Yeah, we are far from what was refered to in my answer :
> What about when the device is $20 instead of $400? When it doesn't make you nauseous? When it's so close to face-to-face contact that you can replace 10 or 20 percent of your business travel?
We are FAR from having a very cheap VR solution. The VR gear is likely to be 300 or 400+ USD for a while and that will prevent mainstream adoption because it's a peripheral.
We are far from having solved all the problems related to discomfort, nausea, eye strain and stuff that goes with VR systems. Have you had a rift on your heard for 5 hours in a row ? If you had, you'd know what I am talking about.
So close to simulating real human contact? We are not even there YET in terms of 3D technology, we are far from photo realistic human representations on screen, let alone VR.
So yes, we are far from these objectives.
EDIT: and your comment regarding mobile phones to drive VR is senseless. mobile phones are too limited to drive any kind of complex 3d environment, they are limited by battery size, by watts and how temperature they can cope with, and by the size of their processors. The past few years should clearly indicate the pace in mobile phone processing power is slowing down rather than accelerating. You don't get 2x performance every 6 months anymore on a new mobile phone.
> we are far from photo realistic human representations on screen, let alone VR.
Would we actually need to simulate human representations in order for it to be photorealistic? For example, what if your VR headset displays information consumed from a set of stereoscopic cameras?
There would be a lot of complications. (Won't the other guy also be wearing a VR headset, thus obscuring the cameras? Though not necessarily if it's one-directional)
Imagine a VR conversation with another person who's in front of a stereo camera. You can't move your headset much, but you can tilt and pan slightly - basically stay in place and move your head. Imagine combining the VR technology with 3d scene reconstruction such as: http://petapixel.com/2013/07/24/researchers-reconstruct-high... - performed in realtime using the stereo camera. It could potentially present a fairly convincing VR experience of speaking with them in person.
(I assume that you need to perform scene reconstruction in order to generate a display according to the user's head movements in his VR headset given that the camera can't track and mimic the movement in realtime.)
> What about when the device is $20 instead of $400? When it doesn't make you nauseous? When it's so close to face-to-face contact that you can replace 10 or 20 percent of your business travel?
We are FAR from having a very cheap VR solution. The VR gear is likely to be 300 or 400+ USD for a while and that will prevent mainstream adoption because it's a peripheral.
We are far from having solved all the problems related to discomfort, nausea, eye strain and stuff that goes with VR systems. Have you had a rift on your heard for 5 hours in a row ? If you had, you'd know what I am talking about.
So close to simulating real human contact? We are not even there YET in terms of 3D technology, we are far from photo realistic human representations on screen, let alone VR.
So yes, we are far from these objectives.
EDIT: and your comment regarding mobile phones to drive VR is senseless. mobile phones are too limited to drive any kind of complex 3d environment, they are limited by battery size, by watts and how temperature they can cope with, and by the size of their processors. The past few years should clearly indicate the pace in mobile phone processing power is slowing down rather than accelerating. You don't get 2x performance every 6 months anymore on a new mobile phone.