The Future With Augmented Reality

PlayStation VR comes out in October

Click Above To Learn About Playstation VR

Google's New VR Painting Tool Looks Unbelievable

Goldman Sachs Virtual Reality Report - Click To Review

Oculus Rift, HTV Vive And PSVR: Which VR Headset Should You Buy?

We stand at the very precipice of a new era of VR. The Oculus Rift launches on Monday, with the HTC Vive not too far behind and Playstation VR for PS4 waiting in the wings. It’s an exciting moment, but even if you’ve already decided you’re ready to make the plunge into a series of strange, infinite realities, you’ve still got a choice ahead of you. Which of the three major competitors do you want to go with? All three have their advantages, all three have their weaknesses. All three are, at the end of the day, more similar than not, but it’s still a big decision. Here are some pointers to help you along:

Oculus Rift: The first question you have to ask yourself about the Oculus Rift is: do I have a PC that meets these minimum requirements?  If the answer is no, be prepared to shell out a good deal of extra cash to buy a PC that can handle the thing, or to buy one of the Oculus Ready bundles out there that come with the headset and a PC — the cheapest available is ASUS’s $949 option. With that out of the way, the Oculus comes with several big advantages. It’s been the most talked about headset, it’s coming to market first, and it’s likely going to have a large install base than the more expensive HTC Vive. Combine that with flexibility and openness that comes with the Windows platform, and you’re bound to have the widest array of software and games of any of these three headsets. That’s a big deal, especially because nobody knows where the next great VR application is going to come from.

It’s missing a great control solution right now, however. Vive has its wands and PSVR has move, but the Oculus touch controllers don’t have a release date yet, and so you’ll more likely than not be playing the Xbox One gamepad. It limits the sort of immersion you can get, even if this is a problem that will be fixed eventually.

HTC Vive: Same question as the Oculus Rift, only different specs. The HTC Vive is the most expensive option of all three of these, because of the headset, the PC, and the fact that you’ll need a decent amount of space dedicated to it. The Vive is the only system to use full body tracking, which, combined with Valve’s excellent wand controllers, creates the most complete immersion of any of these three options. The Vive is the high end option of these three, with all of the attendant concerns that come along with that. If you want to pay the money, you can get the best feeling VR headset available.

Vive is bound to have a smaller install base than the Oculus Rift, which more likely than not will mean fewer, less varied games. That might not be a problem — you only need a couple great ones, after all — but the Rift is still probably going to win in terms of sheer variety. The Vive also has some of the best multiplayer experiences I’ve played in VR yet. So if money is no object and you want to set up the ultimate VR game room, the Vive is your best bet.

image credit: Sony

Playstation VR: You ask yourself a slightly different question here: do I have a PS4? Statistically speaking, your answer is more likely to be yes. And even if you don’t, you can pick one up for $350. PSVR is by far the most approachable of these three options, and it’s more than good enough to provide that “wow” moment when you first put on the headset. If you’re interested in VR but wary about diving into the sometimes strange and finicky world of PC gaming, the PSVR makes an excellent option. It may be cheaper, but it’s no slouch, either. I’ve had some of my best VR experiences in PSVR, which makes that lower price point all the more appealing.

PSVR is the only headset that’s not on Windows, and so the closed nature of PSN is going to mean you’ll have a harder time finding strange, esoteric experiences, if that sort of thing is your jam (also porn). But PSVR comes with all of Sony’s experience in the gaming business, not to mention a suite of impressive first party studios to boot. So there’s bound to be some good software out there. PSVR will also be last to market (no official release date), so if your eyeballs are itching to get inside a headset, you’ll want to go with one of the other options.

Go To Article

HoloLens Is Now Available For Preorder

1 March, 2016, USA: Microsoft who recently gave NASA HoloLens devices to send it to the international Space Station, is now started its preorder booking for the selected developers. As per the plan of the company, developers, who first enrolled themselves to develop holographic app for HoloLens will be receiving invitations to preorder the device. However, company has mentioned that only selected set of developers will get this opportunity to latch on to.

As per the company’s plan, it will be releasing the device on 30 March in Canada and USA at a cost of US $3000. However, the company has confirmed that its preorder facility is only available for the selected developers. These developers also need to have Windows 10 PC, Visual Studio 2015 and be running Unity 5.4 to get started.

