"I remember the last time it was all the rage. E3 1995 IIRC," commenter Feniks noted, echoing others who remember the last time VR was the "next big thing." But our expert live chat panel agreed that things are different this time around. "For starters, the technology is more affordable today than it was back then," Virtually Better Inc.'s Dr. Marat Zanov said. "I think what happened in the 90's wasn't nearly the scale of what we're seeing now. The number of companies, from tiny startups to megacorps, that are investing in the technology at this point is unprecedented," added NASA JPL engineer Jeffrey Norris.
Other commenters said they feel the technology isn't quite there yet, with commenter DisplayNameTaken complaining about feelings of nausea, even on the Oculus DK2 with additional head-tracking hardware. "This is a technology where fine tuning the apps is what's going to sell it at this point because I can see people having a bad experiences and swearing it off for good. The first time, I was in 5 minutes and had to lay down an hour [because] my head was swimming so bad. I really want this to take off."
Dr. Skip Rizzo of the University of Southern California said that about 10 to 20 percent of his therapy subjects experience feelings of nausea with current VR hardware. NASA JPL's Victor Luo added, "No matter how good we get with VR, there will still be a small subset of the population that just won't do well in 3D, just like how some people cannot watch 3D movies."
For all the complaints, some readers were excited about the potential of virtual reality this time around. As Ready-Player-One put it: "I have a DK2 headset and although the game demos I've tried so far are really cool (Pixel Rift, Affected, Cyberspace, Private Eye) it's the non gaming stuff I'm really excited for. There's huge potential here. The only things current holding it back are the need for better higher res screens, video cards that can actually do this rather than hobble through it (come on Nvidia, geeze) and a new, appropriate input method. Xbox controllers are crap for this medium. We need the VR version of a mouse."
The full transcript
For more in-depth details from the discussion, here's a complete transcript of today's live chat event. It has been lightly edited for clarity, and questions from Ars and Ars readers are bolded for easier browsing.
Victor Luo: Hi everybody, looking forward to our discussions today. Jeff and I are interested in the VR industry and how it can take us beyond Earth.
Jeffrey Norris: Hi everybody, looking forward to our discussions today. Jeff and I are interested in the VR industry and how it can take us beyond Earth.
Full introduction: I lead Mission Operations Innovation at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I've been working in space mission control for 15 years and recently led the development of the system used to control the Curiosity Mars Rover. I'm passionate about creating more effective human-system interfaces, especially for controlling robots.
The lab that I lead at JPL has a YouTube channel with short videos about our work. It's here: https://www.youtube.com/user/OPSLabJPL
Dr. Marat V. Zanov: Hi, I am the Director of Training at Virtually Better, Inc. I am a Clinical Psychologist by training. I also have Dr. Dawn McDaniel with me here who heads the Research at VBI.
Kyle Orland: Also joining us: Dr. Albert "Skip" Rizzo, USC Institute for Creative Technology, who has been researching therapeutic uses for VR since the early '90s.
Here's a starter question: How sure are you that the current boom in virtual reality isn't just a repeat of the similar fizzled "boom" we saw in the '90s? What is (or isn't) different this time?
Dr. Zanov: For starters, the technology is more affordable today than it was back then.
Victor Luo: I think the developer community is also more ready and willing to jump on this new tech.
Kyle Orland: Why do you think that is, Victor?
Victor Luo: I think many of the VR companies are doing a good job of prioritizing devs and having easy to access and articulate APIs. They are reaching out into the communities and doing game jams and VR hackathons, all spawning more developer interest, which results in more applications, which results in more public interest.
Jeffrey Norris: I think what happened in the '90s wasn't nearly the scale of what we're seeing now. The number of companies, from tiny startups to megacorps, that are investing in the technology at this point is unprecedented.
Kyle Orland: Follow-up: How low do you think costs can get? When will we see a high-quality headset under, say, $100?
Jeffrey Norris: It's no secret that mobile device displays are what has enabled the dramatic cost reductions that we're seeing in VR devices now. I'd look to that market to continue to bring those prices down.
We're seeing sub-$400 VR devices because we have sub-$400 smartphones. I think it would be accurate to say that we'll see sub-$100 VR devices when we have sub-$100 smartphones.
