and gyroscope, Pokémon appear as if they are in the real world. The concept of augmented reality is far from new, but Pokémon Go is introducing many people around the world to the possibilities of AR. Pokémon Go, with its smartphone integration and franchise appeal, has found the intersection between ease-of-access and mass interest, bringing millions of people into contact with AR for the first time. In a few years, people might be augmenting their reality without having to look down at their phone.

2013 became the first year in history that the majority of American adults have owned a smartphone of some kind. [1] Now that carrying around a pocket-sized computer has become the norm, designers are exploring the use of wearables to find new ways for people to become even more connected to the Internet of Things. Consumers are showing an early interest causing some to estimate that over 200 million wearable devices will be shipped by 2018, driving more than $30 billion in revenue.