19 May, 2015
INITION appeared on Ginx TV’s Planet of the Apps to discuss the ‘Fall and Rise’ of Virtual Reality with host, David McClelland.
The technology, which McClelland notes as having been introduced to the mainstream with the release of Stephen King’s The Lawnmower Man in the mid-90s, has never quite matched the ‘Hollywood hype’ – that is, until Oculus VR arrived in 2012.
So, how did Oculus take a technology deemed a disappointment and breathe new life into it?
“What Oculus did is they looked at things in a very different point of view. They took aspects of mobile phone technology, eliminating the need to develop their own screen technology, and combined it with gyroscopic technology into one device, thus creating the first truly convincing virtual reality experience” said INITION Lead Creative, Alex Lambert.
When McClelland questioned why Facebook, one of the world’s largest social media platforms, would purchase a company whose primary technology had, up until that point, been most notably employed within the military, Lambert had this to say:
“We suspect Facebook VR will have a lot to do with ‘broadcast’ – interpersonal broadcast between people sharing the same virtual space.”
Discussing the rise in popularity of the Rift’s low-cost Google Cardboard counterpart, Lambert continued, “Google cardboard has proven that – with $20 worth of parts – it’s the concept of Virtual Reality, and not necessarily the kit, that’s the most important.”
Watch the segment in full below: