the.com/virtual reality
A headset-shaped promise that the future arrived, then motion-sick in your living room.
means A computer-generated environment, experienced through a headset and sometimes gloves or sensors, that simulates three-dimensional spaces convincingly enough for your senses to half-believe you're inside them.
from Built from two old words put to new work: 'virtual' comes through medieval Latin 'virtualis' (from 'virtus,' meaning strength or virtue), used since medieval philosophy to mean 'existing in effect though not in actual form.' 'Reality' comes from Latin 'realis,' meaning 'actual, relating to things.' The pairing 'virtual reality' was popularized in the 1980s, often credited to Jaron Lanier, a technologist and musician who used it to describe the immersive goggle-and-glove systems his company was building — giving a centuries-old philosophical term a sudden, headset-shaped job.
- origin term
- Coined by Jaron Lanier in 1987
- military roots
- Flight simulators predate gaming headsets by decades
- the catch
- Your inner ear never signed the suspension-of-disbelief agreement
- real use
- Therapists use it to treat phobias, not escape them