Virtual Reality and Telepresence: 50 Years from Dreams to Reality

VR may be at a historic inflection point not unlike the personal computer just before the IBM PC’s introduction, about to transition from a niche product to widespread adoption. What’s worrisome is that this transition was also predicted at least once before, in the early 1990s, when VR systems first became commercially available. What is different this time? This talk will review the history of VR, the development of the component technologies and several representative applications. We’ll review the key technical problems to be solved, assess their current state of effectiveness, and note how the situation is different now than during the last promising era two decades ago. We’ll conclude with a tour of remaining technical challenges (such as merging real and virtual worlds), a look at some new application areas, and speculate on why a VR startup company might be worth $ 2 Billion.