The Next Frontier - Virtual Reality

Space is unlikely to be our next frontier, for it is simply far too hostile to sustain life, and the distance between planets are simply too far apart to travel within our lifetime, especially for planets that can support life... if they do exist.

(Realizing how challenging it is to sustain life in space, has helped me to appreciate our one and only life giver - Earth, which we have taken for granted and exploited, without care about sustainability for our future generations.)

Like Mark Zuckerberg, I will put my bet on VR (Virtual Reality) as our next frontier, this has to be our next technological and economical evolution. The technology for a fully immersive VR is already available today. And Meta has make the technology so cheap and accessible that it is now ready for mass adoption.

Unfortunately, the main bottleneck today is the lack of public awareness. Hopefully this article will help to create more awareness of the wonderful world of Virtual Reality.

Unlike space travel, where you need multi-billion dollars spaceship and light years to travel to another world. Virtual Reality allows you to travel to any imagined world with just a one time investment of just a few hundred dollars... instantly!

Oculus Quest 2, now renamed as Meta Quest 2, can be purchased for under USD$400. And this does not even need to be driven by a high end PC with unaffordable 3D graphics card. This is a fully self contained system.

This mean the 3D processing power itself is already worth more than the price. Not only does this system comes with a pair of high density displays and speakers to replace our Audio and Visual senses to simulate alternative realities with it's own worlds, it also comes with 2 controllers that allows your hands to interact with these worlds as well. Both the controllers have vibration and the headset has wind effect beside the speakers to simulate our third senses - touch.

There are so many potential usage with this system. With a full 360 degree view in 3D that response to your head movement, you almost fell like immersing into another world. This is not just great for gaming, but will be extremely awesome for entertainments and highly productive for educations.

Imaging you can pick any cinema or environment to watch your favourite movie without stepping out of your home, together with your friends and families remotely thru avatars. There are also some productivity apps where you can hold meetings with colleagues or gathering with friends, using avatars as well.

Or imaging watching a live performance where you are not just getting the VIP seats in the front row, but right beside the performers on the stage! And because the stage has no physical restriction, it can be transformed instantly into whatever scene or places instantly!

And it's amazing how you can fully immersed into the world of documentaries instead of just watching it passively outside of it on a flat display. Without any physical limitations, the possibilities of what you can do in virtual reality are truly endless.