01) VR Backgrounder

President Barack Obama visits Yosemite National Park in virtual reality

Source: "Official White House Photo by Pete Souza" -- The Creators Project

VR's 2 primary forms are that created inside a computer using computer graphics interface (CGI) software (typically game generation engines Unity or Unreal Engine), generally known as "CGI VR", & that generated outside a computer by filming reality with a 360º Camcorder, generally referred to as "Cinematic VR", with mixtures of the 2 variously named "Augmented Reality" (AR) or "Mixed Reality" (MR). At various VR User Groups & their Conferences/Expos, such as Silicon Valley Virtual Reality (SVVR) & VR Expo, the point is often made that VR ushers in a new chapter of the on-going digital revolution, one that moves society off the previous phase of, from sharing information about an event, through websites, blogs, social networking posts, tweets, twitters & passive viewing of videos, directly to sharing experiences, by being in the event, &, during live VR broadcasts, even participating in & interacting with the happening. In political & journalistic situations this shift tends to greatly increase empathy, as described in the recent Wired article Crisis And Opportunity, which is being explored by the United Nations, as reported in the Verge report The UN wants to see how far VR empathy will go, as well as in The Creators Project account How Virtual Reality Is Changing the Way the UN Thinks which notes "United Nations General Assembly made headlines for a new plan to double the number of refugees allowed into its member nations and to expand aid...United Nations Creative Director Gabo Arora...[was] introducing delegates to the new media technology that is changing how the 71-year-old institution makes decisions...[by, in the] UN Headquarters' ornate entrance hall greeting delegates with virtual reality goggles. Representatives from all over the world...load up the UNVR app... Arora's assistant tells me it's not uncommon to get the goggles back covered in tears" [UNVR App: iPhone / Android]. Similarly, global threats such as ocean acidification and climate change are being simulated (for example at Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab) to head off disaster, as described by Popular Science's article "Using Virtual Reality to Avoid Catastrophe". Further, VR is useful in providing unique tools such as virtual computer desktop (resembling sci-fi movie computer screens floating in space), virtual prototyping (commonly implemented throughout enterprise-level engineering design in a "VR Cave") & virtual instruments (science & medical labs for cash-strapped institutions, especially promising for developing nations village schools), as well as unique experiences which are either impossible or otherwise unlikely to achieve, such as shrinking down to & exploring microscopic environments, visiting another planet, walking with dinosaurs or engaging in risky extreme sports, resulting in, at Universities worldwide, increasing installation of VR labs (academic rollout). Additionally VR can provide virtual training (improve sports performance) & therapy (lose fear of heights) - remarkably, when the resolution of the virtual experience matches the fidelity of real experience, the brain responds similarly in both situations, even creating for the learning experience & its memory, new neural net pathways (neuroplasticity).