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I've been exploring some similar ideas recently but focusing more on altering your experience of the real world rather than VR [0]. Interesting to read about th

I've been exploring some similar ideas recently but focusing more on altering your experience of the real world rather than VR [0]. Interesting to read about the research being done on the subject Even using very crude hardware, it is difficult to convey how profound I have found some of my experiences. Take a simple setup that lets you see yourself in the third person for instance. Logically you know that the person standing there is you. You can reach out and feel the world about you, walk about and feel yourself bump into walls. And yet there's also a disconnect. Almost a numbing. I find that my mind often switches between feeling that I am in my head and feeling that I am behind the camera. And this leads to a feeling that I are nowhere. That this is not reality. Take off the headset, and now reality itself feels broken. Your perspective and sense of your body indescribably off. Sometimes the effect lasts just a few seconds, other times it lasts the entire rest of the day As silly as they are, my experiments with VR headsets and cameras have genuinely changed my understanding of myself and of the world. I don't understand why people are not more excited / freaked out about the possibilities this technology offers. Maybe it doesn't effect everyone in the same way Anyways, if nothing else, the article gave me a few new ideas for areas to explore [0]: https://blog.mattbierner.com/series/modded_reality/ https://blog.mattbierner.com/series/modded_reality/ (just as heads up: a few posts are nsfw and most are way too long)

techer 9y ago
VR seems to “click” with me more than anyone I know personally. I’ve wondered why. I experience vertigo exactly as I do in real life. I’m trying to use VR to overcome this. I recently went to ‘The Void’ Star Wars - completely blew me away. Although you can do this as a four player team I went in alone the first time and really couldn’t believe it. The second time I went with a friend and although it was more fun it was far less real (I think it was due to the sub optimal renderering of my friend in a stormstrooper outfit that was jarring.)
lev99 9y ago
> freaked out about the possibilities this technology offers. I've owned a Rift DK1, Rift DK2, Gear VR, and Vive. I am a VR enthusiast. As profound as the experiences with VR are, after 500 hrs in each generation of headset I find myself bumping up with the hardware and network limitations. I'll apply for the first company to offer digital office space, and I'll sell my monitors once I can read bash for 3 hours straight as comfortably in VR as I can in flatland. We are just a long ways away on a lot of different technological boundaries. I'm not freaking out because it doesn't feel like we are almost there. It feels like we need a new wireless communication protocol, improved battery weight, better displays, more powerful GPUs, better software UX, better inputs, etc. etc. > Take off the headset, and now reality itself feels broken. Your perspective and sense of your body indescribably off. Sometimes the effect lasts just a few seconds, other times it lasts the entire rest of the day For me the only "broken reality" aspect of popping in and out is if my digital of physical body isn't where I expect it. The feeling never lasts more than 3 seconds, and it's more jarring than anything. I wonder if it's an age thing. My first HMD was a Virtual Boy when I was still very young.
- mattbierner 9y ago
  Yes, I’m not fully sold on VR yet either. Perhaps the problem is most VR experiences more or less try to convince you that your real body is in a virtual world, and this leads to an uncanny sensory valley with today’s tech: the tracking is never quite right, the resolution never high enough, and some NPC will alway manage to break your immersion. So instead of VR, I’ve focused on exploring alternate experiences of reality. And these experiences somehow never feel broken, even when they clearly are. Last fall for example, I brought a pair of oversized eyeballs that wirelessly stream video to a headset to a maker faire. The eyeballs worked great in my apartment but wireless difficulties on site caused latency spikes of over 1 second. Imagine: a full second between you moving one of the eyeballs and your view updating. Horrible. That would never fly for VR but people seemed to love this setup even with the delay. In a way, the delay became part of the new reality that the device presented. And this is what excites me: the possibility of exploring new realities, realities beyond normal human experience. Not just fantasy worlds, but entirely new ways of being and sensing and understanding (the example I keep returning to is synesthesia). Truly being able to realize that vision is a long way out but current tech let’s us get the slightest of glimpses at what this future could hold. And this is what scares me: that the new realities we create will be reflections of us as we are today

techer 9y ago

VR seems to “click” with me more than anyone I know personally. I’ve wondered why. I experience vertigo exactly as I do in real life. I’m trying to use VR to overcome this. I recently went to ‘The Void’ Star Wars - completely blew me away. Although you can do this as a four player team I went in alone the first time and really couldn’t believe it. The second time I went with a friend and although it was more fun it was far less real (I think it was due to the sub optimal renderering of my friend in a stormstrooper outfit that was jarring.)

lev99 9y ago

> freaked out about the possibilities this technology offers. I've owned a Rift DK1, Rift DK2, Gear VR, and Vive. I am a VR enthusiast. As profound as the experiences with VR are, after 500 hrs in each generation of headset I find myself bumping up with the hardware and network limitations. I'll apply for the first company to offer digital office space, and I'll sell my monitors once I can read bash for 3 hours straight as comfortably in VR as I can in flatland. We are just a long ways away on a lot of different technological boundaries. I'm not freaking out because it doesn't feel like we are almost there. It feels like we need a new wireless communication protocol, improved battery weight, better displays, more powerful GPUs, better software UX, better inputs, etc. etc. > Take off the headset, and now reality itself feels broken. Your perspective and sense of your body indescribably off. Sometimes the effect lasts just a few seconds, other times it lasts the entire rest of the day For me the only "broken reality" aspect of popping in and out is if my digital of physical body isn't where I expect it. The feeling never lasts more than 3 seconds, and it's more jarring than anything. I wonder if it's an age thing. My first HMD was a Virtual Boy when I was still very young.

mattbierner 9y ago
Yes, I’m not fully sold on VR yet either. Perhaps the problem is most VR experiences more or less try to convince you that your real body is in a virtual world, and this leads to an uncanny sensory valley with today’s tech: the tracking is never quite right, the resolution never high enough, and some NPC will alway manage to break your immersion. So instead of VR, I’ve focused on exploring alternate experiences of reality. And these experiences somehow never feel broken, even when they clearly are. Last fall for example, I brought a pair of oversized eyeballs that wirelessly stream video to a headset to a maker faire. The eyeballs worked great in my apartment but wireless difficulties on site caused latency spikes of over 1 second. Imagine: a full second between you moving one of the eyeballs and your view updating. Horrible. That would never fly for VR but people seemed to love this setup even with the delay. In a way, the delay became part of the new reality that the device presented. And this is what excites me: the possibility of exploring new realities, realities beyond normal human experience. Not just fantasy worlds, but entirely new ways of being and sensing and understanding (the example I keep returning to is synesthesia). Truly being able to realize that vision is a long way out but current tech let’s us get the slightest of glimpses at what this future could hold. And this is what scares me: that the new realities we create will be reflections of us as we are today