This gadget enables the users to mix the virtual world with the real one. HoloLens embraces virtual reality and augmented reality to create a new mixed reality. Virtual reality immerses user in a simulated world and augmented reality overlays digital information on top of user’s real world. By understanding user’s environment, mixed reality enables holograms to look and sound like they’re part of user’s world.

http://techstory.in/hololens-available-for-preorder-1032016/

Virtual Reality-Based Curriculum for K-12 Schools

Virtual Reality A Billion Dollar Niche - Click For Entire PDF

2016 First Billion Dollar Year For Virtual Reality

http://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/technology-media-and-telecommunications/articles/tmt-pred16-media-virtual-reality-billion-dollar-niche.html#full-report

Virtual Reality's $182 Billion Future - Goldman Sachs Expects VR to Be Bigger Than TV by 2025

Two significant endorsements recently for the value of virtual reality -- from Goldman Sachs and Deloitte consultants -- are escalating the hype about VR, which was virtually ubiquitous at CES this month. In addition, Google, which has been on the VR fringes, this week confirmed that it has created a VR division, headed by a senior executive, Clay Bavor, who has run Google's apps units, according to published reports.

Goldman Sachs analyst Heather Bellini, in a58-page outlook on virtual reality and augmented reality, predicted that the technologies have "the potential to become the next big computing platform." Her most optimistic growth estimate expects that VR and AR could generate up to $182 billion in revenue, including hardware and software/content, by 2025 -- exceeding television revenue. 

Even at a slower pace, VR could generate $80 billion by then, she said. Bellini's forecast cites nine categories for VR and AR adoption. Videogames will represent about one-third of the revenue, with live events, video entertainment and retail collectively pulling in about another quarter of the money; healthcare, engineering, military and real estate applications will also use VR to varying degrees, according to the Goldman Sachs forecast.

Separately, consulting firm Deloitte Global, as part of its 2016 Telecommunications/Media/Telecom outlook, forecast that this year will be VR's first billion-dollar year. It expects that "full feature" VR -- based on consoles and wired devices -- will initially exceed the market for "mobile VR," which may rely on high-resolution smartphones for displays.

"VR’s capability is likely to improve further still over the years as processors improve, screen resolution increases yet further, and content creators learn how to create for the format," Deloitte's report observed. But it acknowledged that, "As can happen with emerging technologies, there is considerable hype about the impact of VR in the near term."

For cable operators, the VR/AR juggernaut poses countless questions, ranging from the capability of home gateway devices to signal latency for live events. There will also be challenges in dealing with the VR vanguard, which now includes Facebook's Oculus subsidiary, HTC/Vive and Sony in addition to Google.

CableLabs is working out "what cable operators need to do to prepare for a large market adoption of VR," said Steve Glennon, principal architect at CableLabs' Advanced Technology Group, who is focused on VR. CableLabs's recent consumer survey about the value of technology found "an overwhelmingly positive consumer response on the value, comfort and lack of nausea problems using the goggles," he said in an interview after CES.

"We’ve been trying to understand the bandwidth needs, and have found that a good consumer experience needs between 30 and 40 Mbps for 360-degree content with current technology," he said. "This is far above current video streaming bandwidth requirements for online video like Netflix and Hulu."

Glennon said that CableLabs is continuing "to look for tactical opportunities to speed the consumer adoption of the VR technology." 

At CES, "It was pleasing to see how mainstream this technology is becoming," Glennon added.

"I think this will quickly move from HD content for the VR sphere up to 4K," he observed, citing several immersive VR demos that were "not for the faint of heart."

Prior to CES, CableLabs CEO Phil McKinney characterized VR developments as "beyond the goggles," referring to the limited hardware demonstrations of previous years. "What we're going to see is content," McKinney told USA Today, emphasizing that sports and travel-related VR content are the most likely initial products.

Skeptics have noted that the new VR buzz resembles the 3DTV hype a few years ago, which fizzled away.  Bellini, in the Goldman Sachs report, waives off such cynicism, insisting that VR and AR are laying the groundwork for new kinds of devices "beyond PCs and phones" that include controls via head and hand motions.  

http://www.multichannel.com/blog/i-was-saying/virtual-realitys-182-billion-future/396573

Could Virtual Reality Change Education Forever?

