<h2>Digital Shock</h2>
<p>Back in 1961, psychologist Stanley Milgram shocked the world with controversial research in which everyday people followed a scientist&#8217;s instructions to electrocute someone who they thought was giving incorrect answers on a quiz — a damning indication that many people will acquiesce to brutal directives by an authority figure.</p>
<p>In December 2018, a team of London-based scientists repeated the experiment in a VR simulation in which they asked participants to zap a virtual avatar. Even though no one got hurt, participants were just as reluctant to pull the lever — even going so far as to try rigging the experiment so they didn&#8217;t have to, <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0209704">according to research</a> published in the journal <em>PLOSOne </em>that breaks new ground in the psychology of how people relate to virtual characters.</p>
<h2>Answer Key</h2>
<p>During the experiment, participants quizzed a virtual character. A correct answer meant they could move on, while an incorrect answer meant the human participant had to administer a virtual electrical jolt. The scientists noticed that participants sometimes tried to feed the virtual avatar the correct answer by pronouncing it louder — in hopes that they wouldn&#8217;t be told to shock them.</p>
<p>And even though many participants continued to follow instructions, they were measurably stressed and anxious about doing so, the researchers write in a <em>Scientific American </em><a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/would-you-give-a-virtual-electric-shock-to-an-avatar/">blog post</a> published Friday.</p>
<p>&#8220;At the end, even those who had cheated showed an increased stress level,&#8221; they wrote.</p>
<h2>Big Picture</h2>
<p>In their blog post, the scientists suggest that their research could be used to explain how people act under troubling leaders — just like how Milgram set out to explore the behavior of individual Nazis after World War II.</p>
<p>&#8220;If we look at our experiments as a proxy for resistance to authority, we can anticipate a psychological cost to the resisters. Even though their obedience isn’t genuine, those who persist endure additional stress compared to those who decide to quit,&#8221; they wrote. &#8220;In the long term they will also be facing the moral dilemma of engaged followership, wondering whether they engaged too much and in essence enabled a leader they did not want to obey.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>READ MORE:</strong> <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/would-you-give-a-virtual-electric-shock-to-an-avatar/">Would You Give a Virtual Electric Shock to an Avatar?</a> [<em>Scientific American</em>]</p>
<p><strong>More on Milgram:</strong> <em><a href="https://futurism.com/why-people-believe-in-conspiracy-theories-and-how-to-change-their-minds">Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories – and How to Change Their Minds</a></em></p>


"Even though their obedience isn’t genuine, those who persist endure additional stress compared to those who decide to quit."

People are horrified when they have to torture a virtual person

Simulated Shocks

In a virtual recreation of the infamous Milgram Shock Experiment, participants were just as reluctant to continue, even though no one was hurt.

People Are Horrified When They Have to Torture a Virtual Person

Even in a VR simulation, the Milgram Shock Experiment continues to traumatize.

<h2>Mind Control</h2>
<p>Virtual reality headsets are already pretty good at fooling our eyes and ears into thinking we&#8217;re in another world. And soon, we might be able to navigate that world with our thoughts alone.</p>
<p>Speaking at this year&#8217;s Game Developer&#8217;s Conference in San Francisco, Mike Abinder, in-house psychologist and researcher for game developer and distributor Valve, <a href="https://www.roadtovr.com/valve-brain-computer-interfaces-vr-ar-gdc-2019/">gave a talk</a> on the exciting possibilities of adding brain-computer interfaces to VR headsets.</p>
<h2>Personalized Gaming</h2>
<p>The idea is to add non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG) sensors to the insides of existing VR headsets. EEG readers detect the electrical signals firing in the brain and turn them into data points. And by analyzing that data, according to Abinder, game designers could make games that respond differently depending on whether you&#8217;re excited, happy, sad or bored.</p>
<p>&#8220;So think about adaptive enemies. What kinds of animals do you like playing against in gaming?&#8221; Ambinder said, as <a href="https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/24/valve-psychologist-explores-controlling-games-directly-with-your-brain/">quoted by <em>VentureBeat</em></a>. &#8220;If we knew the answers to these questions, you could have the game give you more of a challenging time and less of the boring time.&#8221;</p>
<p>Game design could become almost perfectly tailored to the person wearing the VR headset — or even recreate a perfect representation of you inside a virtual world. Your avatar could perfectly mimic your current state of mind or mood.</p>
<p>&#8220;All of a sudden, we start becoming able to assess how you’re responding to various elements in game,&#8221; Ambinder continued. &#8220;We can make small changes to make big changes.&#8221;</p>
<h2>Brain Extensions</h2>
<p>There are a handful of companies already trying to harness brain signals for enhancing gaming experiences. A startup called Neurable is already testing out BCIs built into off-the-shelf VR headsets &#8220;to create a natural extension of our brains, creating new possibilities for human empowerment,&#8221; according to its website.</p>
<p>Of course, Abinder&#8217;s vision of the future of gaming is mostly a fun thought experiment at this stage. Even hospital-grade EEGs have to deal with a huge amount of noise — and that&#8217;s especially the case for consumer-grade, non-invasive scanners that are not planted to the scalp or surgically implanted.</p>
<p><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.roadtovr.com/valve-brain-computer-interfaces-vr-ar-gdc-2019/">Valve Psychologist: Brain-computer Interfaces Are Coming &amp; Could Be Built into VR Headsets</a> [<em>Road to VR</em>]</p>
<p><strong>More on VR:</strong> <em><a href="https://futurism.com/army-soldiers-vr-combat-training">The U.S. Army Is Using Virtual Reality Combat to Train Soldiers</a></em></p>


