Daily Archives: May 4, 2020

I have wanted to love virtual reality for a really long time.

More than two decades ago, when I was a preteen, I saved up my allowance to buy the original Virtual Boy, an early V.R. gaming console made by Nintendo. The Virtual Boy was an infamous commercial flop, with laughably primitive 3-D graphics and a janky plastic headset that gave me splitting headaches. But I was transfixed by the idea of a technology that could transport me to another world, even if it was only to play Mario Tennis.

Since then, Ive tested maybe a dozen V.R. headsets, ranging from cheap Google Cardboard models to ultra-high-end gaming rigs. And every time, Ive found myself excited by the promise of futuristic V.R., and disappointed by the inevitable letdown of experiencing the actual limited systems.

Last month, when it became clear that wed all be stuck inside our homes for weeks on end, I decided to give V.R. another try. After all, what better time to escape into virtual reality than a pandemic? I hoped it would give me a break from my daily doomsurfing routine. And if I was lucky, maybe I would encounter new ways to stay entertained and connected from the safety of my home.

The good news is that, in technical terms, todays V.R. systems are miles ahead of their predecessors. Many newer systems feature realistic graphics and motion capture, and there are some genuinely great games and entertainment apps out there. If youre a gamer, a movie buff or just a person suffering from cabin fever in quarantine, there are worse ways to spend a few hundred bucks than on an entry-level V.R. headset.

The bad news is that V.R. is still not what sci-fi movies taught us to hope for a fully immersive experience that transports us to another dimension and gives us all kinds of virtual superpowers. Even the leading systems still lack some basic features and, outside of gaming, there isnt much you can do on a V.R. headset that you cant do more easily on another device.

Im not giving up hope yet. But after several weeks of testing, I suspect that the future of lifelike digital interactions will not be found inside V.R. headsets and computerized goggles, but instead will be built on top of the less flashy technology were already using.

My first task was tracking down a virtual reality headset, which turned out to be surprisingly hard. Popular V.R. systems like the Oculus Quest and PlayStation VR have been sold out for months online, and when I looked, new models were selling on eBay for hundreds of dollars above their retail price. I was lucky enough to snag one of the last remaining Oculus Go units the brands cheaper, low-end model, which starts at $149 for a 32-gigabyte version on Amazon. (Oculus, which is owned by Facebook, later sent me a Quest, the companys higher-end model, which starts at $399 and includes two controllers, but it didnt arrive in time for me to test.)

Unsurprisingly, the virus outbreak has been good for V.R. makers. IDC, a company that compiles data about the industry, said it expected sales of stand-alone V.R. headsets to grow 30 percent in 2020. Industry insiders told me that sales and use of V.R. apps had grown since lockdowns began, and that the growth would be higher if popular headsets were not back-ordered. Facebook said this week that it had made nearly $300 million in non-advertising revenue during the first quarter, a year-over-year increase of roughly 80 percent that the company said had been driven largely by increased Oculus sales.

Weekend usage is up, but weekday usage is really way up, Andrew Bosworth, Facebooks head of virtual and augmented reality, said in an interview. People are filling in what would have been normal parts of their weekday working out, hanging out with friends with V.R.

To get the most out of my virtual reality experience, I brought in an expert guide: Mike Cussell, who makes popular videos on YouTube under the handle Virtual Reality Oasis.

His first piece of advice was to experiment with so-called social V.R. apps programs that allow multiple users to congregate in a virtual space. The simulated presence these apps offer, he said, is part of what distinguishes them from other digital communication tools.

You could sit with your best friend from the other side of the world in a V.R. cinema and watch a movie together, Mr. Cussell said. You cant do that on a Zoom call.

To show me what he meant, Mr. Cussell or rather his bald, round-faced cartoon avatar met my avatar in the lobby of Bigscreen, a V.R. app that allows groups of people to watch movies together. He invited me into a virtual theater outfitted with stadium-style seating. We watched a few movie trailers, and while the graphics were impressive, the overall experience felt more gimmicky than transformative. Watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 3-D for a few minutes is fun, but its harder to imagine enjoying a 90-minute movie with a bulky, battery-heated headset strapped to your head. (Plus, while Bigscreen does have a virtual concession stand and even a feature that allows you to fling animated popcorn at your avatars face its hardly as good as eating actual movie snacks.)

Oculus, which Facebook acquired in 2014, has a number of built-in chat features that connect with your existing social graph. But few of my real-life friends and family members own V.R. headsets, which limited my options. Mr. Cussell said I shouldnt let that stop me from having a virtual social life.

