Virtual Reality, or “VR”, is something you’ve heard of. But it might seem like a hobby for gamers who use VR games and VR apps. What is virtual reality exactly?

There are many fun virtual reality games, such as snooker or virtual roller coasters. But virtual reality offers so much more for healthcare, business, and marketing.

Imagine a surgeon performing surgery on you remotely using a colleague who holds the scalpel. This VR experience can be complemented by real-life results.

You could even experience your dream wedding online, without having to spend a dime on airfares.

You might be able to try out the most difficult parts of space exploration or even experience something you’ve never done before – such as scaling a building.

It may sound like fantasy but virtual reality is now a reality for many individuals, businesses and healthcare providers around the globe.

What is the difference between virtual reality and augmented reality?

It is a strange time to live in today’s world, with three types of reality: normal reality (completely filled with grumpy spouses and athletes’ feet), virtual reality, and augmented reality. What are the differences between them?

It is important to view virtual reality as a fully-synthetic world and to understand how augmented reality overlays virtual graphics onto our real world (think Pokemon Go). Augmented reality literally augments our daily lives.

Users can feel as though they are experiencing different activities through virtual reality.

What is virtual reality?

VR requires immersion in the virtual world. VR Goggles, also known as virtual reality glasses or virtual reality goggles, are required to experience VR.

These can be mounted on your face using a mount. You might have already seen VR ‘Cardboards’ sets and wondered how something so new-agey could be made possible by a cardboard box.

VR headsets, also known as HMDs (head mounted displays), create a virtual screen around your face. You don’t have to move your head around like you would with a TV or phone. Your eyes will stay in the virtual scene.

They don’t have to be expensive or provide 360 degree coverage. Unless you are an owl, 100 degrees of vision is a good option.

The lenses that are placed between your eyes, and the pixels, are the most expensive part of the device. These are why they are sometimes called “goggles”.

The lenses focus on each eye’s specific area and then reshape it to create a stereoscopic 3D image. They also allow for the use of two 2D images to show how each eye views the world.

The content of the delivery is the same as that on a game console. Images are either sent from the console via an HDMI cable or embedded into the headset.

What does virtual reality look like? The best explanation we could find was:

A virtual experience contains three-dimensional images that appear life-sized to users. Virtual reality applications or devices track the head and eyes movements of the user and adjust the screen display accordingly.

Virtual reality doesn’t just involve the visual experience. It also includes sounds and device movement. Virtual reality allows you to feel the “immersion” of the world. We experience “telepresence” when we interact with the environment.

What is Virtual Reality and how can it be used today?

Although Sony’s PlayStation VR (PSVR)game console was launched in 2016, there has not been a huge VR market.

CCP Games, who makes the space MMO EVE: Online and a VR-spin-off game EVE. Valkyrie has opted out from VR development in the future. They stated in an email to Engadget “they will continue to support VR gaming but will not make material VR investments until market conditions warrant further investment beyond what we have made.”

You would be wrong to think VR is dead based only on the news coming from the gaming industry. The real stories are emerging from everyday VR applications.

Facebook announced Oculus Go, a standalone headset, that it will release in 2018. It would be the best VR experience and be accessible to all users. They also plan to eventually have one million people get into VR.

Virtual reality makes distance less of a problem. Although we have all become accustomed to video conferencing and the ability to communicate via Skype, it is sometimes necessary to feel the place. Watabe Wedding Corp in Tokyo, a major service provider for weddings, understands this and uses VR to show their clients how a venue from the other side might look and feel.

The VR was used by “Wild Within ” to promote tourism in Canada’s British Columbia. Users can feel the thrill of hiking, visiting rainforest, or looking at stunning coastlines. Mark Zuckerberg visited Puerto Rico via VR . Etihad and VR allow people to get a feel of the A380 airbus from their couch.

The flip side of the coin is that we cannot do much in our lives without nudity. VirtualLiving.io says that Virtual Reality opens up a new avenue for nudity – Teledildonic Sex where “individuals living thousands of miles apart can interact in virtual reality.”

It would be remiss of us to discuss VR in any capacity without mentioning the training and health components. Virtual Reality allows you to experience any situation real or imagined without taking on the associated risks.

Virtual reality training makes it feel real and without consequence. Boeing, the company that develops manned spacecraft, announced in September that they would offer VR training programs to prepare astronauts to operate spacecraft. 

Surgeons from London and Mumbai teamed up to use VR headsets in October 2017. They performed a procedure on a patient of the NHS. This led them to believe that it could be a common practice within 5 years. Potentially, VR’s aftercare benefits are even more amazing.

New research in Neurology shows that VR can help to reduce phantom pain.

The research was described by Olaf Blanke, a neuroscientist at EPFL in Switzerland.

We were able to create an illusion using virtual reality. The illusion was that the subjects’ legs were being gently tapped. However, the subject was being tapped on their back above the spinal cord lesions. The subjects reported that their pain had decreased after we did this.

However, it’s not just for academic elites. VR can be used by anyone.

ABI Research claims that VR has standout uses in four key segments of medicine and healthcare: training, therapy, surgery-related applications and medical research.

These experts suggest that VR is best used for therapeutic applications and medical treatments such as post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, or other non-medical therapies like sleep management.

They found that many healthcare facilities have already begun to use immersive VR simulations for patients suffering from anxiety, pain management, or neuro-recovery. The researchers also suggested that certain consumer segments (e.g. They also suggest that VR’s success in medical care could be tied to self-care, such as managing your diet and quitting smoking. 

This applies to any “lesser” complaints that you may have. Fear of spiders, fear speaking in public, and fear of asking someone out on a date. VR can help you find the answers by letting your learn (and fail!) You can learn at your own pace. It allows us the freedom to test our lives.

Cubicle Ninja has posted a blog about VR. Companies can create 360-degree VR videos that show real-world images of people, places and things. This is a great way to tell a story about your brand, or put educational content or product influencers via VR.

According to Daniel Freeman (Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford), VR is a topic that he spoke about with The Guardian

VR can help with very few mental health issues.

You can coach them in different ways to respond. People I meet are often anxious, depressed, or concerned about being attacked by others. Their life has been a retreat from the outside world. You can use VR to get people to do things they’ve never done before. They can go shopping in malls and lifts and then realize they can do it in real life.

What’s the future for Virtual Reality?

You can bet that advertising and marketing materials purchased by Facebook for $2 Billion (Oculus Rift) will start to creep into our daily lives. Marketers are looking to connect with consumers via virtual reality marketing and experiences.

L.E.K. Consulting conducted a survey. According to L.E.K. Consulting, up to 80% of consumers consider themselves early adopters of technology and are interested in using VR to improve their shopping experience.

This is a trend retailers are eager to embrace. In October 2017, Walmart’s CEO Marc Lore stated that he envisions a future in which consumers will be able to experience in-store interactions through VR from their home.

IKEA is already testing a virtual kitchen, and Mastercard and Swarovski are working together to create a VR shopping app that allows shoppers to browse, learn about, and buy items.

It’s more than just looking at products. Jaguar created a VR campaign to take you into Wimbledon. Coca Cola created a virtual reality ride in a sleigh for their famous ‘holidays Are Coming’ campaign in Poland.

Experiences even via VR can help overcome the challenges of running events and promotions, as storytelling and authenticity are key to today’s marketers.

Time will tell how VR could be utilized to create consumer generated content and experiences that feedback to the retailer but for now it’s clear that the future could certainly see more businesses, from clothing retailers to hotels and airlines using the technology to make booking or buying even easier.