"We can make small changes to make big changes."

Expert: VR headsets should have brain interfaces

VR Gaming

Mike Abinder, in-house psychologist and researcher for Valve, talked about exciting possibilities of adding brain-computer interfaces to VR headsets.

Expert: VR Headsets Should Have Brain Interfaces

Brain-computer interfaces could make VR gaming way more immersive.

<h2>War Games</h2>
<p>The U.S. military has constructed a massive virtual reality platform to help train infantry soldiers in realistic battlefields filled with millions of artificial intelligence agents.</p>
<p>Futurism first <a href="https://futurism.com/army-virtual-reality-synthetic-training-enviornment">reported on the Synthetic Training Environment (STE)</a> back in April, when the U.S. Army <a href="https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/documents/cact/STE_White_Paper.pdf">published a whitepaper</a> describing its ability to simulate real cities in the U.S. and North Korea.</p>
<p>Now software developers who contributed to the VR platform opened up about their work in an <a href="https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/synthetic-training-environment-vr-training/#utm_source=r">interview with <em>Digital Trends</em></a>, describing how virtual reality can help the U.S. train a more combat-ready and versatile military.</p>
<p><iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zzEXBPGKsgY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<h2>Global Combat</h2>
<p>The goal of the VR platform is to simulate anywhere on Earth that the army might someday battle, preparing soldiers for the area&#8217;s terrain before they actually ship out, explained Pete Morrison, an executive at Bohemia Interactive Simulations, a company that helped develop the STE.</p>
<p>&#8220;This would enable the Army to conduct virtual training and complex simulations anywhere on a virtual representation of the Earth,&#8221; Morrison said in the <em>Digital Trends</em> interview. &#8220;STE will leverage cloud technologies to deliver training to anywhere it&#8217;s needed, ensuring a common and high-fidelity whole-Earth terrain representation for a multitude of different simulation systems.&#8221;</p>
<h2>MMO</h2>
<p>Now, the Army is ramping up the scale of its simulations to support more &#8220;intelligent entities&#8221; than there are residents in Vermont.</p>
<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s exciting about what we&#8217;re doing is that the Army will be able to dramatically scale up the number of intelligent entities represented in simulation scenarios to the millions,&#8221; Morrison told <em>Digital Trends</em>. &#8220;Previously, only tens or hundreds of thousands of entities would be represented, and those would be aggregated to reduce the complexity of simulating large forces.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>READ MORE:</strong> <a href="https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/synthetic-training-environment-vr-training/#utm_source=r">The U.S. Army is building a giant VR battlefield to train soldiers virtually</a> [<em>Digital Trends</em>]</p>
<p><strong>More on military VR:</strong> <em><a href="https://futurism.com/army-virtual-reality-synthetic-training-enviornment">Soldiers Are Training in Virtual Environments Generated From Real Cities</a></em></p>


"This would enable the Army to conduct virtual training and complex simulations anywhere on a virtual representation of the Earth."

