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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hey everyone,

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Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Pallette. I'm

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Speaker 1: an editor here at how Stuff Works, and sitting next

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Speaker 1: to me is writer Jonathan Strickland. How do you and

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Speaker 1: we're virtually next to you. Yes, we're of course talking

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Speaker 1: to you from the wonderful sunny beach where the waves

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Speaker 1: are are lapping up against the shore. Very tranquil environment,

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Speaker 1: you know, lots of nice cold tropical drinks. Nice Peto

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Speaker 1: by the way. Thanks. You know I'm I'm I'm far

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Speaker 1: more buff than uh than I may appear in real life. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the beauty of virtual reality. Yeah, yeah, I'm virtually happy. Nice. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So we are obviously going to be talking about virtual

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Speaker 1: reality today, yes, um, and you might wonder what the

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Speaker 1: heck happened to virtual reality? You know, it's funny when

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Speaker 1: you brought this up and Jonathan said he wanted to

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Speaker 1: talk about virtual reality, and I started thinking, uh, you

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Speaker 1: know what happened to that? Because you know, it was

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Speaker 1: all the rage people used to talk about it. All

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Speaker 1: the time, and now we weren't. I said, Jonathan, what

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Speaker 1: do you want to talk about about virtual reality? He said,

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Speaker 1: what happened to it? Oh? Well, there you go, exactly

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Speaker 1: what I was wanting. So so let's give you some

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Speaker 1: background virtual reality. The concept um, though not the term

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Speaker 1: the concept, has been around for many decades. Back in

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Speaker 1: nineteen a man by the name of Ivan Sutherland wrote

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Speaker 1: a proposal called the Ultimate Display, and he was kind

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Speaker 1: of making a theoretical display that would be you know

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Speaker 1: what he considered to be the the ultimate in computer

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Speaker 1: displays and um, obviously by the title, that's just a

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Speaker 1: little repetitive redundancy for you. Let me reiterate. Okay, So anyway,

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Speaker 1: the Ultimate display. Now, his his concept was that the

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Speaker 1: display would show a virtual world that would be um

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Speaker 1: as real to the user as the physical world the

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Speaker 1: user was actually in. So there'd be no way to

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Speaker 1: tell the difference between the virtual world and the physical

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Speaker 1: world from from just from your experience in it. Um,

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Speaker 1: although the two could the two could differ physically, like

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Speaker 1: you could make a virtual world on the moon, for example,

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Speaker 1: But to the important thing is is that to the

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Speaker 1: user it would seem absolutely real, and uh, he kind

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Speaker 1: of envisioned this sort of display, having a head mounted

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Speaker 1: display or h m D, which one of those big

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Speaker 1: clunky helmet things that fits over your head, and then

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Speaker 1: that provides you all the visual and audio that you

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Speaker 1: need UM and that it would also incorporate sound and

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Speaker 1: touch uh to make this big picture. So that was

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Speaker 1: kind of his idea in a way. He's sort of

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Speaker 1: like the grandfather of virtual reality. Or we'll skip ahead.

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Speaker 1: So this idea never fades away. People always keep it

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Speaker 1: in mind and and in certain uses it comes to play,

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Speaker 1: like in in military uses in particular, things like creating

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Speaker 1: putting a camera on the outside of a plane and

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Speaker 1: UH and hooking it up to a head mounted display

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Speaker 1: within the plane so that h person in the plane

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Speaker 1: can look around and see and help someone like the

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Speaker 1: pilot land the plane because they can they have a

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Speaker 1: view directly beneath it, for example, that kind of thing. Sure,

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Speaker 1: and they even have weapons systems that use that kind

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Speaker 1: of technology where your the camera controls the weapons so

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Speaker 1: that when the pilot turns his or her head, they

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Speaker 1: can look at a target and the gun has already

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Speaker 1: pointed whatever it is that they're looking at right right,

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Speaker 1: So so the military drove a lot of this early innovation. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: other scientists were saying, hey, there's some really cool things

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Speaker 1: we could use this to do, but it's hard to

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Speaker 1: get funding because you have to convince people that it's

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Speaker 1: it's a worthwhile endeavor. Uh. To that end one In

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Speaker 1: the late eighties, that's when the term virtual reality started

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Speaker 1: to come into play and the media picked up on it.

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Speaker 1: And that's when you had an explusion, particularly in the

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Speaker 1: early nineties, that's when the media really went nuts with

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Speaker 1: this term virtual reality. And part of the problem was

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Speaker 1: that they built up that they being the media, built

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Speaker 1: up this this vision of this amazing virtual world that

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Speaker 1: we would all get to go and play in, and

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Speaker 1: we you know, the there were no limitations. You could

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Speaker 1: have all the information at your fingertips, you could have

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Speaker 1: you could live out your wildest fantasies in this virtual environment.

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Speaker 1: Holidack essentially, yes, good good star Trek the next generation

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Speaker 1: reference although as we all know, if you go into

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Speaker 1: the holiday, something will go wrong in moriarity will try

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Speaker 1: to kill you. But anyway, yeah, exactly, though, the next

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Speaker 1: generation kind of take on virtual reality was sort of

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Speaker 1: what the media was playing this up to. Be to

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Speaker 1: the point where people were really excited, and it sounded

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Speaker 1: like it was just right around the corner, and that

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Speaker 1: any minute now we'd be able to put on some

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Speaker 1: sort of suit and be able to experience things like

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Speaker 1: I've always wondered what would be like to I don't know, uh,

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Speaker 1: sled down a huge icy mountain and I could do

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Speaker 1: this safely in my own home, and I would have

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Speaker 1: all the feeling and the experience of doing that. But

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Speaker 1: in reality, I just take the suit off, I'd be

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Speaker 1: in my living room, I'd be perfectly safe. Or I've

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Speaker 1: always wanted to pretend like I'm some sort of a

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Speaker 1: super soldier, even though I'm a pudgy computer guy. I

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Speaker 1: want to put on the suit and go out there

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Speaker 1: and do a high risk mission and see what that's

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Speaker 1: really like. But the reality was sadly lagging quite a

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Speaker 1: bit behind this media perception. In fact, the chasm was

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Speaker 1: enormous between what the media was saying or what they

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Speaker 1: were kind of promising, and what the reality could actually produce. Um,

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Speaker 1: I don't know if did you ever get to do

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Speaker 1: a virtual reality game at all? Now? I've never played

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Speaker 1: a virtual reality Okay, well, children, sit back, Jonathan's gonna

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Speaker 1: tell you a little story. The year was nine. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was. I was in high school. Uh, and um,

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Speaker 1: there was a mall that was not too far from

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Speaker 1: my house. Uh, the Gwinnette Play Small. Yeah it's been there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's different now, but back then they had a small business.

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Speaker 1: And the only thing the small business did was it

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Speaker 1: essentially rented out time on virtual reality games. You would

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Speaker 1: go and you pay a certain amount to get five

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Speaker 1: minutes of playtime in this virtual reality game. And the game,

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Speaker 1: by the way, the main game they had was Dactyl

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Speaker 1: Nightmare and um, it's odd, so it was like a thumb. No,

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Speaker 1: it was supposed to be a ptero dactyl. They called

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Speaker 1: it Dactyl Dactyl Nightmare. So you would with other people,

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Speaker 1: I think up to three other people, so four player game,

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Speaker 1: and you had a little control that you would hold

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Speaker 1: in your hands that would represent a gun in the game,

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Speaker 1: and you had a head molond display you'd wear and

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Speaker 1: you would be Um, you'd be inside the stand on

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Speaker 1: a little pedestal that had a little guard around it

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Speaker 1: so you wouldn't you know, fall off, and you had

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Speaker 1: a control on the handle of the the little controller

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Speaker 1: you had you had a button control movement. You could

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Speaker 1: just move forward, so whichever way you faced you push

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Speaker 1: the button, that's the way you would go. And then

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Speaker 1: you had a trigger where you could fire the slowest

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Speaker 1: moving bullet you've ever seen at your opponents, lower than

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Speaker 1: in the matrix. Okay, the second slowest bullet you've ever seen,

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Speaker 1: and uh and so, and occasionally a terrodactor would come

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Speaker 1: down and pick you up and drop you, which was

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Speaker 1: a good way to for you to lose a life.

