Last night while the rest of the world was watching Gogglebox repeats or office Christmas partying, Laura and I were at Gadgette and Virtual Umbrella’s London event VR The Future.

For the technophobes among you, VR stands for virtual reality. This was our night to test the headsets that promise a sensory overload and find out what all the fuss is about - and swot up a bit now that Rhizome is working with augmented reality business, Magnetic London.

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Pandora should have gone to Specsavers.[/caption]

Two floors of VR goodness were packed with product stands and queues of connoisseurs. VRGO showed off a stool that looks like an egg-shaped Pokemon ball, and invited us to ‘Jump On and Play’. We did. The chair connects via Bluetooth with any VR headset, and is designed to work like a kind of hands-free console. Tilting backwards and forwards and swivelling on the stool is translated into movement within VR, but we can’t say it achieved its aim of reducing simulation sickness.

Most of the stands were geared towards gaming, so Glaswegian group Soluis threw us a curveball with their predominantly architecture and property-focused products. Their best offering, which is not quite ready yet, is the immersive dome: a small-scale, VR bandstand that allows four or five users to navigate their way around prospective buildings. They’re currently putting together samples to premiere in Copenhagen and Las Vegas for Radisson hotels.



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Pandora meets her left hand.[/caption]

We ended the evening with talk of virtual hugs from a very energetic marketeer, who was working with Tesla Studios to tout a full VR body suit. The fabric is lined with electrodes which could isolate and stimulate separate muscle groups to create a physical experience to match what you see and hear on your headset and headphones. For example, if you were shot in the leg during a game you were playing, the suit would make sure you felt the bullet’s impact. Joe Public wasn’t allowed to try it on but it certainly looked cosy.

The night was about to finish on a slightly tough note, when a young VR enthusiast referred to Laura as the Beauty and me as the Geek (Star Trek should never have been mentioned) but bruised egos were soothed when we were handed a going home present, our very own VR headset - albeit a cardboard one. You download one of many VR apps, slip your phone into the headset, and enjoy.



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Laura lays an egg.[/caption]

So what’s our verdict? Well Laura kept getting headaches, lots of headaches. And I found it unnerving just how immersive the experience was - to the point where I felt trapped. Strange, admittedly, when all I had to do was remove the headset. But there was something incredible about the scope of this technology. The possibilities seem endless.

We were told by the chaps at Soluis that the gauge of a good VR experience is if you feel as though you’ve returned from somewhere else when you take the headset off - a kind of transportation. We did, actually, and with the travel sickness to prove it.