The U.S. Army is using virtual reality combat to train soldiers

Virtual Combat

More details emerge about the U.S. Army's virtual reality combat training simulations, which a software developer says is ramping up its scale.

The U.S. Army Is Using Virtual Reality Combat to Train Soldiers

The virtual battlefield can simulate millions of "intelligent entities."

<h2>The Dumbest Thing</h2>
<p>Jak Wilmot, the co-founder of Atlanta-based VR content studioDisrupt VR, spent 168 consecutive hours in a VR headset — that&#8217;s a full week — pent up in his apartment.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I&#8217;ve ever done, but welcome to a week in the future,&#8221; he said in a video about the experiment.</p>
<p>To make the experience even more futuristic, Wilmot livestreamed the entire week on Twitch late last month, later uploading a wrapup video on his entire week on YouTube.</p>
<p><iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BGRY14znFxY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>The rules were simple: he could switch from a computer-based Oculus headset to a different, untethered headset for thirty seconds while his eyes were closed. His windows were blacked out, he said, so that his physical body didn&#8217;t have to rely on the daylight-dependent circadian rhythm.</p>
<p>His more mobile VR headset had a built in camera in the front, so that he was able to &#8220;see&#8221; his physical surroundings — but not directly with his own eyes.</p>
<h2>&#8220;Everything is in the Headset&#8221;</h2>
<p>Wilmot worked, ate and exercised inside virtual reality. Sleeping in the headset turned out to be &#8220;more comfortable&#8221; than Wilmot anticipated, though his eyes burned a bit.</p>
<p>&#8220;If one is feeling stressed, they can load into a natural environment for ten minutes and relax,&#8221; he said in the video. &#8220;If one is feeling energetic, they can dispel energy in a fitness game — these are like the new rules of the reality I&#8217;ve thrown myself in. Everything is in the headset.&#8221;</p>
<h2>VR Connection</h2>
<p>Wilmot believes that virtual reality is what you make it. If you want to be alone, you can spend time by yourself in a gaming session, slaying dragons in Skyrim VR. Or you can chose to join the cacophony of VRChat — a communal free-for-all multiplayer online platform that allows you to interact with avatars controlled by complete strangers.</p>
<p>&#8220;VR is stepping into the shoes of someone else, or stepping into a spaceship and talking to friends,&#8221; said Wilmot. &#8220;It&#8217;s very easy to find your tribe, to make friends, to communicate with others through a virtual landscape, where its no longer through digital window [like a monitor], but actually being there with them. To me that&#8217;s what VR is — connection.&#8221;</p>
<h2>Escaping Virtual Reality</h2>
<p>After seven days of living inside the headset, Wilmot took off the goggles and relearned what it&#8217;s like to live in the real world.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Experiment_01&#8230; 𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙚</p>
<p>Subject Status&#8230; 𝘼𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙚 <a href="https://t.co/HC0Jqb3aZq">pic.twitter.com/HC0Jqb3aZq</a></p>
<p>&mdash; jak (@JakWilmot) <a href="https://twitter.com/JakWilmot/status/1100818652369207298?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 27, 2019</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Apart from slight dizziness and some disorientation, he came back to normal almost instantly.</p>
<p>One major advantage to not living inside a VR headset: &#8220;oh my gosh,&#8221; he said, &#8220;the graphics are so good.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>READ MORE:</strong> <a href="https://vrscout.com/news/guy-is-spending-full-week-in-vr/">This Guy Is Spending A Full Week In VR, For Science</a> [<em>VR Scout</em>]</p>
<p><strong>More on virtual reality:</strong> <em><a href="https://futurism.com/digisexuals-tech-replacing-human-intimacy">Sex Researchers: For Many, Virtual Lovers Will Replace Humans</a></em></p>


Inside virtual reality, you're never alone.

This guy spent a whole week In a VR headset

A Week in VR

Jak Wilmot, co-founder of Disrupt VR, an Atlanta-based VR content studio, spent 168 consecutive hours in a VR headset, locked up in his apartment.

This Guy Spent a Whole Week In a VR Headset

"This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever done, but welcome to a week in the future."