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Speaker 1: Not that impressive, I gotta tell you not um not

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Speaker 1: impressive really at all. It was actually a big letdown

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Speaker 1: compared to what you're thinking all virtual reality is really

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Speaker 1: gonna you like. And that was kind of the case

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Speaker 1: across the board. You had all these people try these

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Speaker 1: games out and other applications, and they were so primitive

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Speaker 1: in comparison to what everyone thought of thought virtual reality

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Speaker 1: was really gonna be. Like the bottom fell out. Funding

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Speaker 1: for virtual reality projects kind of dropped out because people

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Speaker 1: just lost interest. It's just like the sort of the

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Speaker 1: same problem NASA has with the Space program. If there's

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Speaker 1: not a lot of interest in it, they have trouble

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Speaker 1: funding the program. Same thing for virtual reality. So it

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Speaker 1: actually got to the point where people began to hate

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Speaker 1: the term virtual reality because it had the stigma attached

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Speaker 1: to it, which is why you don't really hear the

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Speaker 1: term now. Now you hear virtual environments. Right, it's the

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Speaker 1: same sort of thing. It's a little bit more of

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Speaker 1: a broad definition than virtual reality was. But in general

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Speaker 1: you're talking about the same stuff. It's just a different name.

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Speaker 1: And the reason behind it is because virtual reality just

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Speaker 1: became such a loaded term, right, So there you go,

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Speaker 1: that's what happened to virtual reality. Well then, but I've

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Speaker 1: heard the term virtual environment applied to things like Second

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Speaker 1: Life or Google Lively or Sony Home. Right. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: that's where the broad definition comes in, so, you know,

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Speaker 1: because you don't have to wear special equipment to do that,

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Speaker 1: although you can, Yeah, there are people who do, I'm sure. Now.

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Speaker 1: That's the thing is that virtual environment is a more

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Speaker 1: broad definition in right, So essentially, any any computer environment

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Speaker 1: you create in a way is a virtual environment, right. Um.

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Speaker 1: But the way that the term is being used within

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Speaker 1: the industry, the old VR industry, you need a little

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Speaker 1: bit more than that. Um. The main concept for virtual

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Speaker 1: environments in this industry is called immersion right now, Immersion.

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Speaker 1: Immersion is that feeling you get where the environment you're

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Speaker 1: in seems real to you, right, Okay, So uh Now,

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Speaker 1: ideally you get to the point where you feel that

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Speaker 1: environment you're in is as real as the physical environment

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Speaker 1: your body is in, and in the perfect example, you

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Speaker 1: would even forget about your physical body entirely. You would

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Speaker 1: just concentrate on the virtual one and that would be

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Speaker 1: real to you. Um. Now, The interesting thing here is

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Speaker 1: that immersion does not depend solely upon the graphics quality

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Speaker 1: of the program or um or even the sound quality. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It really depends on how interactive is this environment, how

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Speaker 1: when you turn your head, is there any latency? Latency

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Speaker 1: is is the delay between an action and the way

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Speaker 1: the computer shows it to you. So like if you

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Speaker 1: turn your head and there's a slight delay, it's very

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Speaker 1: disconcerting and it ruins the immersion experience. Yeah, because you're

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Speaker 1: no longer being fooled into the idea that you are

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Speaker 1: somewhere else exactly. That's an artifact of real life. It

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Speaker 1: kind of makes you feel like you're maybe slightly drunk

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Speaker 1: or drugged or something, and in fact can lead you

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Speaker 1: to motion sickness. It's called cybersickness UM in virtual reality terms.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, it can really it can disorient you because

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Speaker 1: you know your your brain is telling you, hey, I'm

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Speaker 1: looking to the right, but my view is lagging behind

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Speaker 1: my actual actions. It's interesting because in virtual reality studies

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Speaker 1: they found out that the human I and mine can

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Speaker 1: perceive a delay of as short as fifty milliseconds, which

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Speaker 1: is that's an incredible fraction of the second, and you

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Speaker 1: can detect it. So that's a big challenges is decreasing

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Speaker 1: that delay so that it becomes imperceptible. UM. But that

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Speaker 1: that can lead to immersion. Also, things like haptic feedback,

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Speaker 1: which you know all about because you you edited the