Dr. Zanov We also believe that the advent of 3-D printing should be considered in the future of this technology.
Kyle Orland: Meaning you see a future where people 3D print their own headset mounts for much lower costs?
Dr. Zanov: Not necessarily. While the 3-D printing allows (or shortly will allow) individuals to replicate a headset with a variety of mobile devices, we are also thinking along the lines of enhancing the Virtual experience of the end-user.
Dore Dormir says:
Smart phones have changed screens and other tech needed. That wasn't really the case in the 90s. Although I see some of the same problems cropping up as well. Being a VFX1 user in the 90's the first thing I noticed is that I wanted to have my hands, and be able to walk around. How likely are we to have these devices as well?
Kyle Orland: I'd be interested to hear the panelists thoughts on Dore's comment re: the "where are my hands" and walking-around problem. Is VR being held back by lack of a standard for intuitive controls?
Victor Luo: Dore: The next biggest topic to tackle in VR is going to be input. A lot of companies are trying to tackle this problem, but the number of interactions and scenarios is just daunting.
And with the wide variety of natural interface inputs out there, there is still very few that are tackling the tactile feedback portion of the problem.
Jeffrey Norris: Intuitive input is a wide open field in VR today. Most of what we're seeing are amalgamations of multiple devices to pull this off. Here's a body-tracking VR example from my lab: http://youtu.be/pqNC72fgetc.
Dr. Rizzo: I think 3D User interface challenges will be around for awhile. Short of the holodeck, we will need to use ways that are learnable but not a mimic of reality....look at gamepads--completely unnatural but humans translate to control devices an eventually "forget" about them as they use them more.
Kyle Orland: An interesting comment from "Peevster," on our feature this morning: "The 'VR for therapy' thing is certainly true in my case. I remember in the early 90s when FPS games first started getting decently realistic. Certain things like standing next to a dropoff in Quake would set my acrophobia screaming. I was so bad that I couldn't play the game unless I stayed away from bridges and cliffs. Jumping didn't bother me though, because my particular strain of acrophobia is the mortal fear that I will decide to jump off. Once I DID jump off, it wasn't scary anymore. But of course that's a hard cure to take in real life."
"As a result of playing these games, I lost almost all of my fear of heights, to the point where I went rock climbing a bunch of times (including some technically challenging ones that will cause a person without acrophobia to clench their balls a bit if they looked down). I still get a little twinge and elevated pulse the first time I see a big drop, but it's it's no longer panic-inducing. Thanks 3D gaming!"
Jumping off Peevster's comment, do you see potential in integrating game design techniques into your VR therapies?
Dr. Rizzo: We do that now but we have to be careful not to confuse a game with therapy. We use game tech and game interaction methods to foster engagement, but sometimes therapy involves not avoiding fears, but confronting them...
Dr. Zanov: ...to further Dr. Rizzo's point, patients should be guided through the Virtual Reality therapy sessions by a trained professional (i.e., Clinical Psychologist) in order to achieve the most therapeutic benefit.
Dr. Rizzo: Yes, that sort of guidance is essential for good therapeutic outcome....these are tools to extend the skills of a good clinician. The Tech doesn't fix anyone....it is the human that is using the tool.
Jeffrey Norris: Kyle - I've heard of a number of instances of using VR technology for therapy. Sometimes I like to point out that VR shows us that human perception isn't quite as subtle and sophisticated as we might like to believe! If we can be truly frightened by VR, and even experience therapeutic effects through VR, it seems our brains can be fooled a bit more easily than we might have thought.
Gene Roddenberry's Holodeck required the fabrication of matter in order to accomplish VR. Thankfully, it seems that we can get close to many of the same effects with far simpler technology.
Adam says:
I'd be interested latency issues in remotely controlled robotics. Where is that line where we can no longer do "real-time" remote control. 10ms? .5s? 2.5s?
Victor Luo: Adam: here is a video of us beginning to tackle the problem of time-delayed robotic operations: http://youtu.be/zigrmI2uv0E
Briefly: if we provide an interface that visualizes the potential driving capacity and errors in the system, then we can operate ahead of time, meaning we can plan without waiting for all of the telemetry to come back to us.
