by If you get the New York Times home delivered, you can explore virtual reality for free (the Times sent out free headsets this Sunday), but even if you don’t you can get Google Cardboard VR headsets relatively cheaply. Then you can download the Times app for free and explore! There are more VR apps out there of course, but this is a very good place to start.
VR developer Chris Milk calls VR “the last medium.” Who knows what’s coming but for now, yeah. I’m in. That said, I agree with The Verge’s take, you learn much more from the article. But that said, you learn much more of a different sort from the VR documentary.
Milk is not a very good public speaker (sorry!) but I like the points he makes in this Ted Talk. You’ll see how right he is when you watch the VR documentary on the Times website, The Displaced.
So I want both. But I think this will replace books and print to a large extent in the end (although not at all completely), because this is what young people will want. The challenge will be how to provide as much information in VR that a book or article can pack in. I think this is very do-able. Even as I was watching the The Displaced, I thought VR would be a fun way to present and explore charts. It should be relatively easy to build in links and pathways to more information, and in equally fun and entertaining ways. More fun or interesting than a link I mean. It could be made to be part of the story itself.
The cats explore my headset.