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Speaker 1: how haptics work, right, that's true. UM. Haptic feedback is

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Speaker 1: essentially anything that makes you feel like you're actually touching something,

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Speaker 1: So UM, that can be anything like um they're they're

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Speaker 1: medical devices that are used to actually do surgery UM

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Speaker 1: or to train people who are doctors, and that gives

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Speaker 1: some haptic feedback. So I mean, really, if you're controlling

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Speaker 1: a robotic arm with the use of this this mechanical equipment,

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Speaker 1: electronic mechanical equipment, UM, you know a robot is going

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Speaker 1: to be you know, it's not gonna have any feeling

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Speaker 1: to it. It's gonna just you know, slice into whatever

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Speaker 1: is around, you know, without being discriminatory other than what

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Speaker 1: you know, depending on whether you're cutting muscle or whatever.

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Speaker 1: So the doctor needs to be able to feel that

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Speaker 1: is working. So these haptic devices, you know, provide some

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Speaker 1: you know, I need to go just this far and

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Speaker 1: no farther to to you know, complete this surgery. Amounts

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Speaker 1: of resistance that kind of thing, right, and there are

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Speaker 1: there are still different kinds of devices that that you

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Speaker 1: different little motors and vibrating modules in there to give

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Speaker 1: resist your fingers so that you make it makes your

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Speaker 1: hand feel as you close it that you are holding,

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Speaker 1: for example, a ball, because it is holding back your

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Speaker 1: hand to to you know, give it that feeling that

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Speaker 1: oh there's something there, you know, because you actually can

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Speaker 1: feel it. And these things are you know, some of

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Speaker 1: them are quite large. UM. So you know, you may

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Speaker 1: be putting on some some pretty large gloves. But it's

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Speaker 1: got a sensation, gives you the sensation that you are

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Speaker 1: actually touching something, and it adds to that perception that

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Speaker 1: you are in another world. Yeah, and I at c

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Speaker 1: Yes somewhere electronic showcase, I actually tried on some stuff

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Speaker 1: that that had haptic feedback UM devices built into them.

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Speaker 1: There was there was a vest that you could wear

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Speaker 1: the Yes, it was designed for first person shooters, so

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Speaker 1: when you got shot, it would They had little air

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Speaker 1: bladders in them and the air bladder would inflate suddenly

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Speaker 1: and thus you would feel an impact against your skin. UM.

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Speaker 1: And because the vest was so tight, it was you know,

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Speaker 1: it had to be because otherwise you wouldn't really sense

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Speaker 1: this UM. But it meant that you felt it. It

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Speaker 1: was it was not something you could ignore. But they

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Speaker 1: also had a helmet that did the same sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: And and that's the Here comes another interesting part about

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Speaker 1: virtual environments and the research that goes into them. Because

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Speaker 1: it's still hard to get funding for these things, they

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Speaker 1: often appropriate devices that were designed for other industries and

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Speaker 1: and apply them to virtual environments. So the video game

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Speaker 1: industry in particular is huge when it comes to this

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Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Uh, they'll you know, people who design

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Speaker 1: virtual environments will actively seek out devices in the in

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Speaker 1: the video game industry that they can then repurpose for

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Speaker 1: virtual environments. So things like this kind of vest which

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Speaker 1: would let you feel impact that could become in handy

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Speaker 1: in a virtual environment really helps with the immersion. So

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Speaker 1: when you see something happen to your virtual self within

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Speaker 1: a world, and usually this is in a first person view,

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Speaker 1: because that helps with immersion. It's it's when you do

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Speaker 1: third person that you don't really you still have a

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Speaker 1: sense of detachment, sure, but when you see something coming

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Speaker 1: at you and then you feel the impact through something

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Speaker 1: like this, it definitely reinforces that sense of immersion. Well,

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Speaker 1: the video game industry is all about immersion and virtual

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Speaker 1: environment exactly. And uh, you know, as we were, as

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Speaker 1: you were talking, I was just thinking of an obvious analogy.

