My Guide for Virtual Reality Beginners - Here's What You Need to Know

Star Trek - A term spreading like crazy in the world of IT. It is relatively unknown to a wider audience though, but it's something we are likely to spend more money on in the next 10 years than we are spending now on TV devices - according to Goldman Sachs analysers.  

During the recent CES 2016 in Las Vegas, half of the exhibition was devoted tovirtual reality. Anyone who ever tried virtual reality has had the same reaction – astonishment! But what, in fact, IS virtual reality?

Anyone who has ever seen at least one episode of Star Trek could have witness those hologram rooms that served the crew as their resting rooms, and teleported them to another worlds – such as a western movie, Victorian England or a love story.

At that time, we were all wondering how that was possible. In Star Trek, the explanations seemed a bit too complicated for all of us, and all those complexed descriptions meant nothing to no one. In fact, it all sounded so incredibly complicated that if you were the one thinking of creating your own hologram room, immediately you'd lost the will to do so. However, some clever people realised all of this can be done in a simplier way.

How Virtual Reality Works

One of the first things to consider is the fact that 90% of information we take by our eyes and ears - not the touch, scent or sense of gravity. If you lie to your eyes and ears, your brain will accept the lie as the new reality. This is exactly the key basis of how virtual reality works. An image you receive via VR headsets is made to mislead you in thinking you are physically present in that new environment. Although it sounds complicated, it's in fact very simple. First, the headsets cover your whole field of view – the thing you see is what your computer or mobile phone is showing you. Second, the displaying image is changing upon the position of your head. Anywhere you look, the camera will follow your view. If you turn around yourself,  the camera will show you what's behind you. That happens 30-90 times in only one single second, and it's much faster that your brain is capable of understanding. This means that your brain is completely fooled. If you include a sound, the cheat is even more complete. The brain believes the eyes so much that you fully believe you will fall down once the computer twists the virtual room you are in.

History of VR and How It Became the Mainstream

Some VR attempts were made in the 80s, but the technology back then wasn't capable of accepting the tech specs of virtual reality. Everything changed when an 18-year-old Palmer Luckey made a first version of Oculus Rift virtual headsets based on a mobile phone display.

He launched Oculus on Kickstarter and sold the first 100 headsets, with one of the buyers to be the famous John Carmack, probably one of the most influential figure of the computer games world. Three years later, Facebook bought Oculus Rift for $2bn and launched the new era. Seeing potential in the billions dollars VR market, big players begun to realise that investing in VR could save them from the Nokia, Kodak or Motorola destiny. So Google, Samsung, Sony and HTC started to pour billions to this newly discovered market.

A Sneak Peak to VR Market Today 

Today, the market is divided in 3 different ways. Google and Samsung believe mobile devices are strong enough to produce content on their own. If you decide to go for Google Cardboard it will only cost you £1 - £2.

Samsung Gear VR, on the other hand, costs £79. Its advantage lies in the simple use of mobile devices, hence providing users with affordable VR movies, games or even porn for an affordable price. 

Sony, however, decided to connect its device to PS4. This might look a bit complicated as there is a wire that connects a user's head with a console. However, it gives an enhanced feeling of reality. It also includes an additional controller that you can govern with. The expected price is £299, and the device should be out this year.

Oculus Rift and HTC Vive have taken the biggest steps. They include a wire connecting to PC, and both offer an absolute immersion. Apart from the sensors on headsets, Oculus also includes a camera on the computer that follows a user's moves, and knows when a user crouches or stands straight.

HTC took even a step further by using 2 laser transmitters. All headset sensors and controllers work within 0,1mm and define where a user's head and arms are. That way, users have a full freedom of walking across a room, absolutely convinced to be in the room shown by the VR device, not the room they actually are in. The price of Oculus Rift is £599. The pre-sales was launched earlier this January, but you will hardly get your hands on it now as all the headsets have already been sold out. In fact, the whole stock for March, April and May has been sold out in only one day. If anyone wants to get Oculus this year, you better hurry up with your order.

Expected price for HTC Vive is £699 - £999, and pre-sales is to be launched on February 29, 2016. If you wish to have the best possible VR headset on the market, HTC should be your choice.

I Became the First European to Try New Vive in Europe!

Last week, I had a fantastic opportunity to visit the HTC European headquarters. I was officially the first European who tried HTC Vive's latest version in Europe. I was immensely impressed by its characteristics. The latency is only 10ms, and the speed of displaying images is 90 frames per a second! The resolution is 1080p for each eye. It is so real that you can face a virtual abyss with one food ahead and your other foot behind, slowly leaning over to the edge not to fall over. 

After I have put the headsets on, one of HTC staff brought the controllers that you can see flying towards you. Their preciseness is 0,1mm, and I could caught the controllers with my VR hands even if I haven't seen them in real life (only their rendering image). Considering the freedom of moments (from 1x2m - 3x5m depending on the size of the room you are in) I believe this is the kind of VR device that will offer the biggest amount of professional applications. HTC Vive is already ready for a spotless VR conference, VR online shopping, creating VR showroom or bringing VR education. I truly believe its potential can challenge competition, hence become a leader on the market very soon.

Can Apple and Microsoft Keep Up The VR Hype?

We had an opportunity to witness Microsoft's wrong steps previously, most of them as a result of late decisions. This time, Microsoft has decided to take a different approach. It will ignore virtual reality and go straight for augmented reality - an integration of digital information in real time, where a real-time environment is covered with a virtual layer on top of it.

Let's say you are looking at your living room table, and you can see a virtual image of a chess board and chess pieces on top of your table - although they are not really there in reality. AR glasses will follow the movement of your head, adjusting the chess board image according to your head's position, and following the movement of your head 50 times per a second.

It is expected that, within 5 to 10 years, AR market will be bigger than VR, and that the two technologies will merge. Until that happens, VR will be the older and smarter brother. 

Apple is mysterious as always. Although there are no news or plans about VR, I am unlikely to believe that such a huge player is not going to get its hands on the billion dollar market like this. Specially if we know that mobile phones provide 90% of the needed technology. However, considering the fact that Apple never entered the market of game consoles as we all expected, maybe skipping VR is another unpredictable thing Apple will do - with plans to surprise us in some other, unpredictable (and fantastic) way.

How Trillenium is Becoming a Part of the VR Future

How does Trillenium plan to join this VR story? Where is our VR platform for online shopping at this point?

Trillenium, in cooperation with the biggest online retailer ASOS, is working onthe world's first VR online shop. The whole project is huge and complex. If everything goes according to the plan, we could see VR online shopping this year already. According to the recent Siemens survey, the biggest desire VR users have are not games or porn, but shopping – the ability to feel the size of items they are buying. Exactly what Trillenium is going to offer!

 So, al I have to say for now is stay tuned, exciting times are ahead of us! :-)