The document discusses the pervasive influence of virtual reality (VR) in modern society, highlighting its significance in gaming, communication, and education. It outlines the evolution of VR technology from the 1860s to contemporary advances, noting its applications across various fields like heritage, therapy, and training. While acknowledging challenges such as simulation sickness and technical issues, it emphasizes the positive impact of VR and anticipates its growing role in daily life.

1. Humans and the Virtual Reality
-by Archita Misra
Even if you are a computer buff or not there is a hundred percent
probability that you will be among the 86% of the world’s population that
would be involved in the virtual reality world either through games or
practical websites.
Talking about computer games which a major part of the youth are
involved in enjoying them is like a parallel universe with characters.
Computer game characters can become morehuman-like by embracing
gossiping and lying, a new study has suggested.
"Imagine computer game characters who are socially intelligent with a
natural dialogue, human-like in their ways of relating to others, who
gossip, manipulate and have their own agendas," researchers said.
Virtual reality’s literal definition is a computer-simulated environment that
can simulate physical presence in places in the real world or imagined
worlds.

2. This is exactly what the games create a physical environment making
the user to get involved into it as it was a real world scenario. People get
involved in it by making new friends which can be from any part of the
world thus creating diversity and a whole new level of communication.
Through this medium people get to know about the diversity in their
cultures and languages making the whole world come under the same
roof of the virtual reality.
Furthermore, virtual reality covers remote communication environments
which provide virtual presence of users with the concepts
of telepresence and telexistence or a virtual artefact (VA) either through
the use of standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse, or
through multimodal devices such as a wired glove, the Polhemus,
and omnidirectional treadmills. Thus a simple user could be connected
to the virtual world by a simple click.
In the fields of education virtual reality is often used to describe a wide
variety of applications commonly associated with immersive, highly
visual, 3D environments. The development of CAD software, graphics
hardware acceleration, head-mounted displays, datagloves,
and miniaturization have helped popularize the notion. In the book The
Metaphysics of Virtual Reality by Michael R. Heim, seven different
concepts of virtual reality are identified: simulation, interaction,

3. artificiality, immersion, telepresence, full-body immersion, and network
communication. People often identify Virtual Reality with head mounted
displays and data suits. All these notations are what the user experience
on a regular basis when they are connected to the virtual world.
The timeline of virtual reality rates back to the 1860s when 360-degree
art through panoramic murals began to appear. Then around 1920s the
vehicles simulators surfaced. In the year 1950 Morton Heilig wrote an
"Experience Theatre" that could encompass all the senses in an
effective manner, thus drawing the viewer into the onscreen activity. He
built a prototype of his vision dubbed the Sensorama in 1962, along with
five short films to be displayed in it while engaging multiple senses
(sight, sound, smell, and touch). In 1966 the first flight simulator was
introduced by Thomas A. Furness III. Then the head mounted displays
were developed by Ivan Sutherland, with the help of his student Bob
Sproull. And henceforth the development of the term virtual reality
continued with various contribution made by the developers from all over
the world.
Virtual reality finds its use in various fields such as heritage
&archaeology,fiction, motion pictures,games, fine art,music, therapeutic

4. uses and training. Thus virtual reality has its own world of uses involving
almost all the fields that the human life touches.
Virtual reality technology faces a number of challenges, most of which
involve technical matters and Simulation sickness due to virtual reality.
Users might become disoriented in a purely 'virtual' environment,
causing balance issues; computer latency might affect the simulation,
providing a less-than-satisfactory end-user experience; the complicated
nature of head-mounted displays and input systems such as specialized
gloves and boots may require specialized training to operate, and
navigating the 'real' environment (if the user is not confined to a limited
area) might prove dangerous without 'external' sensory information.
Thus as it is said the coin has both sides the term virtual reality also has
its own pros and cons but when weighed the positive side is considered
to be more heavier. At the end I would say that the development in the
field of virtual reality has just started there is a long way to go and as
technology improves virtual reality would be considered as a major part
of the normal life routine.