Jeffrey Norris: Even 1 second of time delay requires dramatic changes in the ways that we control a robot on the other end. VR technology can help with situational awareness, but mitigating the effects of latency requires other techniques like those shown in the video that Victor linked.
The systems that we build to control robots on Mars have to tolerate 5 to 25 minutes of one-way latency. It's really more like 12 hours of latency because we typically only communicate with a robot like Curiosity a couple times per day.
However, we've shown in a carefully controlled study that VR provides dramatic improvements in the understanding that our mission scientists have of the surroundings of the Curiosity Mars Rover.
Jeff Jones says:
I'm fascinated by using VR to treat phobias--is there any research yet into whether it actually works better than other approaches?
Dr. Zanov: It depends on what you mean by "better." Also, it'd be interesting what "other approaches" you have in mind. There's much research out there that shows VR to be effective. For instance, you can take a look at a bibliography that we compiled on our site for a number of disorders: http://www.virtuallybetter.com/publication-category/
Dr. Rizzo There are meta analyses (at least 3) that show VR to outperform traditional imagination only exposure therapy and it is as good as in vivo exposure which is often difficult or dangerous to do.
Kyle Orland: I know that Dr. Zanov and Dr. Rizzo have discussed that VR therapy is also "better" in being cheaper and more feasible therapies in many cases. Such as a PTSD sufferer who can't be sent back to a "live" war zone for exposure therapy.
Dr. Rizzo: Exactly!
Dr. Zanov: Yes, we believe (and this is based on our personal experiences) that VR therapy will get the individual rather faster to their desired goal.
Dore Dormir says:
I like the Kinect solutions in the video. I did have problems walking into walls (when I was solo). However an even greater issue, once movement was introduced, was the cables. Short of strapping a laptop on my back, how will this new generation of VR devices handle getting tied up in the cables?
Kyle Orland: Good question re: wireless VR. I know Samsung's Gear VR is already part of the way there, for instance...
Jeffrey Norris: I think the cables are a temporary issue. We've experimented with wireless video options and as Kyle points out we're already seeing devices that are untethered.
Kyle Orland: Jeff: What kind of latency do you see in wireless video solutions for VR these days?
Jeffrey Norris: Yes - latency in the wireless video sent us back to wired options for the time being :).
Kyle Orland: That bad, eh?
Jeffrey Norris: Kyle - it depends on your tolerance for latency. Some people weren't bothered, others were.
Victor Luo: That, and just the battery/portable solutions are not that great right now.
Jeffrey Norris: What Victor means to say is that we had smoke coming out of a backpack in our lab at one point.
Our lab smelled like burning batteries for the rest of the day. Remember to ventilate, kids!
Dr. Rizzo: Most systems will run the simulations on the processors in the HMD in the near future....we see that today happening already. I have an onboard Android fear of flying app that is sufficient now.
Victor Luo: Dore/Kyle: Yeah GearVR is a good example of wireless VR. In addition to that, we are seeing other companies get into the mix. Google Cardboard, Epson Moverio, Meta Space Glasses, Avegant Glyph, etc.
Dr. Rizzo: Sorry but Google Cardboard...well they should be ashamed of themselves claiming to be the first. FOV to Go from my colleague Mark Bolas's lab came out two years ago! I hate Google for that lie!
Kyle Orland: If only you had Google's marketing muscles, Dr. Rizzo =)
Dr. Rizzo: I would use those muscles for a positive end, not to claim credit for the work of others!
James Karo says:
I tried an Occulus once and I guess I am one of those people who can't stomach it. What is being done for people who don't handle this VR tech well? Many years ago I got to play with a CAVE. I'm not sure why one made me ill and the other did not.
Kyle Orland: jumping off of James: how much does "motion sickness" get in the way of things for test subjects, in your experience?
Victor Luo: Motion sickness in VR is still an issue, something I'm sure all of the headset manufacturers are trying to tackle. Latency, ergonomics, visibility, brightness, FOV, resolution are all contributing factors.
No matter how good we get with VR, there will still be a small subset of the population that just won't do well in 3D, just like how some people cannot watch 3D movies.
Dr. Rizzo: Yep, that is a good list... also, experience and the actual content.