<h2>Dr. Robot</h2>
<p>Vicarious Surgical&#8217;s plan for healthcare sounds like a twist on &#8220;The Magic School Bus.&#8221;</p>
<p>Take a tiny humanoid robot with two arms and a camera where its head should be and place it inside a person&#8217;s body through a small incision. Then have a surgeon anywhere in the world don a virtual reality system, connected to the robot. The setup lets the surgeon &#8220;see&#8221; what the robot sees — and controls its arms by moving their own.</p>
<p>The goal, co-founder Adam Sachs <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/13/bill-gates-backed-vicarious-surgical-adds-a-virtual-reality-twist-to-robots-in-the-operating-room/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told <em>TechCrunch</em></a>, is to make the surgeon feel &#8220;as if they’d been shrunk down&#8221; — and the company now has an additional <a href="https://www.apnews.com/3256ce387e954eb4b50624f81d13f013" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$10 million in funding</a> to help it reach that goal.</p>
<h2>Tiny Surgeon</h2>
<p>On Thursday, Vicarious Surgical <a href="https://www.apnews.com/3256ce387e954eb4b50624f81d13f013" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> that it had closed a $10 million round of funding led by Bill Gates’ Gates Frontier. The company will use this money to continue to develop its technology combining surgical robots and VR.</p>
<p>&#8220;We’ve been working on ways to miniaturize robotics and put all of the motion of surgery into the abdominal cavity,&#8221; Sachs told <em>TechCrunch</em>. &#8220;If you put all of the motion inside the abdominal cavity you are not confined to motion around the incision sites.&#8221;</p>
<h2>Democratizing Healthcare</h2>
<p>Once the surgical robotics company meets its goal of effectively &#8220;shrinking&#8221; doctors and placing them virtually within patients&#8217; bodies, the next step will be seeing how it can use the tech to improve healthcare in remote areas.</p>
<p>&#8220;A lot of our long-term vision is about growing and scaling our technology to the point where it’s accessible not just to big cities and major hospitals in the U.S. and also the small cities and towns in the rural U.S. and around the world as well,&#8221; Sachs told <em>TechCrunch</em>. &#8220;Long-term it’s about the democratization of surgery that can come from surgical robotics.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/13/bill-gates-backed-vicarious-surgical-adds-a-virtual-reality-twist-to-robots-in-the-operating-room/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bill Gates-Backed Vicarious Surgical Adds a Virtual Reality Twist to Robots in the Operating Room</a> [<em>TechCrunch</em>]</p>
<p><strong><em>More on surgical robotics: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/robot-surgeons-sense-touch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Experts Want to Give Robot Surgeons a Sense of Touch</a></em></strong></p>


Bill Gates funds tiny robot that goes inside you to do surgery

Inside Job

Vicarious Surgical plans to create tiny robots that doctors can control via virtual reality to operate on patients remotely.

Bill Gates Funds Tiny Robot Surgeons That Operate Inside the Body

The startup says it's like shrinking a surgeon and putting them inside you.

<h2>Digisexual Revolution</h2>
<p>Just in time for Valentine&#8217;s Day, a duo of influential academics is warning that more people could start to choose digital avatars and other technologies in lieu of human sex and intimacy — a society-shifting sexual orientation they call &#8220;digisexuality.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;A digisexual is someone who sees immersive technologies such as sex robots and virtual reality pornography as integral to their sexual experience, and who feels no need to search for physical intimacy with human partners,&#8221; University of Manitoba researcher Neil McArthur and University of Wisconsin Colleges professor Markie Twist wrote in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-the-love-of-technology-sex-robots-and-virtual-reality-110690" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent essay</a> for <em>The Conversation</em>.</p>
<h2>Future Romance</h2>
<p>McArthur and Twist, whose work on the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/digisexuals-love-lust-robots" target="_blank" rel="noopener">future of sexuality</a> we&#8217;ve covered before, argue that we&#8217;re already in the midst of a sexual and romantic revolution, with technology — think dating apps, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/13/18223829/ford-lane-keeping-bed-mattress-couples" target="_blank" rel="noopener">conveyor belt beds</a>, and &#8220;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/11/18220740/kickstarter-lovesync-button-sex-relationships-gadgets" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sex buttons</a>&#8221; — disrupting the ways people form and maintain intimate bonds with one another.</p>
<p>But the duo also predicts that new tech — ranging from sex robots and virtual reality to artificial intelligence and <a href="https://futurism.com/truly-immersive-teledildonics-is-the-future-of-intimacy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">teledildonics</a> — is set to blow those changes out of the water as a growing population of digisexuals embrace virtual lovers and forego human partners altogether.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not hard to imagine. Consider the 2013 movie &#8220;Her,&#8221; where Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with an AI, or last year&#8217;s &#8220;Blade Runner 2049,&#8221; in which Ryan Gosling&#8217;s character is in a relationship with a virtual avatar.</p>
<p>Or look at Akihiko Kondo, a Japanese man who took part in a marriage ceremony <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/style/sex-robots.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wedding him to a hologram</a>.</p>
<h2>Backlash</h2>
<p>Before you condemn people like Kondo, McArthur and Twist also warned that digisexuals are likely to face discrimination — but that, obviously, we should fight that urge.</p>
<p>&#8220;Marginal sexual identities almost invariably face stigma, and it is already apparent that digisexuals will be no exception,&#8221; they wrote. &#8220;As immersive sexual technologies become more widespread, we should approach them, and their users, with an open mind.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/for-the-love-of-technology-sex-robots-and-virtual-reality-110690" target="_blank" rel="noopener">For the Love of Technology! Sex Robots and Virtual Reality</a> [<i>The Conversation</i>]</p>
<p><strong><em>More on digisexuals:</em> </strong><a class="l lLrAF" href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/digisexuals-love-lust-robots" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Digisexuals” Are Falling In Love With — And Lusting For — Robots</a></p>


