Virtual reality is an immersive experience that simulates a remote digital environment. It utilizes our sensory emotions to create this immersive experience. A person usually wears a virtual reality headset to enter into a virtual world where sound, images, and other senses are stimulated. Therein they can experience the virtual world, moving around, and interacting with the virtual objects. With applications across multiple fields, we can certainly witness virtual reality driving the future.

Why is Virtual Reality important?

Managers, CEOs, and entrepreneurs all need to understand how virtual reality is being implemented currently and its impact across various fields. Further, understanding the recent advancements in VR is essential considering that your competitors might get a lot of early adopters if they become the first with an easy to implement solution over VR.

For example, let’s assume you are a product manager at an education company and your competitor adapts VR for technical excursions. Understanding the pros, cons, ease of implementation, and the price would be some of the considerations that would drive your decision towards the implementation of VR in your business. Hence, understanding VR apart from the latest technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots, etc is critical for managers.

Virtual Reality at a glance

Virtual Reality can loosely be dated back to the renaissance period. The early artists realized that the development of perspective was possible. This led to depictions of spaces that did not exist and was called the “multiplying of artificial worlds”.  The first Head Mounted Display for immersive simulation experience was created by Ivan Sutherland in 1968. It was so huge and formidable that it earned the name “The Sword of Damocles”.

Further research and applications of Virtual reality had been implemented by NASA in its Jet Propulsion Lab (1977-1984). Later MIT created an Aspen Movie Map in 1978. This was meant for users to take virtual tours in the virtual city of Aspen. Atari played a major role by setting up a research lab for virtual reality in 1982 and hired some pioneers in virtual reality the likes of Tom Zimmerman and Scott Fisher.

The prequel to today’s VR came in the 90s when Sega announced the Sega VR headset for arcade games. In 1995, Nintendo announced its console named Virtual Boy.  Around this time, virtual interactive immersive movies like “Angels” were released, along with a 3D virtual world program called “Second life”.

The VR headsets were almost a forgotten ordeal when in 2010, a young entrepreneur working in his parent’s garage created the first prototype of Oculus Rift. This entrepreneur, Palmer Luckey raised $2.5 million through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. Later, in 2014, Oculus Rift was acquired by Facebook for approx. $3 billion. This renewed interest in VR devices marked the onset of a number of companies and entrepreneurs in this technology.

Applications of virtual reality

Virtual Reality finds a number of applications across various industries. The entertainment industry found applications of VR in the Video Gaming industry which has evolved multifold with the commercial success of VR. AR and VR gaming companies like Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Playstation VR are becoming household names. VR applications for fully immersive movies, virtual concerts, and music videos, and are also gaining traction.

As depicted in numerous movies much before VR went mainstream again, education and training is a key component of VR. Flight simulators, simulation of patient anatomies for novice surgeons, military combat training, and simulation for astronauts are counted among the major applications of VR.

Other industries where VR has shown tremendous potential are healthcare, digital marketing, occupational safety, psychology, and architecture. Surely, we have just scraped the surface of the iceberg as creative entrepreneurs continue to delve further and explore new interesting applications.

Key companies and products

1. Oculus Rift: They were acquired by Facebook in 2014 and innovation has continuously been at the helm of the Oculus devices.
   • Website: https://www.oculus.com/
2. Google: Google launched Google Cardboard to put over phones and interact with different apps and games. Google has launched Project Daydream View which includes a soft, fabric headset that is easy to wear and an easy-to-use expressive controller.
   • Website: https://vr.google.com/
3. HTC Vive: It gives a promising look into the future with a fully immersive experience going beyond just a headset to include sensors for the room and handheld devices
   • Website: https://www.vive.com/
4. Microsoft: With Hololens, Microsoft is becoming a major player in both Augmented Reality and VR.
   • Website: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens
5. Unity: This amazing company has been offering VR technology for creators and other VR companies through their Unity 3D engine.
   • Website:  https://unity3d.com/

A lot of other firms like Nvidea, Samsung, Werv, Snap, and Prenav have been major contributors to the field. The portfolio of each of these companies is excessively creative and their unique resume continues to dazzle the users.

Conclusion

We understand that Virtual Reality has a lot of applications and the scope for innovation. Along with this, there is tremendous business potential in existing businesses. There might be some privacy concerns like mass surveillance which need to be regulated for smoother adoption by the customers. The promising future depends on VR becoming mainstream which does not seem a distant reality.

It is estimated that more than 200 million headsets will be sold by the end of 2020, making VR a $20 billion market. The corporations who are able to foresee this trend will align their products for VR implementation. This will bolster growth, strengthen their hold on the market, and increase the innovation appetite of these companies.