Virtual reality may be seen by some as the next best thing in the gaming industry, but one of virtual reality's fastest-moving applications may be within education.

It's already broken into classrooms within the past few years with devices likeSamsung (SSNLF) Gear VR and headsets such as Google(GOOG - Get Report)(GOOGL - Get Report) Cardboard, meant mostly for taking children on virtual field trips and visualizing complicated concepts.

But the release of these affordable devices -- Cardboard can be used with most existing phones with a $20 viewfinder and Samsung's VR device retails for $99 -- may mean virtual reality is about to expand past field trips and into other realistic educational experiences, such as classes, one-on-one meetings with teachers or the ability to practice speeches in front of virtual people.

"The time of low-cost VR is already upon us, and I expect VR to become a more salient part of our everyday lives as devices continue to develop in the coming months," Stanford professor and virtual reality researcher Jeremy Bailenson said. "The biggest question that VR faces is in content creation, which currently is expensive and time-consuming." 

However, some experts urge patience, saying innovative technology within classrooms is only as good as the teachers who use them and the training they're provided -- both of which is currently limited.

Alphabet's Google rolled out Google Expeditions, its education-focused virtual reality curriculum, last year to a selected group of schools for its pilot program. Expeditions itself is a 360-degree field trip where students are transported to common environments such as U.S. zoos or impossible excursions such as 1770s Philadelphia or the rugged landscape of Mars. 

"The oos and the ahs that were coming out of their mouths ... It's just amazing; it's such a cool way to teach," said Fremont, Calif.-based French teacher Kerrie Chabot, who used Google Expeditions to show her class Versailles rather than using online images. "I'm sure they'll retain it better."

Must Read: Should Amazon Buy Time Warner?

Chabot is among teachers who are fundraising to get virtual reality headsets for their classrooms so they'll be poised when Expeditions is available to the public -- right now it's only available via Google's pilot program, which is a beta of sorts. 

As consumer virtual reality devices less than $100 start hitting shelves, the possibilities for virtual reality within schools can be seen in academic literature.

In Jeremy Bailenson's Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University, students use virtual reality devices to listen to an avatar's lecture in a simulated classroom. The classroom itself -- complete with noisy cars passing by windows and distracted students in some simulations -- tricked students' brains into believing the lesson was so real that an excess of distracted avatars caused the real subjects to pay less attention in class, much like how a class clown will peer pressure someone to kid around more during lectures. 

The findings show that not only do students' brains accept the virtual reality classroom as real instruction -- a powerful ability if students one day are able to stream into classes in other districts or other countries through virtual reality -- but they can be swayed by avatars they know to be fake.

His research also showed that virtual reality could be used to make a student whose desk is in the back of a classroom feel like he is sitting directly in front of the teacher, an experience that increased focus. 

"Virtual humans are powerful. In dozens of studies we have shown that people respond to avatars in ways similar to actual humans," Bailenson said.

Alchemy Learning, a job skills training company that is testing virtual reality in a beta phase, goes one step further to use digital humans to give feedback when someone is using their technology to practice a sales pitch or a job interview. If the person starts to stumble, the avatars will react differently than if the person is acing the presentation. 

"It allows us to create more life-like simulations," said Henry Blue, co-founder of Alchemy Learning. "Your body starts to believe you're in that experience and adds the sense of urgency."

Alchemy uses Samsung's virtual reality headset for their product, Blue said. Products like Facebook's (FB - Get Report) Oculus Rift were a bit too pricey, and Google Cardboard didn't have the right visualization for the product. 

"It's about finding the balance between affordability and the experiences," he said.

Even with students being whisked off to Mars on a virtual field trip, experts say it will take time before every student can tap into the potential of these devices. 

"Virtual reality has hit a point where it's becoming cheaper literally as we speak. ... Just because people have access to better devices doesn't necessarily mean there is equity in the information they receive," said Sun Joo "Grace" Ahn, a University of Georgia assistant professor of advertising who studies virtual environments. "If we're able to get the devices out to people, we'd have to be able to support it with the content that goes with it. Just having a cool device isn't going to do anything. Just because you give your grandparents the most recent iPhone, it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to get the most experience out of it."

