{"id":30682,"date":"2021-01-18T12:41:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T17:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=30682"},"modified":"2021-01-07T12:14:22","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T17:14:22","slug":"why-didnt-coronapanic-and-shutdown-push-virtual-reality-over-the-hump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/18\/why-didnt-coronapanic-and-shutdown-push-virtual-reality-over-the-hump\/","title":{"rendered":"Why didn&#8217;t coronapanic and shutdown push virtual reality over the hump?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/28\/virtual-reality-and-augmented-reality-the-technologies-of-the-future\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"22353\">Virtual reality and augmented reality: the technologies of the future<\/a> (March 2019) I asked<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Is it fair to say that \u201cVR\/AR is the technology of the future, and always will be\u201d?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The future arrived in March 2020, with governments around the world making it illegal to interact face to face, illegal to travel, etc. If VR were ever going to catch on, shouldn&#8217;t coronapanic and associated lockdowns have been the catalyst?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If there were complete VR experiences at most of the world&#8217;s art museums, I would buy a VR headset right now, but museum web sites don&#8217;t seem to offer more than conventional image galleries. Maybe there are a handful of museum experiences available, but certainly it is not like the freedom that we had in the physical world when the physical world (beyond South Dakota and Sweden) included freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>VR could also be great for mass (virtual) gatherings. Wander around in VR and form small conversation groups (but maybe this wouldn&#8217;t be as good as Zoom because you&#8217;d have to interact with avatars unless you wanted to see pictures of people with VR goggles attached to their heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Who has tried the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Oculus_Quest_2\">Oculus Quest 2<\/a>? One of my cousins loves this, but maybe that is because he has been locked into his house with wife and two (mostly grown) children (i.e., perhaps coronapanic did push him into the VR fold). No cumbersome cables (and therefore limited to two hours of battery-based usage). No need to configure a PC. No privacy issues because it is tied to Facebook, which already knows everything about you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Related:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/10\/disney-world-shows-that-vr-is-pointless\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"22841\">Disney World shows that VR is pointless?<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Virtual reality and augmented reality: the technologies of the future (March 2019) I asked Is it fair to say that \u201cVR\/AR is the technology of the future, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-nerdism","category-coronapanic"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why didn&#039;t coronapanic and shutdown push virtual reality over the hump? 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