"Marginal sexual identities almost invariably face stigma, and it is already apparent that digisexuals will be no exception."

Sex researchers: for many, virtual lovers will replace humans

Valentine's Day

A duo of influential academics are warning that society could veer into an epochal shift as "digisexuals" start to choose technology over humans.

Sex Researchers: For Many, Virtual Lovers Will Replace Humans

Would you give up human intimacy for a virtual lover?

<h2>Business Casual Holodeck</h2>
<p>On Thursday afternoon, I slipped a virtual reality headset onto my head and felt like I&#8217;d jacked into the Matrix. Or maybe &#8220;Office Space.&#8221;</p>
<p>I was standing at a virtual desk surrounded by 18 gigantic monitors. The simulation, which is called Dataview VR, was specifically built for people working in finance, so many of the monitors were taken up by graphs and data points that my journalist brain didn&#8217;t know how to comprehend.</p>
<p>But I could easily see how I might be able to adapt the workstation for myself. Each virtual screen could show a website or word processor, and one — or five, realistically — could be dedicated to an endless Twitter feed.</p>
<p>When I&#8217;d had my fill of the officescape, I unclipped the VR headset and found myself transported back to Earth — specifically the New York City office of the Glimpse Group, a virtual and augmented reality platform company that brings together entrepreneurs to develop the next generation of advanced simulations. The Glimpse Group has invested in many projects. But above all else, its leaders say, it&#8217;s working toward a collaborative workplace simulation that could one day replace physical offices and eliminate commutes.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like Skype meets the Empire State Building,&#8221; said Andy Maggio, a former Morgan Stanley analyst who works as Dataview VR&#8217;s general manager and Glimpse Group&#8217;s director of finance.</p>
<p>In Maggio&#8217;s vision, many people could share a space, collaborating on the same or different screens. One person could virtually dive into a 3D graph to analyze data while another prepared a presentation. The future sounds wild — and, admittedly, kind of industrious.</p>
<h2>Open Office Plan</h2>
<p>The concept is certainly appealing — collaborating face-to-face with coworkers, or at least their digital avatars, who live around the world, without having to change out of your pajamas.</p>
<p>The Glimpse Group president and CEO Lyron Bentovim told Futurism that he envisions a future in which companies invest in virtual, rather than physical, offices — like &#8220;Snow Crash&#8221;<strong> </strong>meets &#8220;Dilbert.&#8221; In this virtual world, people would blink in and out of offices or an unlimited number of conference rooms as they see fit.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think once people go in they understand the presence,&#8221; Bentovim said. &#8220;The key to selling VR is selling presence.&#8221;</p>
<p>Rather than scheduling Skype calls or chatting over email, remote employees would be able to interact with each other and collaborate on projects as though they were all present in the same place.</p>
<p>Different companies and services may even end up connected in a VR world of sorts, Bentovim speculated, where the physical distances between people no longer bar them from working together as well as they could in the same room.</p>
<h2>Jacking In</h2>
<p>Right now, Maggio said he&#8217;s comfortable working in Dataview VR for stretches of about 90 minutes, but with improvements to the software and VR headsets, he could envision people spending an entire 40-hour work week in VR.</p>
<p>The most distracting part for me was actually the aspect that tethered me to physical reality: the webcam feed of a computer keyboard that allowed me to actually get work done in the VR environment. Compared to the virtual aesthetics of the simulation, the video of the keyboard was jarringly out of place.</p>
<p>In VR, your hands are represented by the two point-and-click joysticks that let you interact with your environment. But then I put the controllers down — which look like floating hands in the simulation — and saw my real arms on camera as they reached for the keyboard. It was a disorienting experience, like trying to trim the hair on the back of your head using mirrors.</p>
<h2>Physical Limitations</h2>
<p>Bentovim said that given the choice between spending an eight-hour workday wearing a VR headset or keeping his current commute in and out of Manhattan, he would choose the latter.</p>
<p>&#8220;If I wanted to build the workplace of the future today, I could,&#8221; said Bentovim. &#8220;It could happen, but the big gating factor right now is the headsets.&#8221;</p>
<p>Bentovim suspects that VR is on the cusp of taking off, but acknowledges that it hasn&#8217;t yet. Until then, trying to replace physical offices with his simulations is, as he put it, like selling software to people who don&#8217;t have computers.</p>
<p>As the headsets improve and companies start to adopt VR technology, Bentovim says Glimpse Group will be able to ramp the services they can offer, creating a sort of feedback loop that draws even more people into the fold. Ultimately, Bentovim hopes to move from offering specific services to creating something more universal and customizable, sort of like a <a href="https://futurism.com/how-close-are-we-to-bringing-star-trek-technologies-to-life">real-world holodeck</a>.</p>
<p>But until that happens, it seems we&#8217;re all still stuck waiting for the train to drag us to work.</p>
<p><strong><em>More on VR: <a href="https://futurism.com/virtual-real-estate">People Are Paying Insane Amounts of Real Money for &#8220;Virtual Real Estate&#8221;</a></em></strong></p>