Part of the fun is making new friends, he said. It feels much more personal when someone actually approaches you, is in your physical space, and engages with you.

I spent some time trying to make friends on some of the social apps Mr. Cussell recommended, like AltSpaceVR, a kind of town square where groups of people can gather to hold concerts, play games and talk to one another. But those apps didnt do much for me, either. The AltSpace parties I went to mostly seemed to consist of strangers parading their avatars around in circles, making small talk about the coronavirus and joking about V.R. social etiquette. (One host advised us that the rules of his V.R. house party were simple: Dont be a jerk, and dont hit on underage girls.)

Despite Mr. Cussells advice, the best V.R. experiences I found were the solitary ones that didnt involve any social interaction at all. Like Nature Treks VR, a game that allows you to float around serene meadows and pristine beaches while a soothing soundscape plays. Or Real VR Fishing, an app that lets you scout for prize catches in a series of simulated lakes and rivers.

I also took advantage of the many available V.R. travel apps. One night, after I did a guided V.R. meditation and spent 20 minutes walking around a 3-D rendering of Zion National Park, I realized I felt more relaxed than I had in weeks.

Escapism is virtual realitys strong suit, and its why major gaming studios are developing more big-budget games for platforms like Oculus and PlayStation VR. But sci-fi and industry hype has always promised us that the technology would replace more than just our consoles. Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, has called V.R. the next major computing and communication platform, and other V.R. leaders have predicted that we will eventually use it for everything from workplace collaboration to sex.

Part of the problem for virtual reality enthusiasts is that much of what a V.R. headset offers can be found in other places. Fortnite, for example, has become a venue for concerts and other large virtual gatherings. (A concert by the hip-hop artist Travis Scott last week drew more than 12 million viewers.) Animal Crossing, a whimsical Nintendo Switch game, has become a surprise quarantine hit. Millions of people are using Zoom and other video-chat apps to hold virtual game nights, cocktail parties and yoga classes on their laptops and phones, without the need for special hardware.

These experiences arent fully immersive, in the same way that virtual reality is. But they may not need to be. After all, the breakout moment for augmented reality V.R.s chiller, more pragmatic cousin, which involves projecting digital objects onto physical spaces wasnt fancy Magic Leap goggles or Hololens gadgets but a Snapchat filter that let you turn yourself into a dancing hot dog. We are creatures of habit, and it may be that people simply prefer virtual experiences that dont require them to strap an expensive computer to their forehead.

I told Mr. Cussell, my V.R. tour guide, that I was still unsure whether my preteen dream of a mass-market virtual reality experience, filled with lifelike experiences and plenty of my actual friends, would ever come to fruition. He conceded that stand-alone V.R. headsets might remain a niche product for nerds like us. But he said that if anything could push the technology into the mainstream for good, it would be a global pandemic that shut people out of the physical world, starved them of social interaction and made them long for a return to normalcy.

Now, more than ever, people could really do with an escape from reality, he said.

Read more here:

This Should Be V.R.s Moment. Why Is It Still So Niche? - The New York Times

Its one of the most under-appreciated science fiction films of the past decade, but Luc Bessons Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (also the most expensive independent film ever made) subtly depicts a compelling vision for the way tools like augmented and virtual reality devices may intersect with the future of online shopping.

The scene takes place in Big Market, a massive inter-dimensional marketplace consisting of more than a million shops. In reality, its located in a giant empty desert, but it can be accessed by visiting shoppers through their head-worn AR glasses. Take a look for yourself.

Aside from showcasing how augmented reality can transform our relationship to physical land in unpredictable ways, even barren desert landscapes, it showcases what an almost fully online shopping experience might be like if you could physically walk through it in three-dimensional space.

While were far from a Big Market existing in the real world, Ive just experienced what is perhaps its closest precursor entirely in virtual reality using my own Oculus Rift headset at home. Its called Virtual Market, and right now the fourth edition is currently underway in VRChat, one of the most-used social VR applications today.

Virtual Market 4, or V-Ket 4 for short, is a Japanese expo that spans 36 separate worlds contained within the VRChat ecosystem. Its primary purpose is to sell virtual apparel and avatars, like if shopping for a new skin in Fortnite took place inside a sprawling virtual mall. Given the scale of the event, its also drawn the attention from big brands to create an almost CES-like feel.

For those who dont know what VRChat is, think of it like a modern Second Life, full of user-built online virtual spaces. To date, VRChat is by far the most popular and used social VR application, which had millions of downloads and tens of thousands of concurrent users at its peak in 2018 and is now seeing even more growth during the pandemic.

