VR/AR News of the Week “Top 3” and “Bottom 3” 2nd Half
Top 3 Most Agreed With
- Grabbing The Bull By The Horns: The Importance Of VR Hands And Presence
https://uploadvr.com/importance-believable-vr-hands-presence/
This article illustrates the importance of the sense of feeling, and how your hands feel in the VR games has a determining impact on how immersively you sense the gaming experience. I totally agree with this point. For VR, getting rid of the traditional hand shank model, turning to seek a way of providing users with a more realistic feeling and gesture will undoubtedly become one of the hottest trends in the near future. The gravity glove mentioned below is a good example. I don’t know whether it’s technically mature. But for me, having a sense of really grabbing some objects is totally different from just having a controller in my hand. So I am wondering whether it’s possible for having a glove on our hand, and the vibration system inside of it is able to imitate thousands of materials we have seen in the real-life. It sounds a little bit difficult, but I think it’s the direction of VR heading towards, which is to provide a more immersive experience to its users.
2. The Future of Church?
https://medium.com/faithtech/the-future-of-church-5228542d23e1
This article describes the future of religion integrated with modern technology like VR. This is a part seldom coming across my mind. But after I have seen this article, I also find lots of online Buddha halls, whose number experiences an explosive increase during the Covid 19 crisis. It seems that we have underestimated the power of religion. Moreover, churches and temples actually have lots of funds on their hands, and their influence in the rural areas outside of the city is huge. So it’s 100% possible for them to build some nice models and then exhibit them in the VR version. One thing I have been thinking about is that how they are managed to bring the sacred power from the real-life into VR. For example, if a church enshrines the sacred relics, how they are going to convey to the believers that the virtual copy of it also has the same effect as the original one becomes one main issue. Also, there are different opinions in the religion as well. Taking Buddhism as an example, robot zen masters and virtual buddha halls are far more common than in other parts of the world. It’s still a controversial topic requiring lots of discussion within the religion itself and among the government regulation designers. But I think it will become one of the big hits in the near future, which might be very unexpected to lots of the tech guys.
3. Episode 8: The US military is betting big on virtual reality
https://www.stripes.com/podcasts/military-matters/episode-8-the-us-military-is-betting-big-on-virtual-reality-1.670275
This article talks a lot about the future implementation of VR on military news. I think also in the previous articles, it’s mentioned that Microsoft has a large contract with the US military on VR tech sharing. From my point of view, modern wars are more like information wars rather than fighting with the flesh. In this sense, VR headsets can definitely help soldiers to gain more information, and lots of them are unobservable digital flows. More information, especially lots of first-hand, will help the military to make better strategy and decision-making. Hopefully, this will bring fewer losses to both sides in the war. To wrap it up, I think it will undoubtedly become one of the key technologies the military forces around the world looking for.
Top 3 Least Agreed With
- So, You Want to Try VR Porn
https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2021/05/vr-porn-cost-how-to-guide/
The paragraph describes a future that people can somehow “immersively” view the porn stuff from the website in a VR headset. Personally speaking, I don’t agree with it is not because it’s technically unavailable, it’s because that it gives me a sense that it will arouse huge debates in the moral concept. I remembered in previous years, there is a video clip called “The Neighbour’s Window” and it wins the Oscar in the category of short film. It accuses the social problems aroused by the voyeuristic behavior conducted in the way of using daily social platforms. For me, VR porn will arouse the same issue. Being more immersive, to some extent, is making porn more addictive for viewers. Also, it will definitely satisfy their voyeuristic hobbies better. My intuition tells me that with more people getting addicted to it, more people will not be able to control themselves and resist the attraction in the real-life, resulting in an increase in the criminal. What I want to say here is that I will try it for novelty, but I believe that it won’t become a future trend because of the potential social problems it will arouse and the government will definitely have a second thought on legalizing it.
2. Painting VR Is Boneworks For Artists On Oculus Quest, And It’s Great
https://uploadvr.com/painting-vr-boneworks/
This is a product about painting in VR. I don’t think it will ever take the place of the traditional painting. Though it has lots of brushes and you can do that without paying a lot to the rare pigment. It cannot, at least, so far, imitate the texture of these paintings. Taking 2 van Gogh’s shows which have taken place in Shanghai recently as an example. For the first one, it’s a big hit since it includes an authentic work of van Gogh. And the second one is a show about utilizing digital technology to copy authentic work. The comments and ratings for the first one are far better than the second. The painting isn’t merely about the use of color and painting techniques. An authentic oil painting may include the author’s sweat and tear. Though to some extent, they are the noises of the colors. They are evidence of how much effort and reflect the emotional stage the creator is experiencing while painting this picture. Those are all the important components of a painting. So from this perspective, I think VR painting cannot do even one of the points mentioned above, and that’s why I am not in favor of applying VR in this field.
3. Fitness-focused HTC Vive Air VR headset revealed in new leaks
https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/20/22393527/htc-vive-air-fitness-focused-headset-leaks-images
Still, like what I have already done for the first half-semester, I will list VR physical training as one of the least agreeable futures. Though the article mentions that HTC might lower the weight of the headset and use materials that are suitable for the physical training. I think another rule that dominates consumer psychology is that people want to accomplish and experience something that they cannot achieve in the real-life. This is crucial for attracting consumers since VR’s ultimate purpose is not to provide users with another world very close to reality. It’s to create a new world like Mark Zuckerberg has said, a second life. Things like physical training, which we can experience in our real life, even at a lower cost, cannot be the future of VR development. Moreover, physical training experience, to a large extent, depends on facilities. Without those appliances, it’s almost impossible for the user to do certain kinds of training. Due to the limited space in our home, it’s also unlikely to do a lot of stretching stuff. However, it’s glad to see that companies pay extra attention to how to make the headset a more comfortable wearable device.
