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Virtual reality is one of the emerging technological advancements in the IT industry. Attempts at creating virtual reality dates back to the nineteenth century, where artists created panoramic paintings of historical events or portrayal of wars. This gave an illusion of filling a viewer’s vision. In 1838, Charles Wheatstone’s researched viewing two side by side stereoscopic images through a stereoscope which gave the user a sense of immersion and depth. This design principle has influenced the likes of the recently popular Google Cardboard and low cost virtual reality head mounted displays.
To quote Oxford, virtual reality simply means:
The computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way by a person using special electronic equipment, such as a helmet with a screen inside or gloves fitted with sensors.
The history of virtual reality
Commercial flight simulator “Link trainer”, science fiction story “Pygmalion’s Spectacles” and “Sensorama” were deemed to be the turning points in VR’s history. The Telesphere Mask was the first prototype of the head-mounted displays (HMD) invented by Morton Heilig. The Sword of Damocles, a solid virtual reality/augmented reality (VR/AR) and the first, was developed by Ivan Sutherland and his student Bob Sproull. It was relatively significant, because this large scary looking device connected to a computer rather than the conventional camera much like in the modern world.
In 1987, Jaron Lanier popularized the term “Virtual Reality”, and this was when there was a rush of pioneers in this research area. Sega developed prototype VR headsets for the games they announced in 1993, which was a disaster for the company as it never achieved production. The same was the case for the Nintendo Virtual Boy.
The new age of virtual reality
The Matrix was the first film that created an impact around characters living in a simulated reality world. The first few years of the 21st century has seen rapid developments in this field. Computers and powerful mobile devices have enabled the creation of low cost, yet practical VR devices. The video game industry is one of the vast industries where virtual reality directly impacts consumers. Sensors, motion controllers and reenacting human behavior, control how and where virtual reality can really take off into the multi-billion dollar industry.
3D TVs, Google’s Cardboard, Samsung’s Gear VR, Sony’s Project Morpheus and Windows Holographic has seen a steady influx of software development by dedicated developers for creating the future of virtual reality, much like the one below:
Facebook’s purchase of Oculus Rift for $2b just heralded a new era in the trust put in virtual reality, among other investments.
Virtual reality and security
As research in this area progresses, information security also holds a very important role in the future. Realization comes very late in the game, when one does not have the sufficient information security policies in place. Billions of dollars’ worth business is lost within hours and able organizations are reduced to ashes by the time they realize what happened. Hackers are on the lookout every second. They need only a single loophole in the system to collapse an entire infrastructure. This is primarily because there is no equality in taking efforts for a secure system or a risk management in place. Unencrypted communications, hijacking one’s identity and impersonating a user allow hackers to control and modify practically everything within and around a system. These systems become particularly vulnerable when it is hosted on cloud platforms.
Creating effective firewalls that are tightly integrated into the virtual server application or connecting virtual machines to different external network cards or even building virtual firewalls will enable users to protect their virtual machines for these infrastructures. Creation of strong policies that enables organizations to control password, authentication, access control and network connectivity policies will ensure there is no impersonation of user information. However, even large organizations constantly change their privacy policies, which highlight personal security risks in a virtual reality environment. This is even more significant as every user behavior in a virtual environment is tracked and each of its elements can be modified extensively. This kind of monitoring could lead to extensive violations which should ideally be tracked in a legal manner.
Where are we?
Elon Musk, who has invested significantly into the world of artificial intelligence and virtual reality within Tesla and SpaceX has said that there is a “one in a billions” chance that we are not living in a computer simulated world.
“There’s a one in billions chance that [our reality] is base reality.” — Elon Musk
Which means, our life is actually a simulation.
He opines that the strongest argument supporting this probability is that we have progressed from Pong (two rectangles and a dot) to realistic 3D simulations, where millions of people play simultaneously, in a span of 40 years. With augmented reality not far away, every game will become indistinguishable from the reality and he hopes that’s the case, or else sooner than later, civilization will cease to exist.
Either that, or maybe, control is just an illusion.