In early 2018, a collection of popular twitch streamers began broadcasting as avatars from inside VRChat to their thousands of viewers. To get a sense, one notable example involved two beloved twitch celebrities who staged a sort of ongoing reality show culminating in a mock wedding in front of their fans. As a result, and aside from games like Beat Saber and Half-Life Alyx, VRChat became the closest thing to a killer app the VR industry has ever seen. VRChat is now carrying the baton handed off by Second Life toward realizing some of the vision of a true online Metaverse.

In concept, V-Ket 4 is one of the more remarkable activities Ive seen during my time writing about VR, but in practice were clearly far off from a truly rich social experience in VR.

The most astonishing aspect is the scope and scale of the event. According to the official press release, V-Ket 3 hosted more than 710,000 people, and this time more than a million visitors are expected to participate over the course of 10 days (making it the largest social VR gathering ever). 40 companies, many of them well-known multinationals including Audi, Netflix, Panasonic, and Sega, will be exhibitors as well. Presumably (and I was unable to contact a press representative at the time of writing), the majority of these visitors will be from Asia. I also do not know the number of people who will attend in 2D, since VRChat also works on desktop without a VR device.

As Kent Bye, a popular VR podcaster, points out as well, V-Ket displays some of the most complex and intricate virtual world architecture you will find anywhere in social VR.

V-Ket 4 kicked off at 7pm San Francisco time the evening of Tuesday April 28 (11am Wednesday in Tokyo), and will run for ten days. At the start of the event, I was ready to spawn into Parareal Tokyo, the flagship virtual world made to imitate the real streets of Japans capital. I noticed on the dashboard that more than 2,000 people were already in the spacebut since each instance of the world is capped at 30 users, there were more than 65 copied versions of Parareal Tokyo running at once.

My avatar was immediately placed in the lobby of a traditional-looking conference center with a massive SoftBank booth like you might see at CES. I followed a ramp out into a sprawling urban landscape with multimedia billboards and blimps displaying ads for Audi vehicles and other brands. I saw a booth for Netflix, and before my connection fell apart I was able to stumble into a fully-simulated 7-Eleven convenience store with a few avatars for sale on display. I couldnt hear any of the other users speaking, and there were only 30 of us scattered across such a large space; for being such a massive event, it felt eerily quiet and lonely.

Admittedly my connection was terrible, the space wouldnt easily render, and the lag became so unbearable that I eventually gave up and searched for Virtual Market 4 on twitch and spent the next few hours watching a 25-year-old streamer named SciFri (with a far more enviable internet connection) wander around V-Ket with his friends. This approach had its unique flavor of entertainment value and it was nice to cook my real-world dinner while outsourcing the exploration of V-Ket to SciFri and his friends.

Later I found some great English-language live coverage of the event here.

The concept of spending time in online virtual spaces has certainly become more mainstream in recent years. The most iconic anecdote in recent memory was Marshmellos 10-minute performance inside Fortnite last year, attended by over 10 million people. Last weekend, Fortnite went further by producing a Travis Scott concert series seen by just shy of 28 million. And given the ongoing pandemic where were spending even the most mundane parts of our day online, the idea that well someday socialize, shop, play, and even work inside some form of digital environment is becoming a far more recognizable development of our modern era.

Todays biggest limitation to social VR experiences is the limited technology to facilitate a truly connected experience. Its challenging to convey nuanced emotions and behavioral cues beyond body language, positioning, and voice, although each platform has its own unique way of addressing the challenge. Additionally, high numbers of users extend beyond the capacity of todays servers, meaning theres no way to create the truly large-scale gathering you might find at a real-world event. For example, this time Fortnite limited the Travis Scott concert to 50 players per server, in contrast to the 100 players at their previous Marshmello event.

This means that social VR doesnt yet feel like the rich experience of virtual life depicted in science fiction like Snow Crash and Ready Player One. That is coming, but its a ways off.

In the meantime, V-Ket 4 is one of the most stunning developments Ive seen, and they are certainly making good on their stated mission of developing and enriching the virtual space. For us westerners, its also a reminder that development of the technologies doesnt occur at a uniform speed across various geographies. When I visited China and Japan a few years ago, it was already clear that consumer adoption of virtual reality was far beyond what we currently see in the West.

In the coming decades, a functional Metaverse may arrive, and concepts like Big Market might really exist. In the meantime, a bizarre online expo called V-Ket 4 is the largest and most fascinating online social VR gathering in the world.

