-
Sensorama
In 1957, Morton Heilig invented a large booth-like machine called the Sensorama, which was intended to combine multiple technologies to give one to four people the illusion of being in a fully 3D immersive world. Complete with smell, sound, vibrations, and even effects like wind in the hair. -
The Sword of Damocles
The first actual VR head-mounted display was created in 1968 by Ivan Sutherland. It connected to a stereoscopic display from a computer program depicting simple virtual wireframe shapes, which changed perspective as the user moved his or her head. This could also be seen as the creation of “augmented reality.” -
The Super Cockpit
In the 1970's Thomas Furness was developing an a flight simulator project which is called the “Super Cockpit.” -
The Aspen Movie Map
Aspen Movie Map was a virtual reality take on Google Street View. It used photographs taken from a car driving, giving the user an interactive first-person journey around the city. -
Virtual Reality Name
In 1987 Jaron Lanier, founder of the visual programming lab (VPL), created the term “virtual reality”. The research area now had a name. Through his company VPL research Jaron developed a range of virtual reality gear including the Dataglove and the EyePhone head mounted display. They were the first company to sell Virtual Reality goggles. -
Sega VR
Saga VR development started in 1991 but unfortunately it was never released with one explanation being that Sega worried the virtual effect was too realistic, and people would wind up hurting themselves while immersed. Despite this, Sega VR makes for being one of the first attempts at a mainstream consumer-facing virtual reality headset. -
Oculus Rift
In 2010, Palmer Luckey created the first prototype of the Oculus Rift. Boasting a 90-degree field of view that never been seen previously, it raised $2.4 million on Kickstarter a couple years later, before the company was purchased by Facebook. So the prototypes were never shipped out. -
Right Now
In 2017, hundreds of companies are working on their own VR headsets. These include such as Google Cardboard), Apple, Amazon, Sony, Samsung, and others. With plenty of competition, the addition of various innovative controllers for allowing interaction with the virtual world, and a wide range of arousing uses for technology, it seems that virtual reality’s time has finally come at last.
