Photos: A visual history of virtual reality headsets (it ain’t always pretty)
You can see the future, but if you could only see yourself
In these heady days of tech innovation it’s easy to lose track of what’s important—and what’s real. Gadgets come and go, their survival often decided by tastemakers whose intentions may not be to guide a product into permanence. What’s hot today may be cool tomorrow, and some toys can take a long time to get off the ground. So it is with the virtual reality headset—a old idea finding renewed interest with the rise of smartphones. Early models were for gaming (Sega and Nintendo both had versions in the 1990s) and military-industrial applications, like flight simulation. Today filmmakers are rushing to shoot in the VR format and schools are handing out headsets as learning aids. Even newspapers are getting into the game, providing cheap cardboard versions which transport you from the kitchen table to foreign battle fields over breakfast.
All of this is to say, virtual reality has done little to prove itself a complement to actual reality. With excessive screen time already taking its toll, it seems unlikely people will want to start holding their phones even closer to their eyes for extended periods. Perhaps the only thing more nauseating than using VR is the unquestioning embrace of it by the media. But then people know not to believe everything they read, right?