*V-Ket 4 runs until May 10th on the VRChat platform

Image Credit: Aaron Frank

Read this article:

The World's Biggest Social Virtual Reality Gathering Is Happening Right Now - Singularity Hub

Virtual reality isnt just for gamers. Artists, exercise fiends and actors in a new theater form are experimenting now. And in experiences that have become more responsive, the player is no longer passive. Yes, the headsets still cost too much, but the promises of VR are closer than theyve ever been. And during coronavirus-forced social isolation, they bring alternate realities in anxious times. TODD MARTENS and DEBORAH VANKIN report on the innovations.

By TODD MARTENS

Get lost in a virtual, interacting coloring book in Color Space.

(Lighthaus)

ALL IT TOOK to make me a believer of virtual reality was for reality to break.

This was the thought I had after about 45 minutes inside my VR headset on a Monday afternoon. I had barely moved. A forest surrounded me. A bird sat perched on a tree branch. My hand held a video game controller. But what I saw was a futuristic airbrush, a laser-like paint sprayer that looked like a prop from a 1940s sci-fi film.

A touch of a button and I could color the world. The bird before me was purple. Then it was pink. Then blue. Then pink again. I shot the feathered creature with random color as if I were Flora, Fauna and Merryweather all in one, toying with the chroma of the universe as if I alone possessed the power of the fairy godmothers of Sleeping Beauty.

Soon the alarm on my smartphone sounded. This was my cue to remove the VR headset and flip on the radio to listen to another sobering address from Mayor Eric Garcetti. I sat and stared as L.A.'s mayor spoke, my eyes tracing a scratch on my coffee table. Illuminated by the late afternoon sun, the wear had long escaped my vision. Having spent the day in a heightened version of reality, I was suddenly more attuned to my very real, very dusty surroundings. The enchanted world of Color Space seemed very far away.

Home, in this head space, is not a place to play; its a place to hide out, at least until the pandemic comes to an end or a declining market leads to an eviction. Which comes first right now feels like something of a toss-up. My home is no longer comforting.

In this moment, I found virtual reality. And, to be sure, I had been skeptical. READ MORE

By DEBORAH VANKIN

A still from artist Keith Tolchs interactive, virtual reality artwork, Glass Bottom Brain, produced at Art Reality Studio.

(Keith Tolch)

WE ARE INSIDE Keith Tolchs brain. As in, walking around.

Its a futuristic landscape, a maze of empty rooms with soaring ceilings and glowing, neon-lit floors, everything bathed in an 80s-era palette of screaming-pink, orange and lime green. Random objects a deconstructed 1967 Mustang, glass cubes brimming with swirly paint markings, delicate pencil drawings of butterflies and roosters float by.

But, wait. Disrobed of the plastic, padded headset, we are actually in a gleaming Eagle Rock warehouse, a former auto body repair shop-turned-artists studio, and Tolch is perched behind a computer console, beaming.

His piece, Glass Bottom Brain, is an interactive, virtual reality artwork meaning viewers don a high-resolution headset and descend into an immersive, 3-D digital environment in which they can navigate through bits and pieces of Tolchs subconscious. He created the piece with expensive state-of-the-art computer equipment, but Tolch didnt invest a cent. The project was paid for, organized by and later exhibited by Art Reality Studio, a nonprofit organization thats outfitting contemporary artists with VR technology toward pushing creative boundaries. It sees itself as an incubation lab for cutting-edge creativity and asks the question: What if?

What happens when artists are given cutting-edge technology, no strings attached?, says ARS co-founder Frank Masi. We wanna see how far theyll take it. READ MORE

Dasha Kittredge, left, and Haylee Nichele are actors for Tender Claws, an experimental game studio that makes virtual and augmented reality games.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

By TODD MARTENS

LAST WEEK, ON the verge of being late for a work-related call, I stumbled upon a group of strangers. One of them snapped their fingers near my face. Another tossed me a sword.

But I didnt run. In the virtual reality world of The Under Presents, these actions are tantamount to instant friendship. I admired the sword but set it aside when I spotted an inner tube, knowing that there would be no fighting here. Besides, the pool equipment would be better for an impromptu dance party, which can happen regularly in The Under Presents. The work call would have to wait.

A woman who looked to be nearly 15 feet tall commandeered our attention. She said we should all say hello to her new friend named Rice Krispie Treat and then she asked if we could do a group hug. If there was any doubt that this was not your standard video game character and was instead a creation being puppeteered by a very-real actor, it was about to become apparent.

We cant hug out there right now, she said, alluding to our current health crisis, so we may as well do it in here.

Starved for company, let alone the community offered by a friendly embrace, I stretched out my arms and leaned forward, my left hand hitting the coffeemaker in my kitchen as I did so.

