Could Oculus Rift KILL you? Extreme immersion could become so scarily realistic it may trigger heart attacks, expert warns

Home »Could Oculus Rift KILL you? Extreme immersion could become so scarily realistic it may trigger heart attacks, expert warns

Could Oculus Rift KILL you? Extreme immersion could become so scarily realistic it may trigger heart attacks, expert warns

Posted by sciencetech-blog on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 Label:

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Video games have been blamed for everything from encouraging violent behaviour to making us more antisocial.

And now, one expert has claimed that ultra-realistic games played using virtual reality headsets could kill people.

Denny Unger believes that the technology is so immersive that the first incidence of someone being scared to death, is not far away.

Denny Unger believes that virtual reality technology - including Oculus Rift (pictured) is so immersive that the first incidence of someone being scared to death by playing a video game, is not far away

Virtual reality headsets, such as Oculus Rift, allow gamers to use a pair of hi-tech 'goggles' with a screen instead of glass to play video games.

While they are currently only available for developers, commercial virtual reality headsets are expected to launch next year.

A set of lenses on the screen focuses and reshapes an image for each eye, which creates a 3D image.

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This image matches a wearer's movements and makes it seem as if they have stepped into the realistic world they are seeing in front of them - with 360° views.

Oculus, which has now been acquired by Facebook, has been fine tuning its technology for years and a commercial version of its headset is tipped to launch next year

Oculus rift (pictured) – newly acquired by Facebook – has been fine tuning its technology for years and a commercial version of its headset is tipped to launch this year

WHAT IS OCULUS RIFT?

Oculus VR was founded by 21-year-old college dropout Palmer Luckey.

It is designed to provide users with an immersive virtual reality experience not only for conventional video games, but for other activities as well.

Facebook purchased the company earlier this year when their $2bn (£1.2bn) deal to buy VR headset firm Oculus was approved.

It will first be used for immersive games, but Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised the headset will 'change the way we work, play and communicate' - although virtual worlds could include advertising admitted Zuckerberg.

A commercial version is rumoured to launch in 2015.

The purchase of Oculus put Facebook in a battle with Sony, who has already unveiled its own version of a VR headset, destined for the PS4 next year.

Mr Unger, creative director at Cloudhead Games warned a virtual reality panel in Seattle that 'we're very close to having the first death in VR',Gizmodo reported.

He said: 'When the commercial version comes out, somebody is going to scare somebody to death - somebody with a heart condition or something like that. It is going to happen. Absolutely.'

Many realistic video games played on standard consoles make players feel tense and villains often jump out and 'attack' gamers.

But this effect could be intensified hugely when virtual reality headsets become widely available.

Mr Unger said that video game designers will have to consider the well-being of the player when designing scenarios that could be played using virtual reality headsets, to avoid some people being so scared it puts their health in jeopardy.

He said that such designers need to understand how immersive the experience can be by testing their games with virtual reality headsets.

'You really could kill somebody. You really could. We all have to be mindful of that,' he said.

This summer, developers got their hands on the next-generation Oculus Rift and one firm created a virtual girlfriend (pictured) which together with a leg-shaped lap cushion, enables lonely men to feel and sit with her

THE COMPOSITION AND USES OF OCULUS RIFT

This summer, developers got their hands on the next-generation Oculus Rift.

A teardown revealed upgrades to the tracking technology and sensors.

Repair experts iFixit discovered the screen of the Oculus Rift Developers Kit 2 (DK2) is taken from the Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

The device's 5.7-inch screen is a super Amoled touchscreen with 1080 x 1920 pixels. This gives it a pixel-per-inch density of 368, and is full HD. By comparison, Apple's iPhone 5S has 326 PPI, and the HTC One M8 has 441.

It has a 360° orientation tracking unit and external infrared camera.

Positional tracking is important in virtual reality because it tracks the position of the wearer's head in 3D, relative to the sensor.

'When you lean in to examine a virtual object, the environment zooms in to translate your movement, adding another layer of interactivity and realism,' iFixit said.

The Oculus Rift developer kits are available from the Oculus VR website for $350 (£207).

As well as providing video gamers with virtual reality experience, the headset is created for other activities too.

For example, a bizarre pillow shaped like a pair of girls legs coupled with an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset is now offering hope to men who do not want to spend the evenings alone sitting on the sofa.

Japanese development firm Up Frontier came up with idea to create the virtual girlfriend, who offers men the chance to sit next to her.

The virtual partner is based on the Unity-chan cartoon character, which is the mascot for an open-source cross-platform game engine called Unity designed by Unity Technologies Japan.

Together with a 'lap pillow', which mimics the shape of the character's legs, users can rest their head on 'her' legs both in the virtual world and real-life - sort of.

The lap pillow is known as the Hizamakura and is designed to look and feel like a kneeling pair of female legs.

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