Chabot said there hasn't been teacher training available for virtual reality at education conferences, but she hopes the increasing popularity of the devices will change that. 

There's also physical limitations. Virtual reality devices aren't meant to be worn for more than about 20 minutes at a time due to eye strain, Bailenson said.

Must Read: Here's Why Netflix Owned CES 2016 -- A Recap Of Day 2's Biggest Surprises, Bores and Quirks

In general, the release of commercial virtual reality products has education researchers buzzing, schoolteachers talking and innovators working.

"Every single week, there's some new technology that I read about or I talk with someone that they're working on that I couldn't have imagined existed the week before," Google product manager Ben Schrom said, who works on Google Expeditions. "It's such a green field for innovation."

http://www.thestreet.com/story/13419447/1/could-virtual-reality-change-education-forever.html

As Virtual Reality Evolves, Firms Seek Well-Produced Content

Well-produced content is “desperately needed” to help virtual reality take off. 

That's the sentiment from Cliff Plumer, president of virtual reality firm Jaunt Studios and an alum of Lucasfilm, speaking Monday on a panel at CES in Las Vegas. "A lot of good technology is being developed. … But there’s a lot of bad virtual reality [content] out there," the exec explained. 

The panel at the standing-room only session agreed that VR is just getting started, but next steps are needed to forward the medium.

As CES got underway, there was already a flurry of related announcements, notably Oculus began taking pre-orders for its Rift VR headsets, 21st Century Fox announced an agreement to make a minority investment in VR and augmented reality firm Osterhout Design Group and 20th Century Fox debuted its The Martian VR Experience.

“We’d been showing VR to everyone from movie stars to execs, and during that time we saw investments in VR," said David Greenbaum, executive vp production at Fox Searchlight Pictures and one of the directors of the Fox Innovation Lab that co-produced The Martian VR project. "We thought we were just doing R&D, but now people want to buy it. We are investing time and energy in making the best stuff and getting it out there."

Noting that both established filmmakers and new filmmakers are experimenting with VR production, Greenbaum opined that VR could help to identify “a new generation of filmmakers, and its our responsibility to support them and find the Tarantinos of VR.”

But this won’t happen overnight. “It’s probably going to be 2017 before VR content is something you can monetize,” said Eric Shamlin, managing director and executive producer at content studio Secret Location. “We have a horror franchise developing, a few games — we want to be in the first wave, but you have to have a longer-term view. We are eager for this market to launch, but we’re optimistic and cautious.”

A big question is how to distribute and charge for this content. “I think people see it as a level playing field, where they will not necessarily be forced into ad-supported or paid or subscription models," said Matt Apfel, vp strategy and creative content at Samsung. "[But we needed content creators] who will build the experiences that people will feel are worth, say, $5 or $10 an episode.”

Looking ahead to further technology development, director and VR content creator Samir Mallal believes VR will become more social. "I think there will be ways to share a VR experience, the way we share a film experience, whether that’s with avatars or shared cinema,” he said.

Oren Rosenbaum, digital media agent at UTA, moderated the conversation.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/as-virtual-reality-evolves-firms-85266
9

Who Will Win The Race For Virtual Reality Content?

In the recent study we performed at CableLabs, we asked what would stop people from buying a virtual reality headset. High on the list of items was availability of content. Setting aside VR gaming, people didn’t want to spend money on a device that only had a few (or a few hundred) pieces of content. So there has to be lots. Who is creating content, and how quickly will content show up?

Leave it to the Professionals?

Three companies have emerged as leaders in the space of professional content production:

• JauntVR who just secured another $66M investment

• Immersive Media who worked on the Emmy award-winning Amex Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience

• NextVR who seemingly wants to become the “Netflix of VR.”

Each company is developing content with top-tier talent, each working to establish brand equity and to develop critical intellectual property. Another thing they have in common is that they have developed their own cameras to capture the content, yet they all say they are not in the business of building cameras.

JauntVR Neo Camera 

The new Jaunt Neo camera seems to have 16 sensors around the periphery, which we might expect to yield a 16K x 8K resolution. This is far in excess of what the Samsung GearVR will decode and display (limited to 4K x 2K 30fps, or lower resolution at 60fps), but shows the type of quality experience we might expect for the future. The NextVR camera uses 6 4K RED professional cameras, each of which is a rather expensive proposition before you even buy lenses.

