Monday, December 2, 2019

Communication and VR

Getting back into VR and thinking how amazing it truly is, especially looking back at technology and communication in general. It's crazy! Allow me to expound on these thoughts!

At one time, the only communication was face to face interactions, people from neighboring villages or tribes or whatever, were confined to know only what was happening right around them and their connection with the outside world was minimal if at all.

Evolving to eventual symbols and an alphabet opened things up, but were still restricted as far as sending messages via carrier pigeons or by slow means, such as the pony express. It could take weeks or months before one group would know what was happening elsewhere in the world.

Newspapers and Telegraphs opened up things even more, getting more information out to more people at quicker speeds. With Newspapers, a huge amount of information could be disseminated to a large number of people, and telegraphs, namely morse code, could get information out quickly, although that was primarily used by military or higher up, important people.

Radio broke open another evolution and gave people the ability to mass transmit information in real time and shortly after that, telephones became the norm, connecting people to other people across vasts distances.

It wasn't long after that that television became the mainstay form of information (and entertainment) and soon it became widespread and almost anyone who could afford it had a direct link to information, news and entertainment. This truly began connecting people all over to one another, although it was a regulated source of information and wasn't truly a direct back and forth flow of information.

The next big breakthrough in communication which began breaking the standards of being force-fed what one source chose to feed you, was the Personal Computer, the internet and email. With these innovations, anyone could now communicate to anyone else willing to listen/read their thoughts. The good comes with the bad, but this was absolutely the greatest evolution thus far for communication, enabling everybody the ability to convey their thoughts.

An off-shoot of the internet has been cell phones, text messaging and the invent of social media, which gives people more and more direct and immediate connection with others. There is no longer a waiting period for information, news, entertainment, or just communicating with a friend. Most people have phones on them at all times, and can instantly connect with these things, at any time or search through the infinite ledgers of knowledge available.

Virtual Reality, which is what sparked this chain of thoughts in the first place, is somewhat a branch of the internet and computers and cell phones and information and news and entertainment and in a lot of ways it brings things full circle by giving people those face-to-face experiences of old...sort of. There are games/apps (like VR Chat) that allow you to go into a virtual world and communicate with people face to face, although these people may be from different states, countries or continents.

The reality of Virtual Reality is that the potential is enormous and the bounds are few... We are still in the early stages of "True VR," and as it progresses, the abilities will only expand. When we get to a point where VR Goggles are as portable as sunglasses with hours (or more) of battery life and uninterupted internet connections, VR will truly be a turning point for technology, communication, information, entertainment and more. The book (and movie) of Ready Player One paints a VR experience that is not a matter of "If" but a matter of "When," and I can't wait.

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