Gadgetory

virtual reality now we've talked about it a lot lately and will continue to it is topic number one of 2016 but when I say the word you probably imagine head-mounted display the goggles if you will that you wear that's almost a detail in VR where VR hits the road is in how you craft the media and that's also where it gets messy now at a minimum virtual reality is surround video a whole bowl if you will a video all the way around you on that head mounted display not displayed on a flat web page like on YouTube the next step that many insist on for the VR label is that you'll be able to move within the scene now movement comes in two different flavors you can move smoothly wherever you like in some cases that's more of a video game motif other times a video production may only allow you to choose a few different points of view you can jump around two or that it takes you to the next layer that some believes essential to VR is movement of your limbs can your arms and hands be registered by the VR hardware so that you can interact with and manipulate objects in the virtual environment that of course is much more like reality now those who are developing be our hardware be our content and VR messaging for brands and media companies have somewhat different agendas as a result the definitions are not that clean right now and therein lies job one creating within the industry a rock-solid definition of what VR is kind of like HDTV then communicating that to consumers who really don't know what this term means and thirdly keeping it all distinct from augmented reality which unfortunately is bubbling up at about the same time it's gonna be a busy couple of years in visual town you