Today, however, in a world struggling to balance life, finances and the arts with measures to slow the spread of a vicious virus, The Under Presents feels more like a statement piece. It shows one potential way forward, a future where the worlds of home technology and theater coalesce to build not just fresh experiences but carve out new business models.

Tender Claws is seizing the moment.

Its stable of 18 live actors has been extended full time through the end of May, and part time at least through July. Ultimately, The Under Presents works because it re-imagines theater for the game space. While not a replacement for live, it is another avenue for performance, and its medium-specific work that was built specifically for the home, offering one answer to a question that is no doubt vexing many right now: What options are there for live performance when we cant gather in the same space? READ MORE

By TODD MARTENS

The VR exercise game Supernatural aims to give users a full-body workout in virtual reality.

(Within)

LIKE A NEW YEARS resolution that was never going to be kept, I woke up on March 13 with grand plans: Every morning while under stay-at-home orders I would work out for at least 30 minutes. Then I decided to start that on March 14. Soon it was the first week of April. Turns out Im pretty good at excuses, all under the guise of self-care.

I was going to need to find a way to move. And right now, if it werent for virtual reality, I probably wouldnt be getting any exercise.

Moving inside the headset has resulted in my most intense workouts in months, so much so that Im planning to cancel my gym membership on the other end of this. While Im far from the first to discover that virtual reality is pretty great space for working out, Im somewhat frustrated it took me this long to realize it. READ MORE

More reading:

How Vader Immortal became Lucasfilms Star Wars bet on the future of VR and memory design

With a free phone app, Nancy Baker Cahill cracks the glass ceiling in male-dominated land art

Westworld, Ho! Inside Evermore, where the future of theme parks is not about rides but play

Disney Halls Thought Experiments: New view of an L.A. landmark through immersive video walk

Confederate statue, plantation, prison: Artists reclaim sites with AR in Battlegrounds

How architects are using virtual reality to walk through buildings that dont yet exist

Inside Alejandro Irritus VR border drama at LACMA: What you will see and why you might cry

The Player: Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire brings the Force to VR

Go here to see the original:

Changing reality: VR shifts the game and finds its moment - Los Angeles Times

When do we draw the line between early adoption and, uh, regular adoption? With virtual reality, maybe its right now. Years of sluggish sales had me convinced that virtual reality might disappear with nary a whimper, but then the hardware got better, the games got better, and suddenly people are talking about VR again. And hey, being essentially trapped in your house for weeks on end doesnt hurt.

The hardware landscape has gotten a lot more confusing since the first-gen Oculus Rift and HTC Vive debuted in 2016. We have tethered and untethered headsets, different resolutions, different lensesand what the hell is MR anyway?

Were here to guide you in the right direction. Below youll find our recommendations, whether youre a first-timer or an early adopter looking to upgrade. And if youre looking to buy right now, youre probably going to have to settle for whatevers in stock. Headsets have been in short supply since the Half-Life: Alyx reveal in November. Still, lets pretend all these headsets are in stock for the moment, at least.

Well update this list periodically to accommodate new releases as well, though with the Valve Index and Oculus Quest less than a year old (at time of writing) it might be a while before we see better hardware worth buying.

It's pricey, but Valve's new virtual reality headset is the one to beat thanks to its crisp display and high field of view.

The Valve Index is the best all-around headset you can buy at the moment. Best optics, best audio, best comfort, best tracking, and (once you get used to them at least) best controllers. Best everythingexcept the price, which at $1,000 (for the headset, controllers, and base stations)Remove non-product link is bound to make even the most enthusiastic adopter wince.

Its 2880x1600 resolution and 130-degree field of view mean you can see the digital world clearer than ever, and more of it. The Index also supports up to a 144Hz refresh rate, though youll need a monster of a PC to hit that frame rate consistently.

But its the less immediately noticeable features that make the Index stand out to me. The tracking is rock-solid, just like withthe original HTC Vive. Valve still relies on base stations, which make the Index a pain to set up and dismantle, but ensure the system will almost never lose track of a controller or the headset. The audio is top-tier as well, replacing the old headphones method with two speakers that float over your ears, creating an ultra-realistic audio field that surrounds you instead of merely sounding like...well, headphones.

Last but not least, the Index Controllers (or Knuckles) are the most advanced on the market today. The controllers strap over the backs of your hands and sensors embedded in the grips help track each individual finger, allowing you to open and close your hands, squeeze cans until theyre crushed, or (most likely) flip enemies the ol middle finger.

