Virtual reality coming soon?

Can you imagine a world where you only have to put on a pait of glasses, and suddenly you are transported to a whole new reality. A reality that can make all your dreams come true? You can fly, fight, save damsels in distress and do all the things that are impossible in the real world? Well, it might be closer than you think.

Around two years ago a VR enthusiast Palmer Luckey introduced a new idea to the gaming comunity (after the failure of Virtual Boy). A pair of VR goggles that are compatible with a computer. Together with  Brendan Iribe he launched a Kickstarter project and the pair raised a whooping $2.4 million for their project. And so, the Oculus Rift was born. With 360° head tracking, allowing you to seamlessly look around the virtual world just as you would in real life, and a 100° field of view, meaning you are not restricted to the corners of your screen but rather your own eyes, it will probably be a part of the new generation of computers and consoles. The release date has not been announced yet, however it is likley that the consumer version of Oculus Rift will be available sometime 2015. That being said the developer version of the VR goggles can be bought for $350, and the finished product will stayin the $200-$400 price range.

Wheather the emersion of the Oculus Rift can be called a virtual reality is up to the individual, however these are the first steps to achieving it. And if the interest of big name company like Sony, who is making it`s own VR headset called Project Morpheus, means little to you, than the name Facebook defenatly should. In the past year Mark Zuckerberg bought Oculus for the incredible ammount of $2 billion. He even went as far as to say that “Immersive virtual and augmented reality will become a part of people’s everyday life,” However, not many share the enthusiasm of the purchase, including Markus Persson, the creator of Minecraft, who stated that Facebook creeps him out.

The Oculus Rift will revolutionize gaming and, thanks to Facebook, have a big impact on the social media. On some areas less than the others. But to be honest, all those chages and impacts aren`t as important as the fact that I already know what I want for Christmas next year.