Virtual reality has a storied arc – from to Mort Heilig’s Sensorama and Ivan Sutherland’s Ultimate Display in the 1960’s, through the VR boom (and bust) of the 1990’s, to Facebook’s $2 billion USD acquisition of Oculus today.
The Verge covers it all in The Rise and Fall and Rise of Virtual Reality. As the authors note:
Imagine 10 years ago trying to envision the way we use cellphones today. It’s impossible. That’s the promise VR has today. VR at its best shouldn’t replace real life, just modify it, giving us access to so much just out of reach physically, economically. If you can dream it, VR can make it. It’s a medium for progress, not the progress itself. In celebration of the rise of VR still to come, The Verge investigated its past, present, and future to offer a glimpse of what we feel is enormous possibility.
Indeed.
LATERAL THINKING 