Al Jazeera’s First VR Documentary ‘I Am Rohingya’ Debuts
The Virtual Reality treadmill market is growing, which means we’re on the brink of complete digital immersion.
The Virtuix Omni and the Wizdish were the first to enter the VR foray. Both have a dish-shaped pad and require you to wear specialized shoes in order to “slide” along their low-friction surfaces. The Omni fixes users into a rotating ring harness while the Wizdish does without it.
Breaking away from requiring shoes, the virtual reality experience of the Cyberith model allows you to glide along its platform freely with socks on. However, it keeps you in a ring for security’s sake.
“If there is one quality which has shown itself to be fundamental to the human condition, which has led humans from living in caves to building sophisticated cities, from being earth-bound to conquering space, in short, to regarding every frontier not as something final, but as something merely temporal – it has to be the quality of curiosity.” Cyberith Staff
The Infinadeck is the latest entrant. It’s billed as the first omnidirectional treadmill that works for both augmented and virtual reality. It debuted at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Expo earlier in May.
An interesting thing to note is that each model has gradually subtracted the extra things needed to replicate you body’s motion in digital spaces. Platforms such as Oculus Rift and arcade games can become more expansive than ever before.
FUTURE IMPLICATIONS
A preliminary futuristic vision exists on the Virtuix Omni’s website: “… training and simulation, fitness and exercising, virtual tourism, virtual tradeshows and events, virtual meet-ups and multi-person adventures, virtual workplaces, virtual museums, physical therapy, VR architecture, VR concerts, etc. The possibilities are limitless.”
How much more could we push the boundaries and limits of virtual exploration? While mixed reality is becoming more commonplace each and every day, opting for an exclusively digital existence could be a lifestyle choice we make for ourselves in the future. It could even help comatose patients live on after their physical bodies have abandoned all function. Would you forego your body to live in the digital?
About the author
Cory Healy is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn. When he's not writing about tech or music, he can either be found delivering food on bike throughout lower Manhattan, or playing computer games at home.
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