But there seems to be a problem of scaling up. To get to thousands of pieces of professional content we will have to wait for years for the three companies and any other new entrants to scale up their staff, equipment, and get engaged in and produce enough interesting projects.

Or will consumer-generated content win the day?

On the flip side, we have seen the rate at which regular video is created and uploaded to YouTube (300 hours uploaded per minute).  All we need is for affordable consumer-grade cameras to show up. The first cameras are already here, though their resolution leaves something to be desired. Brand-name cameras like the Ricoh Theta and the Kodak SP360 are affordable consumer-grade 360° cameras that are around $300, but they only shoot HD video. When the 1920 pixels of the HD video are expanded to fill the full horizon, all that can be seen in the VR headset is less than a quarter of that – or around 380 pixels. Most of the content we used in consumer testing was 4000×2000 pixels of content, and even that showed up as fairly low resolution. There are some some startup names entering the scene (like Bublcam and Giroptic), but these are not shipping yet, and don’t advance beyond HD video for the full sphere of what you see.  Perhaps more interesting in terms of quality are cameras coming from Sphericam and Nokia that promise 4K video at 60 frames per second, and an updated Kodak camera that supports 4K. These cameras reach a little beyond what the Samsung GearVR headset can decode (which is 4K 30 fps) but are a little beyond the consumer price point, entering the market at $1500. Oddly missing from the consumer arena here is GoPro, but I think we can reasonably predict a consumer-grade 360° camera from them late in 2015 or early 2016 that is a little more manageable than the 16-GoPro Google Jump camera, or the 6-camera rigs that hobbyists have been using to create the early content.

YouTube and Facebook 360 are already here

Facebook launched support for 360° videos in timelines just last week. YouTube launched 360° support in March, and in six months already has about 14,000 spherical videos, with few mainstream cameras available. I strongly suspect that user-generated content will massively out-number professionally produced 360° content. Out studies suggested that while consumers guessed they would be willing to wear a VR headset for 1-2 hours, short-form content would be favored. This matches the predominant YouTube content length well. While Samsung has created their own video browsing app (MilkVR), a YouTubeVR application is sure to emerge soon, allowing us all to spend hours consuming the 360 videos in a VR headset.

What Content Appeals?

Shooting interesting 360° content is hard. There is nowhere to hide the camera operator. Everything is visible, and traditional video production focuses on a “stage” that the director populates with the action he or she wants you to see. We had a strong inkling that live sports and live music concerts would be compelling types of content, and might be experiences people would value enough to pay for. We tried several different types of content when we tested VR with consumers, trying to cover the bases of sports, music, travel and “storytelling” – fiction in short or long form. We were surprised to see the travel content we chose as the clear winner, leaving all other content categories in the dust on a VR headset. We gained lots of insights into the difficulty of producing good VR video content (like not moving the camera, and not doing frequent scene cuts), and the difficulty of creating great storytelling content that really leverages the 360° medium. Let’s just say I am not expecting vast libraries of professionally produced 360 movies any time soon.

The ingenuity of the population in turning YouTube into the video library of everything is likely to play out here too, with lots of experimentation and new types of content becoming popular. The general public, through trying lots of different things, is most likely to find the answers for us. For that to happen, mass adoption of VR headsets has to take place, and consumer 360 cameras have to become cheap and desirable. Samsung announced the “general public” version of their headset at the Oculus Connect 2 last week, with a price point of $99 over the cost of their flagship phones. Oculus expects to ship over 1 million headsets in their first year of retail availability. Cameras are already out there, inexpensive, and getting better. In 12 months I expect over 100,000 360° videos to be published on YouTube.

Is the killer app for VR… TV?

Netflix just launched their app on the GearVR. Here at my desk I can watch movies and TV episodes on a VR headset, sitting in a ski lodge with views out the window of ski runs. I’m sitting in front of a (virtual) 105” TV, enjoying an episode of Sherlock. The screen quality is pretty grainy, but I quickly forget that and become engrossed in the episode — until my boss taps me on the shoulder and tells me to get back to work. I thought this was a pretty dumb use case for the technology, but I was wrong. Dead wrong. Only problem is I can’t see the popcorn to pick it up and try to get it into a mouth I can’t see. There is lots to ponder here.

