Bring VR into the mainstream and cut commuting and business travel in the process.
Products like the Occulus Rift and the Vive have recently thrust the world of computer gaming into the limelight. Virtual entertainment both regular and adult has become a growth sector, but the question remains as to whether VR will be a legitimate technology or just another gimmick that will fade the way that 3D televisions have?
When you think about the possible applications for virtual reality, there can be no greater potential for it than to serve as a disruption of the transport industry. Currently the debate rages about the future of the motor vehicle industry and how long it will be before EV overtakes ICE vehicles. However if we drill down to the core things we as humans actually do, the question emerges that with today's technology, why do we travel at all? The primary reason is commuting from home to work, the second is recreation and socialisation with family and friends.
If we examine the standard commute. The daily drive/train/walk, from home to work and back again. Why do we leave actually need to leave our homes, sometimes before daylight and travel to that place where we trade our labour for currency, day in, day out? The obvious answer is "because that's the way we've always done it"
The use of transportation to get to and from work is a classic example of the application of an evolution of standard practice. Initially it started on foot as farmers trudged to their fields, then the horse and cart and the motor car. This model has gradually been refined and modernised and we are now very excited about the possibility of self-driving autonomous vehicles which may allow us to better use our time as we safely travel from A, to B. Massive industries have been built around it and we spend billions if not trillions of dollars refining and evolving our day to day modes of transportation. This industry has resulted in an environment that is choked with both traffic and smog, yet no-one appears to have thought whether we really need most of it.
If we commute "because that's the way we've always done it", the next question begs to be asked, "do we still need to"? Traditionally the reason we all come together at a central location at our place of work is to enable communication, for the allocation of tasks, supervision, control, for collaboration, for interaction and for productivity. These are all valid reasons and remain so. The question though, still remains. Instead of working out how to get to our place of work, the true issue is, do we need to?
I stumbled across a video which talks about holoportation. This is an application of VR technology that can be applied and potentially seed a transport revolution. The synergies we draw upon are the advances in several areas of technology, those in the fields of computer hardware, networking, telecommunications, software and process management. Those who have been in the world of PC gamers know that for a significant period the gaming community has used Teamspeak, Ventrilo and Discord and more recently adapted products like the Occulus Rift and the Vive whilst they wage their pretend battles in their virtual environments. The gaming world has long embraced virtual constructs which allow a group of people to come together in a virtual world to interact and strive to achieve a common objective. Whilst the thinking might be revolutionary, isn't it a relatively simple evolution to use VR to implement virtual offices in which collaboration, creativity and productivity could all be managed in an on-line environment with an artificial software interface?
If this were possible, then the need to be transported becomes obsolete. There would be no commute, far fewer international flights into weird time zones to sit around a physical boardroom table. Companies would become significantly more efficient. Those that adopt the technology would not have the huge overheads associated with commercial real-estate costs and the associated rent and utility expenses that go with it. In lieu business could use a customised form of "virtual real estate" configured and furnished to exact specifications with whatever aspect or view that you wanted. Everyone could have the top floor of the Empire State Building if they wished.
In this environment, our employees would no longer physically commute from a home to office, but instead, walk to their desks in their home office, put on their virtual helmet and be holo-commuted into a VR work environment and appear at their work stations on time and ready to undertake the day's tasks. We could still banter, sing out to each other from one desk to the next and see when someone gets up and walks away. We could still be told what to do and use our PC's and tablets to receive telephone calls and e-mails.
There would be no more traffic jams, roads free of congestion to allow them to be used for the transport of goods and services instead of people. The city skies would be free of smog and we would enjoy seeing our families and children grow because mummy and daddy aren't back from work on the 7pm train. No lost time due to people being stuck in traffic, no crashes or parking costs, no road rage or stress. Of course this is simplistic and yes there would be downsides, especially if you own an office building... revolutionary though.