Jeffrey Norris: It's been pointed out to me that the root of motion sickness in VR is the discordance between what your proprioceptive senses are telling your body and what your eyes are seeing, and your brain responds by assuming you've ingested some kind of poison that needs to be evacuated. :)
Dr. Zanov: Also, some people are just not well-suited for therapy period, be it Virtual or traditional.
Dr. Rizzo: Cant be everything for everybody. Just like sailing...some folks barf all the time, others only the first time.
Kyle Orland: What percentage of people would you estimate have serious motion sickness issues with current VR tech?
Dr. Rizzo: 10-20%
Jeffrey Norris: We've only run around 30 people through VR experiments in our lab, so I couldn't offer an accurate estimate.
Kyle says:
If I have to wear a massive headset in order to interact with VR, I am not going to be using it except for very special purpose applications for limited time periods. What are some of the current research topics/results re: miniaturization of this technology, or even biological interfaces? Is that too far into the future?
Dr. Rizzo: HMDs are now getting like ski masks. comfortable and lightweight.
Kyle Orland: Not comfortable enough for "other Kyle" apparently...
Dr. Rizzo: Direct retinal imaging has been around for a while but not quite there.
They claim the laser light is less damaging than the sun.
Victor Luo And just like all technology, miniaturization just comes with time (see: PCs, phones, etc.)
Kyle Orland: How long until we get a decent VR headset in a form factor closer to sunglasses than ski goggles?
Jeffrey Norris: *Definitely* looking forward to that!
Dr. Rizzo: 5 years for good sunglass level displays
HRDunham says:
Is anyone studying (or have plans to study) the reverse effects of VR with regards to the psychology? While it might help treat real world issues, what's the panel's thoughts on the tech creating others? (VR world immersion addiction, loss of the VR world/ real world line) Any notable discussion on the ethics involved around the tech (VR murders and other heinous acts certainly are coming)?
Dr. Rizzo: I think the ethics are being considered and should be....we actually wrote a chapter on this in 2002 and are about to revisit and update that chapter.
One thing on ethics though....I don't worry about VR making people crazy or lose perception of real reality. I worry about people who are already impaired and the impact it could have. But in the end, the positives will way outweigh the negative. I've seen musician waste away too with addiction to that lifestyle....we admire them.
Jeffrey Norris: I think the question is whether the risks increase as the simulation of reality increases. I think it probably does.
Kyle Orland: Victor and Jeff, an idea from a commenter elsewhere on the site: "VR has insane potential. Just imagine a VR camera hooked up to a rocket being launched to give viewers the ability to see what it's like flying up into space. Better yet, a VR camera on the ISS looking down at earth giving viewers a live view of space and earth as if they were actually there.. I might never take it off if I could stream that."
You guys should get JPL working on that post-haste
Victor Luo: Yes, I agree the potentials of VR in space are fantastic
Dr. Rizzo: Journalism will be the next big thing with immersion. We did news stories with panoramic video back around 2001-2003 in a Sony Glasstron. Plan to put together a spherical capture camera system with go-pros and start the journalism storytelling work again now with current HMDs.
Ben says:
Do you think VR will adversely affect funding for manned space missions (i.e., the "VR is good enough, we don't need to send someone there") argument)?
Jeffrey Norris: We believe that the entire field of immersive visualization will be transformational for space exploration. It will enable us to accomplish more in more distant places and involve all of humanity in the journey.
Humans (the ones in spacesuits) will always be critical to space exploration because one of our most important goals in exploration is to expand human presence throughout the universe. You can't do *that* without putting humans out there! However, human exploration through VR, mediated by robotic avatars will be equally important because it will allow us to reach further and to environments that may never be appropriate for physical human presence.
Kyle Orland: A couple of questions on augmented reality versus VR from our readers that I'd love to hear our panel's thoughts on
James McIlhargey says:
Do you think that augmented reality (AR) will see any growth through the recent VR boom?Dore Dormir says:
Not to jump to far ahead but do you think that VR will lead to an Augmented Reality head set revolution? Will we finally walk away from the keyboard & mouse style computing?
Dr. Rizzo: AR should definitely advance as the displays and cameras continue to shrink
Victor Luo: I think eventually AR and VR will be one and the same. Really good AR should allow for complete VR.
Dr. Rizzo: Good points....agree with both the AR/VR point and the space exploration by humans point.