Steve Glennon is a Principal Architect in the Advanced Technology Group at CableLabs.

http://www.cablelabs.com/who-will-win-the-race-for-virtual-reality-content/

Enhancing Learning Through Technology

Sorensen, Elsebeth Korsgaard

Idea Group Inc (IGI), Mar 31, 2006 - Technology & Engineering - 335 pages

0 Reviews

Digital technology for learning enhancement has been accepted in all levels of education, incorporating the ambitions of challenging traditional educational paradigms for the purpose of stimulating change and bringing about an innovation in the design of curricula.

Enhancing Learning Through Technology identifies and presents the latest research on theory, practice, and capturing learning designs and best-practices. It demonstrates significant and innovative ways of improving learning processes through responsible integration of technology.

Slow down the virtual reality hype. We’re still waiting for the good stuff

Earlier this week, I asked Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe about a statement the company has been making since 2013: that a consumer version of its head-mounted display is “months, not years” away. “So we’re running out of months?” he joked. Then he reiterated what we already knew: Oculus isn’t sure when the Rift — the reason we’re all talking about virtual reality in the first place — will come out. It would rather wait until it thinks virtual reality is genuinely ready than risk the Rift becoming another Power Glove or Virtual Boy, an embarrassing footnote in tech history.

But at CES 2015, virtual reality is front and center. Oculus has a two-story booth for the Crescent Bay headset prototype. Samsung is running a “virtual reality experience” showcasing its recently released Gear VR headset. Peripherals company Razer announced the Open Source Virtual Reality development platform and its own hacked-together headset. You can see a final iteration of Virtuix’s omnidirectional treadmill, now a few months away from release. There’s a bizarre self-described “Oculus killer” by billionaire Alki David and a fashionable alternative called Glyph that projects images on your eyes. Even stalwarts like Intel and HP have products. And filmmakers are making forays into virtual reality content. Fox Searchlight showed off a three-minute “experience” based on the Reese Witherspoon film Wild,” smaller company Arkamys showcased 360-degree video, and Samsung released Milk VR, a platform for virtual reality filmmaking.

In some parts, there's a sense that this is the year the pieces fall in place, or even, as my colleague Ben Popper puts it, "a feeling of inevitability." Razer marketing manager Chris Mitchell, for example, says OSVR will "give virtual reality that final push into the consumer space. It's always almost there, but it's ... ‘Oh, when is it going to be consumer ready?'" But he and others will also readily admit there's very little to do with the hardware right now. More importantly, there's little incentive for anyone to fix that. And the stumbling, preliminary efforts risk sinking consumer VR before it even gets going.

SEE ALL THE LATEST CES 2015 NEWS HERE ›

The Avegant Glyph virtual retinal display

The single most fun thing to do with the Gear VR, with the exception of a few games and videos, is showing other people the Gear VR. A few days ago, I left a unit in our CES trailer and got to watch a few people experience it for the first time. I got my parents to check out a short film about cave paintings over Christmas. Each time, I felt the thrill of watching someone get ported into another world for the first time. It wasn’t just about sharing a hobby, though. It was a way to vicariously recapture the joy of seeing something that I’d long since used up. Touring Tony Stark’s lab was fun once. I have no desire to do it again.

That's the problem with much virtual reality. After years of experimentation, we've found something that undeniably works: short visual spectacles like a visit to Iceland or a song from a Paul McCartney concert. And unfortunately, that thing is both difficult to monetize and almost entirely passive.

THE MOST FUN THING TO DO WITH THE GEAR VR IS SHOW OTHER PEOPLE THE GEAR VR

For all the people making fascinating experimental games on it, the Rift is quickly becoming a $350 brand engagement machine. Technologically impressive but difficult to use — it’s meant for developers, after all — it’s a favorite of film studios, hotels, even soda companies. (I took the Marriott Teleporter, but passed on the Mountain Dew VR Skate Experience.) That’s not necessarily bad; studios can put out bombastic tie-ins like Pacific Rim: Jaeger Pilot or experiment with immersive environments like Into the Storm’s wind-simulating fans. But these are the only chances many people will get to actually try VR right now, as well as the most heavily publicized ones.