The future of coworking could be virtual.

I tried a VR app meant to replace offices, and it was glorious

Working From Home

When virtual reality hits the mainstream, companies may find that its cheaper to invest in VR headsets and simulated offices than physical real estate.

I Tried a VR App Meant to Replace Offices, and It Was Glorious

"It's like Skype meets the Empire State Building."

<h2>Space Show</h2>
<p>Fewer than <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/visitors-to-the-station-by-country" target="_blank" rel="noopener">250 people</a> have actually visited the International Space Station (ISS). But a new virtual reality project is poised to bring the exclusive experience to the masses.</p>
<p>At the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, <em>TIME</em> and entertainment studio Felix &amp; Paul Studios <a href="http://time.com/issexperience/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced &#8220;The ISS Experience,&#8221;</a> an immersive series designed to let viewers channel their inner astronauts<strong>,</strong> including feeling like they&#8217;ve participated in a spacewalk <strong>— </strong>and a new trailer for the project looks absolutely thrilling.</p>
<p><iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2rE872ieZio?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<h2>On Location</h2>
<p>In December, <em>TIME</em> and Felix &amp; Paul teamed up with aerospace company NanoRacks and the Center for the Advancement for Science in Space (CASIS), a not-for profit organization that manages the ISS&#8217;s U.S. National Lab for NASA. The team sent two 360-degree cameras, which capture immersive video well-suited to VR headsets, to the ISS via a SpaceX Dragon capsule.</p>
<p>Later this year, two more VR-friendly cameras will join the pair already aboard the ISS, and those will be designed to record the first-ever <a href="https://futurism.com/spacewalk-iss-sabotage-russia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spacewalk</a> in cinematic virtual reality.</p>
<p>On Friday the project filmed its first VR scene, and the goal is to record up to 184 hours of crew activity aboard the ISS over the next nine months. According to Felix &amp; Paul creative director Félix Lajeunesse, the team hopes to provide viewers with a 360-degree-view, literally and metaphorically, of life as an ISS astronaut.</p>
<p>&#8220;We will take audiences inside and outside of the space station through the immersive and experiential power of virtual reality,&#8221; Lajeunesse said during the announcement, <a href="http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-012819a-iss-experience-virtual-reality.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to <em>Collect</em></a><em><a href="http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-012819a-iss-experience-virtual-reality.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Space</a></em>. “We’re going to look at the research, the science, and the work that is done on the International Space Station. And we’re also going to look closely at the reality and challenges of learning to live in space.&#8221;</p>
<h2>2020 Premiere</h2>
<p>Felix &amp; Paul plan to use the footage their cameras capture to create experiences for AR, VR, and other platforms, including <a href="http://time.com/5513461/international-space-station-virtual-reality-series/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">museum installations</a>. If all goes according to plan, the experiences will be ready to go public in 2020.</p>
<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no more immersive way of feeling like you were there with the crew than this virtual reality technology,&#8221; Liz Warren, associate ISS program scientist with CASIS, said according to <em>Collect Space</em>. &#8220;There are 3D versions, there is video, but to actually feel like you&#8217;re there, I think that is what is really exciting to NASA and is very exciting to the ISS National Lab.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>READ MORE:</strong> <a href="http://time.com/issexperience/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The ISS Experience</a> [<em>TIME</em>]</p>
<p><strong><em>More on spacewalks: <a href="https://futurism.com/spacewalk-iss-sabotage-russia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Russians Search Exterior of ISS for Signs of Sabotage on Spacewalk</a></em></strong></p>


