Oculus Rift is definitely the technology company to keep your eyes on. Initially started as a concept company seeking seed capital, Oculus has soared well above expectation as a business, but also as a state-of-the-art tech development company.

 

In a nutshell, Oculus is developing the “holy grail” of entertainment and gaming devices in its virtual reality headset. A headset that sits comfortably on you head – obviously – and drops a viewing panel before your eyes to provide a truly immersive experience for gaming and movies – for now. And this is where things get interesting. Sure, plugging the device on your head and being able to navigate through a game would provide an exceptional experience. Watching a movie in your own larger than life wrap around cinema would be as much fun as you could want. But what else could this mean – and why was Facebook so quick to buy up this company and drive capital into it?

Well, the world of virtual reality is one shrouded in science fiction really. It’s a world where you can interact with digital objects using your sense of touch and natural body movement instead of a keypad and mouse. The applications within the fields of engineering, architecture and medicine are mind blowing. With the appropriate development, a surgeon could virtually walk through a patient’s arteries in minute detail with incredible field of vision – from a world away from the patient and scope. An architect could literally walk through the building he’s designing, climb stairs, navigate hallways and develop a true sense of space.

An Engineer with Oculus Rift headset and the appropriate software could walk across the bridge he’s planning to understand the movement and motion dynamics and yes – that’s just the start of it. Virtual reality is cutting edge technology and has for many years been elusive. Certainly there have been developments in motion control sensors on your wrist replacing a mouse, or early VR headsets that could interact with a handful of games, but left you with a headache after an hours play time.

Make no mistake, early indications are that Oculus have finally cracked it and developed a headset that works, is wearable in a development or home environment and has software developers eating out of their hand to get an early bite at testing their technology with it.

 

Every industry will be impacted by the technology as it evolves and every industry can benefit in terms of businesses staking a claim to more market share with the advent of this technology – the question of course is whether your business is already thinking in that direction – and if not, are your competitors?