Nobody else allows you to do that. Maybe thats worth the $1,000 cost of entry on its own.

At $799 for just the headset, the HTC Vive Pro is probably destined to remain a niche product. Early adopters who've been pining for a resolution bump though will find it hard to go back after trying one out.

Valve isnt the only high-end headset in town. Though Valve is no longer partnered with HTC, the Vive Pro is still a solid alternative to the Index. It has the same 2880x1600 display and uses the same rock-solid Lighthouse tracking. The only real difference is that the Vive Pro uses headphones instead of speakers, and ships with the old Vive wands instead of the more futuristic Index Controllers. It also costs more than the Index ($1,200 vs. $1,000 for the whole system, sans PC), so theres really no reason to opt for the Vive Pro insteadunless of course the Index remains in scarce supply.

The Oculus Quest feels like the first virtual reality headset with true mass-market appeal, providing a room-scale experience without the need for a gaming PCor wires of any kind.

If you dont want to plunk down $1,000 for the Valve Index (and I dont blame you) then my next recommendation is the Oculus Quest. Why? Because its a VR headset youll actually use.

Quest is the first untethered headset thats actually worth a damn, by which I mean it provides a desktop-caliber experience without the need for a desktop PC. If youre simply looking to play Beat Saber or Job Simulator or The Room VR or any of a dozen other VR games with minimal fuss, Quest is the way to go. No wires means you can set it up anywhere youd like, or even take it on the road.

And as an added benefit, the Oculus Link Cable allows you to turn Quest into a full-fledged PC headset to rival the Oculus Rift. Sure, an $80 cable is ridiculous. I think we can all agree on that. The Quest/Link combo feels like magic though, enabling you to play top-tier VR games like Half-Life: Alyx and Lone Echo (and my favorite Google Earth VR) when you have a PC handy, and then return to your carefree wireless life when youre done. Its the best of both worlds.

Sure, theres some image compression when you use Link, and Quests tracking isnt quite as good as Oculuss tethered alternative, the Oculus Rift S. But its good enough, and youre essentially getting two headsets for the price of one. Even before Link, I wouldve probably recommended Quest to most people over one of the tethered headsets. With Link? Theres no contest.

That said, if youre really, absolutely, totally certain youll never want to use your VR headset away from your PC? Oculuss Rift S is a perfectly serviceable fallback. Again, I find it hard to recommend the Rift S personally, but thats only in comparison to its more capable cousin.

Side note: Its also worth noting that buying a Quest or Rift S is technically the only way to play Oculus exclusives, including Lone Echo, Asgards Wrath, Wilsons Heartbasically, a significant portion of the best VR games. Index and Vive owners can try LibreVR/Revive, but the results are sometimes lackluster and its very much a community-built workaround. Oculus has been pretty hands-off with Revive for a few years now, but theres always the chance you wake up and it simply no longer works.

If we chart the progression of video games from Spacewar and Zork all the way through to 2016, then the HTC Vive is the next logical step towards realism.

This is less of an official buy-it-here recommendation and more just a practical suggestion. If youre looking to get into VR on-the-cheap, keep an eye out for secondhand HTC Vives and Oculus Rifts. The Vive, in particular.

While its now 4-year-old hardware, the Vive is still a perfectly suitable entrypoint for VR. If youre playing in a living room or bedroom, the original Lighthouse tracking will be just as solid as the upgraded version that ships with the Valve Index. The Vive wands are also perfectly suitable, and the only thing youll probably want to replace is the faceplate (because gross) and the strap, assuming your secondhand unit comes with the original elastic instead of the superior Deluxe Audio Strap add-on.

After years of dev kits and prototypes and behind-closed-door demos, the Oculus Rift is finally ready for consumers. Welcome to VR.

On the Rift side, youll want to make sure your secondhand unit comes with the Oculus Touch controllers and at least two (but preferably three) of the cameras used for tracking. Room-scale support for the original Rift isnt nearly as good as with the Vive, but if you can find one for cheap, go for it.

And nows your chance, really. A lot of people are dumping their old Vive and Rift hardware to upgrade to the Quest, Rift S, and Index. You might be able to get in on-the-cheap if youre lucky.

A few years ago Microsoft decided it was also going to get into VRor rather, into all of the Rs. Combine virtual reality (VR) with augmented reality (AR) and you get...Mixed Reality, or MR. Or thats how Microsoft pitched it, at least.

But really, all of the MR headsets are just VR headsets. I know, its confusing, but Microsofts AR tech is still confined to HoloLens, which targets enterprise use cases. The consumer-focused Windows Mixed Reality headsetsby companies like Acer, Dell, and HP dont really do anything more than the rest of the competition.