"We will take audiences inside and outside of the space station..."

See the stunning new trailer for a VR series filmed on the ISS

Movie Magic

Over the next year, cameras will record life aboard the International Space Station to create a virtual reality series for TIME.

See the Stunning New Trailer for a VR Series Filmed on the ISS

For the next nine months, cameras will record life aboard the ISS.

<h2>Oculus Oncologists</h2>
<p>Doctors have a new weapon in the fight against cancer: detailed maps of the cells in a tumor that can be explored and analyzed in a virtual reality simulation that its creators say provides researchers with an intuitive new way to examine complex medical data that could lead to unexpected breakthroughs.</p>
<p>Built by doctors at the <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/virtual-reality-journey-through-a-tumour-cambridge-scientists-receive-ps40-million-funding-boost">Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute</a> (CRUK), the new virtual lab takes detailed scans of breast cancer tissues and turns them into detailed simulations that doctors around the world can explore, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46527235"><em>BBC </em>reports</a>.</p>
<p>The simulation lets doctors analyze every single cell of a tumor, something they&#8217;ve never been able to do before. And because that data is stored in a simulation rather than microscope slides, doctors around the world can explore and study the cancer without having to prepare their own samples.</p>
<p>&#8220;Understanding how cancer cells interact with each other and with healthy tissue is critical if we are going to develop new therapies,&#8221; CRUK Chief Scientist Karen Vousden told the<em> BBC</em>. &#8220;Looking at tumors using this new system is so much more dynamic than the static 2D versions we are used to.&#8221;</p>
<p><iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a8mZqcmRJrk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<h2>Dive in Headfirst</h2>
<p>The Cambridge scientists and peers from around the world who helped develop the virtual lab <a href="https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/funding-for-researchers/how-we-deliver-research/grand-challenge-award/previously-funded-teams">won two separate 20 million pound grants</a> ($25.3 million each) to build up their project from Cancer Research UK last year.</p>
<p>Now they have a functional simulation built up from highly-detailed scans of a cubic millimeter-sized sample of breast cancer tissue. In that sample, each of the roughly 100,000 cells was marked to highlight its molecular and genetic characteristics.</p>
<h2>Enhance! Enhance!</h2>
<p>With that information, the resulting VR map highlights which cells are cancerous which have certain genetic variations, and how developed the tumor was at the time of the biopsy. All of this is information that was laborious to obtain from samples that were easily contaminated.</p>
<p>Moving the analysis to VR makes tumor research <a href="https://futurism.com/virtual-reality-tipping-point">much more user friendly</a> and lets doctors analyze cells in greater detail than ever before.</p>
<p>Not only does that let scientists literally immerse themselves in their work as they look for new cancer treatments, but it can also open the door to more collaborative diagnosis and patient care among teams that are spread around the world.</p>
<p>These simulations don&#8217;t guarantee that doctors will find new ways to treat or prevent breast cancer, but at least it makes the search much easier.</p>
<p><strong>READ MORE:</strong> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46527235">&#8216;Virtual tumour&#8217; new way to see cancer</a> [<em>BBC</em>]</p>
<p><strong><em>More on virtual reality: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/vr-treatment-mental-health-disorders">VR TREATMENT, EVEN WITHOUT A THERAPIST, HELPS PEOPLE OVERCOME FEAR OF HEIGHTS</a></em></strong></p>


The virtual lab can be accessed by doctors anywhere in the world.

