Oculus Rift

The June issues of both WIRED and Popular Mechanics magazines (to which I subscribe) both feature the face of one guy, one lucky guy: Palmer Luckey to be specific. Luckey is 21 years old. Since his early teens he’s had one, huge overriding dream: to build the perfect virtual-reality headset. By age 19, he had developed the prototype for it, creating the first affordable virtual reality headset.

The “Oculus Rift” is billed by 3D filmmaker D.J. Roller as “the most immersive medium on the planet” replacing 5-story IMAX screens. The inventor’s original vision for the headset was to augment their gaming experience. But as the technology prepares for public roll-out the applications are extraordinarily wide-ranging: training for military pilots and soldiers, pretty much imagine the experience and it has some application to virtual reality.

Of course something this revolutionary requires funding to bring to market. The first backers were from a Kickstarter campaign that gave investors their own DIY kit and raised $2.4 million for the startup company. Recently, Facebook came calling with a bag of cash and stock worth $2 billion. Consumers can expect early versions of the headset sometime in 2015.

Given the coverage, the players, and the money involved, the Oculus Rift promises to be quite revolutionary. The only part of the story that annoys me is the details about Luckey: How he goes barefoot all of the time, wears only shirts and t-shirts. It just gets profoundly annoying to hear these quirks about tech “geniuses” trotted around. Like Mark Zuckerberg’s famous “hoodie” uniform. I can’t really put my finger on it, but something about such stories are very abrasive to me. It’s not that I care what he wears or how eccentric it may seem to the populace at large, it’s that I don’t care and I don’t believe for one moment that these eccentricities have any bearing on the individual’s ability to do his or her work.

Well, no matter what you or I may feel about the immersive technology of virtual reality headsets, they are most definitely coming. I think that the concept will re-define the way in which the individual experiences entertainment and education. I certainly would look forward to the day that I might be able to plug into Google Maps with my Oculus Rift on and walk the streets of Paris or Rome from the comfort of my own living room. Or vicariously storm Omaha beach from the safety of my couch.

Yes, the Oculus Rift and future generations of VR tech will most certainly become ubiquitous in our lives in a short time, much like the cell phone revolutionized communications. The real questions are: What will we feel like when we take the headset off and stroll down the Paris streets for real? Will everyone have a headset on for most of the day the way they can’t go for ten minutes without checking their smart phone for missed calls, text messages, social media updates, and the latest trending news story?

Oh well, there is no need to mourn reality. It has been dying a long, slow, painful death for at least a generation. It’s already on life-support, lying silent in a persistent vegetative state. I know, I just checked it’s Facebook status.