Virtual reality headsets .. will it become part of our daily lives #Al Amal Magazine

Virtual reality headsets .. will it become part of our daily lives?! As if the urban chaos wasn’t bad enough, now Godzilla stomps around the corner. The giant lizard with its razor-sharp teeth is on you in a second and the two small screens in front of your eyes go black. Viewers are pretty familiar with monster and disaster movies in the cinema or on TV, but as this demonstration of the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality (VR) headset shows, tomorrow’s movie viewer could be right there in the action, rather than just observing it. More and more manufacturers are bringing VR headsets and the multi-lens cameras needed to record 360-degree video to the market. As well as the Oculus Rift, there’s Samsung’s Gear VR and Nokia’s Ozo which will have eight cameras for panoramic shots. Will VR headsets soon supersede television? “I would argue the television as such will continue,” says Timm Lutter of Bitkom, a German technology industry association. At the very least, TV will probably survive for the sake of companionship, because you would hardly sit side by side on the couch with someone when you’re wearing a VR headset. Information Technology 48 AL'AMAL - April 2016 T he ground shakes, there’s smoke rising on the horizon, police sirens wail and explosions echo through the streets. The view swings frantically to the right, tracking a sudden movement. AL'AMAL - April 49 But the interest in the new technology is definitely there. A Bitkom survey found that in Germany, one in five people could see themselves using VR to play games or view 360-degree videos. Besides gaming, Lutter sees potential for viewing sporting events and live concerts via VR. Other non-game applications for VR include realestate virtual tours and previewing new furnishing ideas or lighting arrangements for your home. The cinema too is likely to undergo big changes. “VR has the potential to change movies radically,” says Lutter. Because the headsets put the viewer in the thick of the action, new ways will be opened up to tell stories and to change the way events are experienced. An entirely new cinematic experience Brian Blau from IT analyst Gartner predicts the first VR movies will appear in 2016 and says the viewer will experience more interactivity and an entirely new cinematic experience. In theory two people could even see the same movie, yet experience the action from completely different perspectives. He expects “fundamental changes” in TV and film production: “The first visible changes will be live events and sports events.” But what does all this mean in the long run for TV? Roland Stehle from Germany’s Association for Consumer Electronics GFU believes that the heyday of VR in the living room won’t arrive for a while yet. “This year at the IFA (consumerelectronics fair in Berlin) we are mainly seeing Ultra HD,” he says. In his view, only when ultra-high definition television is standard in the home will we see the potential for large-scale VR applications. Whoever wants to test out the VR world right now can use their smartphone. Apps such as Google’s Cardboard, the Zeiss VR One and Samsung’s Gear VR allow virtual reality, immersive games and 360-degree video to be experienced on a smartphone. “We’re seeing already in this particular spectrum a lot of enthusiasm for VR content,” says Blau. YouTube has also started supporting 360-degree videos. However, the technology coming out of its niche and entering everyday life is likely to take some time yet. Stehle reckons on around five years, Blau five to ten - not least because TVs are generally used for a long time and also because of the cost of a new device. “The TV will stay around but will become less and less important,” Blau predicts. He says that in future, more and more types of displays will be competing for consumer attention. And in 20 years time, current TVs will be looked on the same way as people with smartphones today look on mobile phones from the 1990s.