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Speaker 1: Would the flight simulator, uh, you know, the flight simulator,

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Speaker 1: I can't even say simulator. That's lovely, the flight simulator

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Speaker 1: that that you that you play on your desktop is

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Speaker 1: very uh similar to the kind of machine that they

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Speaker 1: used to to train pilots in, right, and that was

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Speaker 1: atually very early application of virtual environments. Again we're going

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Speaker 1: back in military. Yeah, but well, the airlines use them,

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Speaker 1: and of course the there's a simulator for the Space Shuttle,

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Speaker 1: I believe, UM, and there were for the Mercury capsules

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Speaker 1: even in the Geminy gem and I. I don't care

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Speaker 1: what the astronauts say, but they said it. I know

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Speaker 1: they said it. I'm still saying gem and I, Okay,

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Speaker 1: But they were using virtual environments to to do some

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Speaker 1: training too. So those are those are things that that

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Speaker 1: the public might have actually seen, that they might be

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Speaker 1: aware of. And there's some there's some uses that are

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Speaker 1: going on right now that the public might be aware of, UM,

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Speaker 1: depending on Sadly a lot of it's uh sadly in

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Speaker 1: the sense that it's not a fun application. It's it's

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Speaker 1: a good application of virtual environments. But medical applications besides

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Speaker 1: the telepresence and surgery that you're talking about, UM, one

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Speaker 1: of the useful uh ways you can incorporate virtual environments

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Speaker 1: and treatment UM involves psychological treatment. UM. There are experiments

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Speaker 1: being run at Duke University and Emory University, where doctors

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Speaker 1: are using virtual environments to simulate situations where patients with

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Speaker 1: phobias can can kind of confront their fear um in

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Speaker 1: a way that ultimately they know they're perfectly safe. Ultimately

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Speaker 1: they know they're inside a doctor's office and they don't

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Speaker 1: have they're not actually confronting what it is they're afraid of,

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Speaker 1: but because the sense of immersion is a powerful one,

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Speaker 1: their bodies react the same way they would if they

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Speaker 1: were actually encountering their real fear. For example, fear of heights. UM.

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Speaker 1: If you are a psychologist and you're a psychiatrist and

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Speaker 1: you're treating someone for a fear of heights, and you

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Speaker 1: happen to have an office in a one story building,

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Speaker 1: your options for treating this patient are become pretty rough

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Speaker 1: when it comes to actually, you know, confronting the fear

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Speaker 1: head on. It means you have to go to a

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Speaker 1: different building. You have to you know, you may have

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Speaker 1: to secure permission to go to a certain floor or

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Speaker 1: anything like that. UM virtual environments, you could create an

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Speaker 1: environment where you appear to be at the top of

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Speaker 1: a tall building and you can walk right up to

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Speaker 1: the edge virtually and look down. And the interesting thing

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Speaker 1: is after a couple of minutes where you kind of

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Speaker 1: get oriented, patients have shown the same physical reaction to

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Speaker 1: the virtual environment as they would if they were in

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Speaker 1: a real one. And that using this as sort of

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Speaker 1: uh a kind of therapy where they get used to

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Speaker 1: it over a period of time, they can uh, they

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Speaker 1: can really make a lot of progress. In fact, some

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Speaker 1: psychio psychiatrists and psychologists have reported that their patients come

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Speaker 1: back and say, hey, you know, after we went through

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Speaker 1: these sessions, I took it upon myself to go to

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Speaker 1: this hotel downtown that's got It's a fifteen story hotel

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Speaker 1: and I went all the way to the top and

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Speaker 1: I walked all the way to the window, and you know,

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Speaker 1: I was really scared. It was really nervous, but I

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Speaker 1: did it. And it's amazing because without this treatment, they

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Speaker 1: would never have taken that kind of initiative. So that's

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Speaker 1: kind of an interesting approach. There are other ones as well.