Kyle Orland: The display technology for good AR seems way behind that for good VR. Translucency is a tough problem, as is projecting an image that seems like it's "on top of" the real world right in front of your face.
Victor Luo: Yup, AR is the trickier beast, but once we've perfected VR, there'll be nothing left to tackle besides AR =)
Dr. Rizzo: Yes, with see-through AR, but camera AR is getting pretty good.
Jeffrey Norris: When I go to industry/trade events I see lots of companies tackling AR with healthy support from VCs. The "VR Boom" certainly isn't limited to full immersion devices.
Dore Dormir says:
One question on the software side of exposure therapy. Considering how many specific scenarios different cases need for exposure therapy, how are these being created? Are their modular software environments that allow the patient to recreate their specific environment needed?
Dr. Rizzo: Send me an email and I can send you a paper on the design of the PTSD content.. In a nutshell, we have 14 general scenarios and then the clinician can adjust all the elements in real time: light, time of day, ambient sound, trigger events, etc. For papers etc. send requests to arizzo@usc.edu
Kyle M. says:
I have a second question regarding VR in the classroom - I have a family member who is an early years teacher and I'm sure this would be very interesting to her. One big downside I can see is that this technology seems to be very isolating, if a whole classroom were using this, they would be sitting at tables navigating through the virtual world and not interacting with each other (and learning all the real-world people skills that come from that). What sorts of social applications for VR are currently being developed?
Kyle Orland: I know none of you are directly involved in classroom education, but I've heard that fear of a VR classroom being "isolating" from a few people.
Dr. Rizzo: Sure, Isolation is possible, kinda like reading a book too. But shared virtual experiences are also possible for edu....think WoW.
Kyle Orland: Reading books is obviously bad for you because it's isolating... =)
Jeffrey Norris: However, a similarly bad use of the technology of books in the classroom is a room full of kids sitting side by side reading silently from textbooks for an hour.
Victor Luo: I agree that multi-user scenarios for VR are not being tackled as much. hopefully FB's acquisition of Oculus will begin to turn the tide on that?
Stan says:
I would like to hear some opinions on VR and sex industry, it will certainly open a huge discussion, it's just matter of time.
Kyle Orland: (Let's try to keep it somewhat classy with our responses to Stan)
Dr. Rizzo: Teledildonics is the official term, BTW. Classy enough?
Jeffrey Norris: A bit outside my field, Stan!
Dr. Rizzo: Sex sim always come up in these discussions. Something for everybody.
Kyle Orland: Sounds like a resounding "no comment" on VR sex...
Lee A says:
Can excessive VR usage do any eye damage? (see: http://arstechnica.com/staff/2014/10/multi-hour-oculus-rift-sessions-are-doing-weird-things-to-my-eyes/)
Kyle Orland: Personally, I haven't had any sessions long enough to encounter that kind of problem
Jeffrey Norris: I hope not! I'm using it quite a lot. :)
Dr. Rizzo: Aging does more damage to the eyes...trust me on that one! ;-)
Sid says:
@KyleOrland: I was wondering about education need. But I also imagine that remote classes and EAD would get a whole new level. Why not live in the country while study in "Manhattan"?
Kyle Orland: That's a fair point; if VR gets good enough, is where you live going to matter less and less for things like education?
Dr. Rizzo: Already does...online edu is ubiquitous. Adding a little immersion might just make it more interesting...
Victor Luo: I hope VR gets good enough to share around the world, but even with online communities & distant learning of today, it still doesn't feel satisfying enough.
Jeffrey Norris: I think that VR/AR is eroding the importance of physical presence in numerous contexts, including education. It follows in the footsteps of other technologies that have done the same: the telephone, the radio, the Internet.
Dr. Rizzo: After spending a buncha time in VR, I think people will become more excited about the benefits of reality! I can hear kids getting excited in the 22nd century about actually going to the beach to swim in real water and to the park to climb a real tree. I think it will flip this way as natural resources become more scare and VR is just commonplace.
Jeffrey Norris: Skip - that's a fascinating observation about people flipping and valuing reality more in the future. Could see that in a science fiction book!
Dr. Rizzo: Lets write one!!!
Jeffrey Norris: You're on :)
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