They are really cheap though, which might make you wonder: Is this a good place to get into VR? If its your only option, sure, go for it. Just know that youre signing up for a compromised experience. Windows MR was the first platform to mount cameras on the headset to track both the players position and the controllers.

Being first out of the gate has drawbacks though. All of the Windows MR headsets are restricted to two front-facing cameras for tracking. This works fine if youre holding your hand out where the cameras can see, but the tracking is easily broken by any number of everyday actions: Hand behind your head, hands down at your sides, and so on.

Can you deal with it? Sure, and if its your first VR experience you probably wont know any better. Its a lesser experience though, and given how much prices have come down for the Oculus Quest and Rift S, the Windows MR headsets no longer seem like as much of a bargain. Hell, the $649 HP Reverb (the top-tier Windows MR headset at the moment) costs more than either the Quest or Rift S, and provides a lesser experience.

We used the headsets. And used them. And used them. And used them.

No, seriously. Whenever we review products at PCWorld, we use them for some period of time. I might put a keyboard through its paces for a few weeks, for instance. But Ive been covering VR since the early days, when all you could buy was the original Oculus Developer Kit.

With such a limited hardware pool, you can trust that Ive gotten a lot of use out of our VR headsets. The original Vive lasted two years until the Vive Pro came along. That, in turn, stayed on my desk until the Index arrived last year. And the first-gen Oculus Rift had the best run of all, making the trip in and out of my closet fairly regularly from 2016 until the Quest and Rift S released last yearand on the day I finally retired my original Rift, I celebrated, because I no longer needed to use four different USB ports for a single VR headset.

Point being, Ive put these headsets through their paces and feel confident speaking to the pros and cons of each, be it comfort, optics, the controllers, or even just the price.

Want to delve into more detail? Check out the list of reviews below, where we go more in-depth on the products above, and a few more besides. Well keep updating this list on a regular basis (meaning whenever there are new headsets to cover) so be sure to check back in and see whats going on with VR.

Read this article:

The best VR headsets for 2020: Every option reviewed and ranked - PCWorld

We may not get out much in real life anymore but that doesnt mean we cant laugh out loud at virtual reality laughably trying to re-create real-life experiences.

Its just not the same, in my virtual experience, and here are seven examples from the luxurious (driving a sports car, buying a boat) to the more mundane (visiting family, buying toilet paper) to the simply practical (saving the world from a rogue nuclear reactor meltdown).

DRIVING A SPORTS CAR

Real highlight: Zero to 60 in 2.9 seconds, followed by a pulse-pounding rush up to 155 mph a personal best! in a Lamborghini Aventador on a closed track at Palm Beach International Raceway.

Real quote: Weeeeeeeee!

Real drawbacks: Crash-helmet hair. Silly grin. Desire to spend twice to three times lifes savings for car. Possible divorce proceedings. Living out of car with no back seat.

Virtual highlight: Zero to about 25 photos of a Lamborghini Aventador for sale on lamborghinibroward.com.

Virtual quote: How can I help you with The Aventador? a virtual sales assistant pops up to ask.

Real quote: Lamborghini? (Quickly check lifes savings with Erica, my virtual bank assistant. Lamborghi-no.) Just looking.

Virtual drawbacks: No pulse-pounding rush up to 155 mph. No weeeeeeeeee! No grins, silly or otherwise.

Winner: The Real. (Except for the crash-helmet hair.)

BUYING TOILET PAPER

Real highlight: Buy toilet paper at store.

Real quote: I bought toilet paper.

Real drawback: Take buying toilet paper for granted.

Virtual highlight: Buy toilet paper on costco.com

Virtual quote: I bought toilet paper! I bought toilet paper! This is the second happiest day of my life!

Virtual quote (four days later): Your toilet paper has been delivered to your home.

Virtual response (after two hours and 10 minutes of anxious waiting on a chat line to Costco): But my toilet paper was not delivered to my home!

Virtual quote: Were sorry to hear that. We will launch an investigation with the delivery company and refund your $24.60.

Real quote: Nooooooooooo!

Virtual drawback: In cyberspace, no one can hear you scream.

Winner: The Real. (Not taking buying toilet paper for granted ever again.)

DRINKING WINE

Real highlight: Open bottle with friends. Pour, swirl, drink. Enjoy.

Real quote: Cheers!

Real drawbacks: Getting overly pretentious about the oakiness of the chardonnay. In rare cases, singing.