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Speaker 1: UM fear flying is a common one. It's also being

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Speaker 1: used for people who have u UH veterans who are

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Speaker 1: coming back who have have problems afterwards. You know, that's

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Speaker 1: that's a big use for them. Sure, it's that's that's

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Speaker 1: kind of where a lot of the funding is going

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Speaker 1: into now because it is a an application that you

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Speaker 1: can see direct results from. So what if you fear

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Speaker 1: fear itself? Nice? Um? Yeah, that one, that one that

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Speaker 1: was tricky. Yeah, I would imagine so at least two

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Speaker 1: to replicate in in a virtual environment. Yeah, Well, I

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Speaker 1: want to talk about one other things. We did talk

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Speaker 1: about haptics earlier. Sure, I want to talk about passive haptics,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of virtual environments. Passive haptics are when

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Speaker 1: you incorporate real objects and you connect them to the

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Speaker 1: virtual world. So usually in this case, you're your virtual

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Speaker 1: environment actually requires that you have a room where the

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Speaker 1: a lot of the the images you'll see are projected

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Speaker 1: on on maybe the floor and the walls and the ceiling,

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Speaker 1: and you're wearing special glasses to complete the illusion. But

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Speaker 1: you put in real physical objects that are mapped to

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Speaker 1: this virtual environment, and if you, as a person in

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Speaker 1: the physical environment, interact with these, you see that reflected

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Speaker 1: in the virtual environment. Again reinforces that sense of immersion.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty cool, you know. So, like you see a

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Speaker 1: ball and you push it, Uh, you would actually feel

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Speaker 1: the ball, because there really is a ball there, and

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Speaker 1: you'd see it move. The other neat thing about this

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Speaker 1: is that you can trick the mind and create an

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Speaker 1: environment that's much larger than the physical virtual environment that's

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Speaker 1: that's many times larger than the physical one. UM. You

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Speaker 1: can trick the mind into thinking you're walking in a

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Speaker 1: straight line. And really, if you were to be an

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Speaker 1: independent observer, you would see that the person inside the

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Speaker 1: room is walking in a circle, but in the virtual environment,

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Speaker 1: it would look like you're walking in a straight line. Right,

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Speaker 1: So in a way, you've just created a room that's

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Speaker 1: larger on the inside that it is on the outside.

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Speaker 1: To tell what, I'm kind of fascinated by virtual environments

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Speaker 1: and reality and technology behind it, you know. I was

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Speaker 1: thinking though that there are some some holdovers from it, UM.

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Speaker 1: You know, talking about CS. I remember the my View

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Speaker 1: personal video player that they have, UM. It kind of

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Speaker 1: looks like a very small version of the head gear

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Speaker 1: that you used to see in the virtual reality UM stuff.

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Speaker 1: But basically what it is is, UM, it's a When

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Speaker 1: I say personal video player, it's literally a pair of

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Speaker 1: glasses that you put on your you know, put on

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Speaker 1: your face and it plays you know, hooks up to

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Speaker 1: your personal video player and plays the movie or the

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Speaker 1: video podcast or whatever on the lenses of your glasses,

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Speaker 1: so you're actually watching you know, you're it's sort of

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Speaker 1: a mini immersion type of thing because you're showing yourself

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Speaker 1: that um. And remember the old virtual game boys still

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Speaker 1: still feel those headaches. Yeah yeah, yeah, but they had

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Speaker 1: a problem with latency. Yeah, imax. They're all kinds of

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Speaker 1: things in reality. I mean, you've got there's a new

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Speaker 1: camera that actually will tag things that you see in

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Speaker 1: real life. It'll tag it and remember it and and

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Speaker 1: uploaded and share it. Um. Where you can point a

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Speaker 1: camera at a building and push this little button and

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Speaker 1: it'll pop up and tell you what that building is.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's the same sort of thing. These are

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Speaker 1: all these applications that came out of the research from

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Speaker 1: virtual reality. Yea, so there it still exists. There's just

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Speaker 1: bits and pieces of it then incorporated into different materials, right.

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Speaker 1: So it's it's pretty interesting stuff. No, it's not not gone.

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Speaker 1: It's just maybe gone underground and sort of assimilated into

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Speaker 1: a way where you wouldn't necessarily recognize it immediately. It's

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Speaker 1: it's cool stuff. And uh, well, I guess that's a good,

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Speaker 1: nice long conversation about virtual reality. But if you want

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Speaker 1: to learn more, we have a whole suite on virtual

407
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:03,600
Speaker 1: reality at how stuff Works. A good place to start

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Speaker 1: is how virtual Reality Works. There. That's live right now

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00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:09,879
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, and we'll pop to

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Speaker 1: you against soon. For more on this and thousands of

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Speaker 1: other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Let us

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Speaker 1: know what you think. Send an email to podcast at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the

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Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you