You will be able to vacation in someone else’s body
Stuck at home? Hate your life? Don’t worry, you will be able to live someone else’s life or travel as them using virtual reality (VR) chairs in the comfort of your own home……in a few years.
The Oculus Rift and Playstation VR were launched in 2016 to much fanfare as the world’s first widely available commercially available VR headsets. Today, VR devices are commonplace both at home and at theme parks. VR sight-swapping is also possible with 2 VR headsets – as shown on an episode of the Youtube comedy channel Good Mythical Morning. While commercial VR is currently only limited to sight and sound, gadgets to emulate other senses are on the way.
Taste: A team from the National University of Singapore has developed Vocktail, an interactive drink consists of a cocktail glass that fits into a 3D-printed structure which contains all the electronics to create virtual flavors.
Smell: The same Singaporean university is also developing “Season Traveller”, a VR headset that adds smell, temperature changes and wind to the traditional VR experience.
Touch and temperature: Massage chairs have got you covered there.
Given the travel boom prior to the pandemic and our social media-oriented society, escapism is truly the opiate of the masses. A life-swap via VR for 28 days was attempted by Abu Dhabi-based artist Mark Farid in 2015. Renting someone else’s reality for a few hours on a platform similar to rideshare apps like Uber or Grab could become as commonplace as mobile phone games.
VR-enabled life-swapping for rent could become a global trillion-dollar industry for those who do not have the time for travel, or for those who wish they had a different life…. if only for a few moments. So whose life would you want for the next hour?
References:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17458927.2018.1556952