From virtual reality to ‘telepresence’: why Oculus Rift is bigger than we think.

Context: This is the third article in a ten-week series about what I learnt at Singularity University this summer. Here are the 1st one on space, the 2nd on biomimicry and the 4th on Alzheimer’s and video games.

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Would you like to fly or jump so fast you can see the Earth in a matter of seconds?

Would you like to feel you’re in the middle of the sea right now?

You could move around and discover land from afar, move around. You would not be on a plane, you would not be dreaming, you would just be using Oculus Rift, this great « virtual reality » gateway that made the whole industry finally credible. This new head-mounted display will let you think you’re in a specific environment and dive into any « computer-simulated environment that can simulate physical presence in imagined worlds» (as Wikipedia defines it).

Now, imagine the whole world you see in Oculus Rift actually exists but is on the other side of the planet. That’s it, now you can teleport! Welcome to the potential of Oculus Rift, a great example of ‘technology convergence’ we got to play with in the Lab this summer at Singularity.

Oculus Rift is a window to any world. Even ours.

Oculus Rift let great developers create immersive experiences that make you feel you’re into a game, a truck or a rollercoaster. The effect is mind-blowing and will probably make you want to take pictures of your relatives while they try it.

But Oculus Rift goes beyond. Think about all the industries that are being impacted, for example:

• Real estate — and how you could visit a house in the physical distance.
• Education — and how you could experience a time of History while talking about it in a classroom.
• Tourism— and how you could have a better view of a country before going there.

But Oculus Rift goes beyond. Think about all the opportunities that will be triggered if you consider that what you see is live-streamed and actually happening. We’re no longer talking about a gaming product, it’s now full real-time experiences powered by many sensors: you become “telepresent”. This device (and cheaper alternatives) becomes a “good enough” technology for a wide range of possibilities:

• Extreme sports. Next time, I want to jump with Felix Baumgartner!
• Emergencies. Send a drone in a fire with a small camera that could get a better idea of how bad the fire is without risking anyone’s life.
• Healthcare. Imagine you could “upload” yourself inside a robot assisting an ederly person to have real time assistance in case of a probem or be the eye or a surgeon while he operates on.
• … but also potentially tricky projects enabling mass surveillance. If you go down the road to cyber cops activable from anywhere just like this Telebot cybercop prototype.

Oculus Rift then turns into a window to your own world, somewhere where you’re not. Good enough transmission, good enough camera, good enough screen resolution, good enough sensor… telepresence through Oculus Rift is just the sum of small advances in technologies. This concept of ‘technology convergence’ is a great way to read technology moves today: it’s the sum of those standalone technological bricks that evolve in parallel but that impact all the others.

Oculus Rift will question the very sense of “reality”: if the place we’re watching exists and what we see it real time, is it “remote reality”? As Jules Verne wrote “Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real”, so please, can someone put a 360 camera on a satellite so we can go to space now? Since Anousheh showed us how it was, I really want to explore it. Now.