quotations about virtual reality
At this year's Sundance Film Festival, the number of VR entries has exploded, from just a few last year to more than two dozen. They run the gamut, inviting viewers into ghost stories, the lead role in a science fiction film, and walking alongside an Ebola survivor in West Africa.
MICHAEL REILLY
"Virtual Reality Is Exploding at Sundance, and Could Soon Be in Your News Feed", MIT Technology Review, January 22, 2016
If Virtual Reality is really therapeutic, pharma beware!
DENISE SILBER
Pharma Phorum, April 26, 2017
Be careful about virtual relationships with artificially intelligent pieces of software.
LARRY ELLISON
Business Insider, February 7, 2014
Anybody who has a smartphone can now experience VR, thanks to apps like Google Cardboard ... Put your phone inside it, and it will transfer you into a different world.
EMINE MINE THOMPSON
attributed, "Virtual reality: is it here to stay?", Director Magazine, January 10, 2017
The revolutionary nature of virtual reality is inconsequential if it is inaccessible to nearly everyone.
JUSTIN DE GUZMAN
"Why Cloud Gaming Will Popularize Virtual Reality", Tech Crunch, January 27, 2016
Not so long ago, it looked like VR was set to join flying cars and jetpacks in the basement repository of visions of the future which never came to fruition.
NICK SCOTT
"Virtual reality: is it here to stay?", Director Magazine, January 10, 2017
When Tobias van Schneider slips on a virtual reality headset to play Google's Tilt Brush, he becomes a god. His fingertips become a fiery paintbrush in the sky. A flick of the wrist rotates the clouds. He can jump effortlessly from one world he created to another. When the headset comes off, though, it's back to a dreary reality. And lately, van Schneider has been noticing some unsettling lingering effects. What stays is a strange feeling of sadness and disappointment when participating in the real world.
REBECCA SEARLES
"Virtual Reality Is Disorienting People Into Questioning Reality", Nextgov, December 21, 2016
By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures.
MARK ZUCKERBERG
FaceBook post, March 25, 2014
Virtual reality represents a spatio-temporal illusion whose task it is to appear different from the 'real' spatio-temporal illusion created by universally adopted spatio-temporal conventions. Yet the most exciting experience of virtual reality is not so much the one that totally alters the viewer's perspective on the real as the one that is able to expand, augment and enlarge the real. In other words, it is in its relationship with the real, rather than in its attempts to substitute itself for the real, that the most original use of virtual reality is found.
GABRIELLA GIANNACHI
Virtual Theatres
In fact, there's no consensus over what qualifies as virtual reality. For some, it's any 360 degrees world that you can enter via a headset. Others argue that the audience needs to have more agency than merely looking around; that they need to be able to move through virtual space.
LAURENCE BUTET-ROCH
"The 5 Virtual Reality Films You Should Experience Right Now", Time, March 14, 2017
Virtual reality is an event or entity that is real in effect but not in fact.
MICHAEL HEIM
The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality
Fear has an equally significant effect on immersion in virtual reality. The nature of VR headsets keeps people in the moment, even when they want to look away or try and turn and escape.... Unless you tear the headset off, there's no leaving the experience before it's done.
BRAD BOURQUE
"This Year's VR Milestones Elevated It From Novelty to Art Form", Digital Trends, December 30, 2016
You have to remember that virtual reality won't be mature for everyday use for decades perhaps, and we don't know what the real situation will be like then. It will undoubtedly be different, so to talk about how it can help, we have to talk about the present and talk about computers. I'll tell you how I think about the economic role of computers, and this might be a little cynical, but I think it's actually pretty accurate. In the industrial revolution, which is still continuing in less developed parts of the world, machines were created that replaced human labor and created free time for people. But our economic system is based on earned capital, so that if you have this free time, you also don't earn any money to buy food. And this creates a crisis. The question is, if you're going to create all this leisure time with all these industrial machines, how do you justify paying people within a capitalist system so that they can survive? I think computers are the answer. I think computers are this sort of massive work program that keeps everybody busy manipulating information, and thus able to earn their bread.
JARON LANIER
Spin Magazine, November 1995
I'll continue to make VR tools and do the education videos and making VR games. But I'm not making any serious virtual reality products when the best only get 5,000 downloads.
RYAN ZEHM
"Some virtual reality entrepreneurs think a gold rush is on the way", Idaho Statesman, February 16, 2017
VR may well be heading into the "trough of disillusionment" to languish alongside artificial intelligence and self-driving cars for a couple more years before climbing out with the launch of cheaper, more comfortable and more useful devices.
PARMY OLSON
"The Hype Around Virtual Reality Is Fading", Forbes, March 3, 2017
VR was a sham. Overhyped. It was an idea whose time had not yet come.
NICK MOKEY
"We Have Virtual Reality. What's Next Is Straight Out Of The Matrix", Digital Trends, December 19, 2016
Virtual reality is a technological curse that will drive the real world from our lives. This is the conclusion being advanced by a growing number of information-age Cassandras who warn that we will become passive electronic junkies, addicted to synthetic experience served up by virtual reality "fantasy amplifiers." Others welcome what the pessimists fear, convinced that virtual reality will deepen our appreciation of the natural world.
PAUL SAFFO
InfoWorld, September 30, 1991
By the end of this decade, we will have full-immersion visual-auditory environments, populated by realistic looking virtual humans. By the 2030s, virtual reality will be totally realistic and compelling and we will spend most of our time in virtual environments. By the 2040s, even people of biological origin are likely to have the vast majority of their thinking process taking place in nonbiological substrates. We will all become virtual humans.
RAY KURZWEIL
attributed, The Age of Virtual Reality
The sheer amount of problem solving, rule breaking, and inventiveness the VR production process demands is reshaping the way creative and technologists do their work and work together, setting the stage for never-before-seen kinds of creativity that will push storytelling forward.
RESH SIDHU
"Virtual Reality Is A Renegade Technology That's Disrupting The Creative Process", Fastco Create, December 28, 2016
While the idea of placing ourselves back in time to see what it's like to walk among the dinosaurs or be on the Titanic during its final moments is intriguing, imagine the ability to put on a VR headset and be instantly transported to a presidential inauguration or even stream live news in ways never before seen. It's not outlandish to think that a major news network could bring a 360-degree camera to broadcast from special events or sites of breaking news to give its viewers the feeling of actually witnessing what is happening first-hand as the action unfolds in real-time. The same appeal could exist for those who want to travel but don't have the means, time, or ability. Being able to visit the pyramids or take part in the running of the bulls may sound like a fantasy, but if someone gets the correct technology on location at one of those destinations, it could be the next best thing to actually visiting those places.
BRIAN SHEA
"Going Beyond Games", gameinformer, #273