VRDs and the Miniaturization of VR feature - Tilt Trip VR

I have always felt that VR would not really take off until the technology could be miniaturized. It is inherently unsocial and current solutions are bulky and complicated to use. It is not just about large ungainly headgear, it is about heat, sweat, sore necks and fashion.

Yes, replacing the photons that reach our eyes is possible, however as long as the tech necessary to bring this innovation is cumbersome, market penetration will be limited. I personally like the cyberpunk look, but getting any new technology to take off is difficult and current offerings cater more to industrial applications and core gamers.

VRDs, or virtual retina devices are already on the market. They are still a bit bulky, but are leaps ahead of what is happening with Oculus and Vive retail offerings. This tech uses video projectors to beam images directly onto your retina. Sound scary? Don’t worry, unless you are a monkey the tech is safe and could even be accomplished with the help of lasers.

Google glass made vendors shy of projection technology, but how something is applied has nothing to do with the technology behind it. Another mistake that Google made was focusing on map markers, social chat bubbles and ads on buses, Nobody wants this.

I talked a bit about this in my blog post The Future of Mixed Reality. Anything that is possible in VR is possible with AR. You are doubling the capacity of the tech and sacrificing nothing.

Eventually this will all be put on a chip, think Ray-Bans with cameras in one corner on the outsides and a laser projector in the center on the inside. These specs will bring you daily life, with or without digital sun shade, mixed and virtual reality.

This is more than a few years away, but demand rules the day, If the public want it, they will build it. Brain jacks are perhaps a little farther out, but given that sight and sound account for the majority of our sensory input, we are much closer to the promise of virtual reality than we are far away.