They're also something of a dead end in the short term. These productions, including some on show at CES, are designed for the broadest base possible, which means they have to eschew anything that could induce motion sickness and any mechanics that would be too hard to learn in a three-minute session. They're a terrible indicator of whether people would enjoy a feature-length VR film or concert. They're an even worse indicator of whether people would pay for the privilege. A few companies are selling VR content, like the creators of $10 VR shooter Time Rifters, but they're in the vast minority. Oculus and Samsung don't have an e-commerce platform yet, so Gear VR partners have to either give away their games or limit them to demos with a "coming soon" banner.

The Oculus Rift Crescent Bay prototype

Oculus executives Palmer Luckey and John Carmack have stressed over and over that bad tech, like the laggy, tunnel-like headsets of the ‘90s, could turn people off VR for good. But it's also dangerous if the most public face of virtual reality is a fancy TV, constantly tuned to commercials and music videos. These experiences make the best of a bad situation, working around the fact that nobody's figured out how to really interact with virtual space or regularly prevent motion sickness. But they're not the kind of thing that usually inspires people to come back to a platform week after week, whether in a $350 Rift or a $30 Google Cardboard. By getting in on the ground floor, they're hyping up VR at its most rudimentary.

As companies compete with or riff off the Oculus Rift, there's a glut of headsets being announced. But they're all struggling with the same lack of content, and there's not much they can do to solve the problem. Input is the limiting factor — without a good controller, we're stuck just consuming things. The most meaningful progress in VR right now is not going to come from yet another head-mounted display.

WE'RE HYPING VR AT ITS MOST RUDIMENTARY

Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, VR didn’t die in the ‘90s — it survived in industrial design, training simulations, medicine, and other places where it filled a concrete need. It’s the entertainment sector that crashed and burned, and with it, the hopes of VR devices joining computers, phones, and televisions in the ranks of consumer electronics. If it’s going to succeed this time around, it will be because of the people making VR interactive.

Oculus is working on some kind of secret project — given recent statements and its recent acquisition of hand-tracking company Nimble VR, there’s a good chance it’s looking at motion control — but for now, it’s all but removed interactivity from its demos. Many developers rely on basic gamepads, but they’re not designed to work well with head tracking, and they don’t feel immersive. Motion control hardware is niche and fragmented. "What we’ve seen out there in the community, nothing’s really hit that mark yet, where you would put it on and you look, and you touch and feel … and say ‘This is it! I’m ready to go!’" says Iribe. "We’re not there yet."

The Sixense STEM motion controller

And motion controllers are making progress. Sixense and Leap Motion are both betting on that market, but in different ways: the former uses handheld grips tracked with an electromagnetic field, and the latter detects the fine points of your hands with a camera. Each has tradeoffs, and neither was announcing big news, but they’re still two of the most promising VR companies at CES. I drummed my fingers impatiently through a trailer for a David Attenborough documentary at the Samsung Gear VR booth, but the very smallest interactive tasks — shoe shopping, batting at blocks — felt like they had the potential to become something bigger.

THE MOST MEANINGFUL PROGRESS IN VR RIGHT NOW WON'T COME FROM ANOTHER HEAD-MOUNTED DISPLAY

Oculus has been cagey about whether it will release a consumer edition of the Oculus Rift without some kind of controller. With the components of a final headset getting locked down, it’s starting to seem like the company is stalling, waiting for an input system. But that might be a good thing. It’s increasingly evident that visual spectacle isn’t enough to give the technology real staying power, and adapting it to our current limited options will only set it on the wrong course. If we’re going to get people excited about virtual reality, let’s make sure it’s more than a screen first.

MORE FROM THE VERGE

• Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge bring refinement to a proven design
• LG's G5 is a radical reinvention of the flagship Android smartphone
• 30 years of Zelda: a timeline of the legend so far
• Mobile World Congress 2016: the biggest news in mobile from Barcelona
• Samsung's new dongle gives your car an LTE connection
• Ferrari somehow magically turned a destroyed Enzo into a better-than-new car
• Virgin Galactic unveils new SpaceShipTwo vehicle that will replace lost spaceplane