Some people say that 2016 will become the "first year of VR". Entering 2016, the VR concept has never been more popular. All parties, including equipment manufacturers, IT manufacturers and Internet companies, have launched their own VR products. More and more companies and individuals are turning their attention to the VR market. It seems that if they don’t do something related to VR, they will miss this opportunity. However, when we put aside our expectations and look at the VR industry calmly, we will realize that the conditions for large-scale application of VR are not mature enough. With the evolution of technology, VR does represent a trend, but for it to truly enter the lives of ordinary people, the industry needs to make more efforts.
Recently, there has been a lot of news about VR, and the layout actions of major companies have attracted even more attention. However, is this real VR? Although Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a strong interest in VR, he admitted in a recent interview with the media: "It will take at least ten years for the popularization of virtual reality technology." Today, when the network speed cannot be fully supported, the technology is not mature enough, the content is not rich enough, and the supporting facilities are not complete enough, when talking about VR, apart from feelings and ideals, we really can't find more convincing. When we set our sights on the promising future of VR, what we need to see more is the bottlenecks currently facing VR development. It’s time for the VR industry to “quiet”!
The technology is far from mature
Full of ideals and skinny reality, these eight words are perfect to describe the current VR industry. Although some VR products already look promising and can bring a sense of surprise to users when experienced, they are still far away from the VR applications we expected. Someone used a very vivid metaphor. Today's VR technology is like smartphones and mobile Internet around 2004, or personal computers around 1983. To put it in a layman’s terms – today’s VR industry has just started, and technology and applications are still in the “prototype” stage, unable to support VR’s large-scale entry into people’s lives.
VR, from the Chinese meaning, is virtual reality. From a functional point of view, its biggest feature is immersion. By wearing VR equipment, users can be well integrated into the set scene and feel comfortable and happy. However, today's technology is obviously not possible. Judging from the current VR equipment, there are split machines and all-in-one machines. The products on the market are mainly split machines, which need to rely on other devices such as mobile phones and computers, and the experience is not good enough. Although all-in-one computers have more advantages and are considered to be a future trend, it is still difficult for current all-in-one computers to be miniaturized. Once small is deliberately pursued, some functions may be lost.
In addition to the bottlenecks of VR hardware and technology itself, network speed is also a problem that needs to be solved in the development of VR. Xu Wenwei, Huawei's Managing Director and President of Strategic Marketing, believes that in order to achieve a perfect virtual reality experience, VR must process up to 5.2Gbit of data per second and have a latency of less than 20ms. This means that ubiquitous ultra-broadband, zero-wait, and ultimate-experience networks are needed. At present, mobile communication networks are still in the stage of moving from 4G to 4.5G. Only when 4.5G and 5G networks are deployed on a large scale can the network environment required for VR be relatively mature and provide strong support for the development of VR applications.
Poor wearing experience
"When you put on a VR helmet, you will soon feel dizzy," a user who has experienced VR applications complained to reporters. In fact, this is not the experience of individual users. Many users who have experienced VR have this feeling. Poor wearing experience has become a bottleneck in the development of VR that is currently recognized by the industry.
There are many explanations for the cause of dizziness in the industry. Some people believe that this is mainly because the technology is not mature enough. When the screen refresh rate cannot reach 90Hz, users will feel the picture delay, resulting in a feeling of dizziness. It is also said that the visual contrast in the VR interface causes dizziness. In VR experiences, people's actual movements often cannot match the brain's movements. In other words, the brain instructs the body to move in coordination with the picture based on the information collected by the visual system. However, the user's body does not complete these movements, causing the cerebellum to transmit wrong signals, resulting in disorder of the human body's organs, and ultimately a feeling of dizziness.
There is also a view circulating on the Internet that a foreign expert believes that the brains of cavemen make us never able to adapt to VR systems. The human body has the ability to perceive depth. That is, for objects within a few meters away, the human body will adjust the ciliary muscles to drive the lens of the eye to focus. However, in fact, no display device can reproduce light from different distances, which means that the VR system can never "convince" our brains. Then the brain will definitely make a series of reactions under incorrect information, and dizziness is inevitable.
Although these views are still controversial, the undeniable fact is that with today’s level of VR technology, VR equipment cannot bring users a truly “immersive” experience, so it naturally lacks the basis for large-scale application. Whether the screen refresh rate is not high enough, the latency is too high, or the VR helmet is too bulky, these are problems that VR manufacturers and the entire industry need to solve.
Lack of content and standards
It is an indisputable fact that the VR industry lacks high-quality content. For VR applications, in addition to technical support and hardware improvement, another major pain point that needs to be eliminated is content. If there is no high-quality and attractive enough content, then what reason do users have to choose VR products? However, at present, whether it is VR games, VR movies, or various types of VR interactions, there is a lack of high-quality content. From another perspective, this represents the immaturity of the VR industry. The VR industry ecosystem has not yet been established, and VR content providers have not yet developed and grown. However, with the VR industry booming, some start-ups have set their sights on the blue ocean of VR content. Some Internet companies are increasing their layout and cooperation in the content field while producing VR products.
Like content, standards are also an urgent issue that needs to be solved in the development of the VR industry. As the saying goes, for industrial development, standards come first. Unified standards will quickly standardize the market and guide the development of technology and products. Therefore, Luo Zixiong, design director of Smartisan Technology and head of the VR team, believes: "The factor that determines whether the VR industry will eventually explode is whether there is a standard setter." From a technical and product perspective, VR hardware and software are in different fields. In the absence of unified standards, VR performance cannot be optimized. The current phenomenon of VR products flying all over the market also shows that without unified standards, there will be confusion. There are VR equipment with tens of thousands of yuan on the market, as well as products with tens or hundreds of yuan. For consumers, choosing VR products is really a big test.
Only talk about feelings but not about rewards
In the eyes of many people, the VR industry has a broad “money prospect”. However, at this immature stage of development, companies involved in VR are not making money, but burning money. Although the concept of VR is very popular, and the launch of a VR product is not without praise, how many users are willing to spend money to purchase VR equipment? The survey data poured cold water on the hot VR market. Newzoo conducted an online survey for the Western market. Respondents were aged between 10 and 65 years old, and only about 11% of them said they would consider purchasing a virtual reality device.
In fact, except for Zuckerberg mentioned above, many technology industry leaders still hold a cautious attitude when talking about VR. For large companies with strong financial resources, it is the best policy to aim at the trend of VR technology and be the first to carry out technical layout. However, for some start-up companies or entrepreneurs with weak capabilities, they need to be more calm when entering the VR market. After all, the development history of mobile Internet tells us: The waves behind the Yangtze River push the waves ahead, and the waves in front die on the beach. How to become a pioneer rather than a martyr is a question that most companies need to consider.
Sounding the alarm does not mean singing "." Judging from the pace of technological development, applications such as VR or AR will eventually enter our lives, although the application scenarios at that time may be somewhat different from our current imagination. The development history of technology tells us that the scale of application requires a suitable environment, so when we see the shortcomings, we also see the direction.
ANNA