Ten Years Ago This Week: Virtual Reality is a Reality

I'm celebrating 10 years of Creator Weekly by looking back at what was happening in tech during the same week in 2015.  I'll be talking about it in my Sunday live stream, and then publishing a post with a YouTube Short recap a few days later. 

Facebook Launches the Oculus Rift 

During the week ending January 12, 2015, CNET published their recap of products showcased at CES in Las Vegas. 

They declared: 

Virtual reality is a reality. Virtual reality, or VR as it's known, has been lurking at the fringes of the tech world for the better part of three decades, but it's often felt more like a gimmick or a sci-fi trope (thank you, "Lawnmower Man"). But no more. VR innovator Oculus Rift was showing the latest version of its hardware in a sizable public booth in the convention center's South Hall -- a far cry from its behind-closed-doors hotel suite presence at CES 2013 and 2014. (Clearly, that $2 billion-plus check from Facebook is being put to good use.)

The view from 2025

The Oculus Rift was introduced in June 2015, and finally shipped to the public in March 2016. 

Back in 2015, Dan Kaplan at TechCrunch imagined a world with ubiquitous VR, starting with the Oculus Rift. He concluded, "If Facebook wants to seize the opportunities in social VR, it will eventually have to pivot its focus away from the Newsfeed and go all-in on this new, uncharted world."

That definitely hasn't happened. While the technology has become part of Facebook's (now Meta's) push for the "metaverse", virtual reality still isn't quite mainstream. And Facebook promised to "bring back the magic" of the News Feed earlier this year.

What can we look forward to? I'm betting that glasses with AR (augmented reality) or XR (extended reality) features are more likely to become generally popular. 

Meta is working on AR glasses (Orion and Project Aria), as is Google (Android XR, Project Astra) and other companies. 

Maybe we'll see more by 2035!

Watch my recap.