Virtual Reality - Business & Social Impacts

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Virtual reality (VR) is a fastest growing field of immersive and experiential based technology which is well-positioned to support, impact, and revolutionize lots of business, commercial, institutional, and various social areas.

Virtual reality technology was discovered more than 60 years ago, but launching of hardware, software, headsets, other wearables, and high-end product developments in VR have been tremendous in recent years on global basis. 

Thanks to the continuous technical efforts of Oculus, Sony, HTC, Valve, Google, Samsung, and list goes on. Developers of VR have been improving headsets, wearables, hardware, software, and accessories of this exciting technology on consistent basis.

VR enabled headsets, hardware, software, handsets, gloves, sensors, and smartphones combining create an immersive magical field around mind, senses, perceptions, emotions of people, and these experiences suggest people that what they are digitally experiencing, sensing, and watching is part of their real-world.

People find themselves a part of the virtual world in which they can see, listen, smell, touch, talk, and sense virtual houses, buildings, hotels, lakes, rivers, oceans, restaurants, parks, and virtual people in three-dimensional environment.

To provide people unique immersive experience, dynamic technology of Virtual Reality effectively maintains optimum degree of Field of View (FoV), appropriate Frame Rate per second (FPS) that are 180 degree FoV and greater than or equal to 60 FPS respectively, and bearable sound effects, and more importantly, sensor-based virtual feelings that are sight, touch, smell, hearing, and even taste sounds strange!

24/7 Global Virtualization Technology

Internet powered Virtualization Technology is global that is based on 24/7. It comes, when you use your conference calling virtual applications, most online mobile phone applications that are supported by backend virtual cloud services, you save emails and files on virtual spaces of Google, Bing, Yahoo, and AOL.

It happens when you take computing help from the virtual machines and servers of Cloud Computing providers, watch movie streaming from Netflix, use Uber virtual service applications, operate virtual servers and databases through computer and mobile dashboard, use virtual cryptocurrencies, work on websites and their various associated online facilities, and much more cloud supported applications.

Unlike other virtual applications which you are using on daily basis, in VR based experiential applications in which you immerse yourself and become one of the parts of virtual world in which you can travel, feel, play, and see all the virtual places, products, houses, streets, safari jungles, and virtual people through headset and strong VR enabled sensors from which you can hear, touch, smell, or even taste in the virtual 3D environment!

Market Size

The importance and applications of Virtual Reality technology has been gradually penetrating worldwide, so, according to the study of Statista, the global Virtual Reality market size is expected to increase from less than US$ 12 billion in 2022 to more than US$ 22 billion by 2025. 

Multiple Benefits

To curtail substantial operating costs and increase sales, revenues, profits, efficiency, effectiveness, and enhance corporate brand image, businesses and other institutions are in a better position to positively exploit from the VR technology.

Companies can provide customers unique immersive experiences to virtually visit shops and inspect products through remote locations, so, VR applications can save valuable travel time, fuel consumption, taxi fares, and public transportation costs of customers and facilitate them in decision making before buying any product and service.

VR application transports customers to virtually visit their chosen places around the world before making a travel plan, so, customers can get useful experiential information in 3D environment.

Businesses and vendors can provide customers to virtually inspect salient features of car from different angles, see virtual attributes of furniture, dresses, appliances, electronic wearables, machines, equipment, and people can visit virtual libraries.

1- Education Sector

Companies, governments, and institutions which are involved in education sector provide students better immersive experiences through headsets and wearables to visit historical places, Egyptian pyramids, system of galaxies, orbital movements of stars, habitats of oceans, and life of animals in the jungles. Use of VR technology is ideal for facilitating in imparting practical learning for students from immersive virtualization 3D techniques.

2- Construction Business

Construction and architectural companies can benefit from the use of VR technology which will help them to determine right locations to construct building, support in designing, and layout planning of building, so, under immersive VR platform, engineers and architects are in a good position to construct and design high quality gray structure and final shape of buildings through the help of powerful simulations enabled by VR technology.

3- Gaming Industry

Those businesses which are involved in making gaming products are substantially gaining from VR enabled gaming applications, so, you can notice that according to the forecast of Fortune, the virtual reality in gaming market is expected to touch around US$ 53.44 billion by 2028.

4- Metaverse

Facebook owned Metaverse is based on the same concept of virtual world which is a mixture of virtual reality and augmented reality where you can interact with different people, own your products, services, and properties, visit places, modify your virtual world, so, all these things happen in virtual environment through the help of headsets, handheld wearables, and sensors. 

To develop and implement Metaverse technology, there is tough competition among technology giant players such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and others. 

5- Medicine

VR powered technology is set to deliver excellent results in the field of medicine where students can understand better about the intricacies and difficult parts and places of anatomy found in humans. 

Doctors are in a better position to examine patient conditions and early detection of underlying diseases even from remote locations.

6- Armed Forces

VR supported headsets are one of the important components which can greatly help armed forces and tactical organizations to train cadet members, pilots, and soldiers, so, providing them trainings in immersive environment.

Emerging Future Societies

You are living in a world that is completely dependent on multiple internet enabled software programs which take you into virtual dashboard by which you can order eatables, arrange car services, make payments, arrange hotel booking, make video calls, buy air and movie tickets, but these virtual supports directly or indirectly connect you to real physical world environment.

While placing orders for different services through your electronic dashboards, so, after a time interval, you receive your virtually ordered foods, enjoy rental car services, go to watch movies in theatre, and travel electronically booked physical destination by real airplane, so, all your virtual inputs result in real physical outputs which you enjoy and experience through your physical body and natural biological senses.

In Virtual Reality and evolving Metaverse-based mixed realities, your virtual efforts or virtual inputs do bring outputs or results but only in virtual forms and virtual environments!

Here, serious questions arise that are humans going to reside and develop their personalities thriving in virtual reality only? Would it really be a happiness level for people? 

All goals will be achieved through virtual possessions, virtual social status, and virtually established gatherings of friends?

So, virtual love relationships, virtual friends’ gatherings, virtual houses, virtual interior home designing, virtual experience in swimming, and more importantly, owning everything from house to airplane and dresses to farmlands will become possible through virtual reality which is set to take strong support from AR technology.

Besides lots of benefits which are good for businesses, commercial enterprises, governments, people, and various institutions, but unbridled and unregulated implementation of virtual reality will confine human races into their self projected virtual shadows which they will love more than their own real physical personalities.

Hope you have enjoyed this article! 😊