Virtual highlight: Watch other people, in this case Hall Rutherford co-owner Kathryn Hall and Director of Winemaking Megan Gunderson, pour, swirl and drink a 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon in the Hall Shelter-in-Place SiP Series, hallwines.com/sip-cabernet.

Virtual fun fact: Yes, that winery. The one where Pete Buttigieg got in trouble.

Virtual quote No. 1: This wine is just incredible.

Virtual quote No. 2: Its very dark, brooding.

Virtual drawback: Try clinking screen with Hall and Gunderson with a plastic cup of ginger ale the virtual shopper sent over instead of ginger.

Winner: The Real. After watching other people drink glass after glass of just incredible wine, which they cant pour through the screen to me, my real response also is dark and brooding.

BUYING A BOAT

Real highlight: Walking oceansidedocks atboat shows, looking over hundreds of watercraft up to superyacht size, on a bright sunny day, with cool sea breezes in our hair.

Real quote: I forgot sunscreen. And a hat. And, oh, money.

Real drawback: Forgetting to bring sunscreen. And a hat. (Quickly check lifes savings with Erica, my virtual bank assistant.) And that I still have no money.

Virtual highlight: Seeing dozens of boats no appointment necessary! in all their seafaring glory in Denison Yachtings Virtual Boat Show, denisonyachtsales.com/virtual-boat-show/.

Virtual quote: Boat shopping is admittedly a little less exciting from your laptop ...but we really believe a true Virtual Boat Show experience can still be delivered, says Bob Denison, president of Denison Yachting.

Virtual disadvantage: No sunny dock walks. No cool sea breezes. No awesome after parties.

Winner: The Real. Afterparties are tricky to re-create without splashing Champagne and foam from the dance floor on the laptop computer.

TRAVEL TO A DREAM DESTINATION

Real highlights: Visiting Zermatt and the Matterhorn in Switzerland.

Real quote: Yodelayheehoo, all you Instagram followers! Im visiting Zermatt and the Matterhorn in Switzerland! And youre not! See yodelater.

Real drawback: Assuming if you can wear lederhosen like everybody else here, you can wear it anywhere else, too. (Places where you cant successfully wear lederhosen, partial list: Office, grocery store, dentist, spa treatment, Department of Motor Vehicles ...)

Virtual highlights: Visiting Zermatt and the Matterhorn online at zermatt.ch/en/Webcams.

Virtual quote: Where are Zermatt and the Matterhorn? (Make mental note to check back when cloud cover lifts.)

Virtual drawback: No fondue while waiting for cloud cover to lift. Consider eating 10-year-old Twinkie from emergency supplies instead.

Winner: The Real. (Unless youre already in line at the DMV in lederhosen.)

VISITING FAMILY

Real highlights: Hugs, handshakes, happy kisses the full tactile experience you thought youd lost when you moved out years ago. Or when you got quarantined last month. Or possibly because of the restraining order.

Real quote: Mom, Dad Im home!

Real drawback: I brought my laundry. And my roommate. And he needs toilet paper.

Virtual highlight: Its so great seeing the whole family together again in a Sunday Zoom gathering at home! Even Aunt Martha, who forgot we can see everything. And Uncle Joe, who appears to be wearing...lederhosen? Wait, how did Carole Baskin get on here?

Virtual quote: Mom, Dad unmute your screen! How did Carole Baskin get into your kitchen!?

Virtual drawback: The mute buttons just a little too tempting when the conversation turns to the 2020 election. Wait, checking to see if this might actually be a highlight.

Winner: Tie. (The mute button has been ruled a highlight.)

DEFUSING A NUCLEAR REACTOR

Real highlight: Stopping a rogue nuclear reactor from radioactive meltdown.

Real quote: Ive saved (insert city, country, name of significant person) from radioactive meltdown! Examples: New York! Or The USA! Or The guy who sold Uncle Joe the lederhosen!

Real drawback: Im so happy Ive saved (insert city, country, lederhosen sales staff) from radioactive meltdown, I am practically glowing! No, wait I am literally glowing.

Virtual highlights: Stopping a rogue nuclear reactor radioactive meltdown using a virtual-reality robot controlled remotely from a bunker 2,500 miles away in Switzerland.

Virtual drawbacks: Still waiting for cloud cover to lift over Zermatt and the Matterhorn. Still no fondue. Decide to eat 10-year-old Twinkie from emergency supplies.

Virtual quote: Of all the examples of real vs. virtual experiences here, this was the only that was virtually better. Except the Twinkie.

Winner: The Virtual.

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Virtual reality bites: Seven virtual experiences rated against the real thing - The Daily News of Newburyport