Virtual & Augmented Reality
Rebecca Ormond · 2018
Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) systems have been used in professional applications for decades. However, when Oculus released the Oculus Rift SDK 1 system in 2012 and Facebook purchased Oculus for $2 billion in 2014, a consumer-entertainment industry was born. Although market predictions for VR and AR have turned out to be exaggerated in the past, John Riccitellio, CEO of Unity Technologies , in his Google I/O 2017 developers’ conference presentation reminded developers: “The industry achieved $2.5 Billion from a near zero start in 2015, that is stupendous!” (Riccitellio, 2017) . Early inhibitors to consumer adoption, such as latency issues that caused VR Sickness, high costs and proprietary distribution platforms are slowly being resolved. As of January 2018, improvements to VR/AR technologies, supported by substantial industry and government financing, are emerging at a never before seen rate, which is predicted to increase content development and consumer adoption rates . This chapter explores the issues inhibiting and enabling the trajectory of VR and AR from an early innovator or adopter stage into a mass market or majority adopter stage .