Virtual reality tumors could help lead to new cancer treatments

Disease Simulations

A new virtual reality simulation built by Cambridge University scientists gives a high-resolution detail view into the cells of a breast cancer tumor.

Virtual Reality Tumors Could Help Lead to New Cancer Treatments

High-resolution VR maps can help doctors better understand tumor structure.

<h2>Talk Sense</h2>
<p>More than three years ago, we <a href="https://futurism.com/feelreal-brings-sense-of-smell-to-virtual-reality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first caught a whiff</a> of an odor-delivering virtual reality mask. Now, the device is a step closer to hitting the market.</p>
<p>Last week, Brooklyn-based tech company Feelreal <a href="https://www.snntv.com/story/39670826/feelreal-announces-pre-release-of-next-generation-multi-sensory-mask-for-vr-headsets-creates-new-paradigm-in-vr-experiences" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> the pre-release of its Feelreal Multi-Sensory Mask. The company claims the device is the first of its kind — and even as <a href="https://www.cbronline.com/news/vr-headset-sales" target="_blank" rel="noopener">VR struggles to gain mainstream traction</a>, it provides a far-out vision of immersive virtual worlds that no longer end at what you can see and hear.</p>
<h2>All the Feels</h2>
<p>Feelreal&#8217;s Multi-Sensory Mask includes a &#8220;<span style="font-weight: 400;">scent generator&#8221; that holds up to nine replaceable cartridges, each loaded with one of 255 available scents. An ultrasonic ionizing system provides the feeling of water mist on the wearer&#8217;s face, while micro-heaters, micro-coolers, and haptic motors provide the sensations of heat, wind, and vibration, respectively. </span></p>
<p>The system is compatible with five VR headsets — Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR — and it&#8217;s already capable of enhancing the experience of several existing VR games.</p>
<p>If gaming&#8217;s not their thing, users can also watch <span style="font-weight: 400;">360-degrees videos</span> or custom-built VR experiences via the mask&#8217;s built-in Feelreal player, or they can use it as a standalone device to facilitate meditation or aromatherapy.</p>
<h2>Funding Not Secured</h2>
<p>This isn&#8217;t the first device designed to add new senses to the VR experience, of course. We&#8217;ve already seen gadgets that let you feel like you&#8217;re <a href="https://newatlas.com/vaqso-vr-smells/57344/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">smelling</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/videos/add-another-sense-to-virtual-reality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">touching</a>, and even <a href="https://youtu.be/uQdjr3y9aBU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tasting</a> the virtual world.</p>
<p>The number of games and movies currently compatible with the Feelreal Multi-Sensory Mask is also limited, but obviously that could change if the device caught on with users.</p>
<p>Feelreal has yet to reveal a price for its multi-sensory mask or even when the device will be available. According to the <a href="https://www.snntv.com/story/39670826/feelreal-announces-pre-release-of-next-generation-multi-sensory-mask-for-vr-headsets-creates-new-paradigm-in-vr-experiences" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a>, the company will be &#8220;<span style="font-weight: 400;">announcing a Kickstarter [c]</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">rowdfunding campaign to help bring Feelreal products to the next level</span>,&#8221; so right now, it appears the future of the device — and potentially the future of VR — is in the public&#8217;s hands.</p>
<p><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://newatlas.com/feelreal-vr-mask-smells/57799/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Feelreal Multi-Sensory VR Mask Lets You Smell the Virtual Roses</a> [<em>New Atlas</em>]</p>
<p><strong><em>More on VR: <a href="https://futurism.com/videos/add-another-sense-to-virtual-reality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Add Another Sense to Virtual Reality</a></em></strong></p>


The "world’s first multi-sensory VR mask" is on the way.

New multi-sensory mask lets you smell and feel the virtual world

Follow Your Nose

Tech company Feelreal is almost ready to release a multi-sensory mask that lets wearers smell and feel sensations in the virtual world.

/Virtual Reality