Yet another solution to a non-existent problem…
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Way too expensive at over $3,500 and it doesn’t even play games… I’ll stick with my bulky Quest 2 for now. At least that only cost me a couple of hundred Euros.
Yes, far too expensive but nice tech. I’ve an old school friend who is in the very distressing final stages of MND. He uses his eyes and some tablet software to communicate. It’d be wonderful if this Apple technology could be adapted to help people such as him.
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I’ll stick to much cheaper Rayban Baloramas and continue to view the real world with a beige tint -
it’s enough…
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Wouldn’t it be wonderful if super-rich corporations and individuals developed devices such as this to improve the quality of life for all? However, these devices seem to be priced at a level where most of those that could benefit can’t afford them. And they’re marketed with ‘benefits’ that are anything but to society as a whole.
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You don’t fancy giving this a go?
Yes, imagine using this in a country where people don’t have the means to travel easily, and allowing schoolkids to experience Google Maps in VR. Their geography or history lessons would almost come to life…
Thanks, but don’t fancy the stress and fuel consumption of driving continually at around 3500 rpm and even if I did, wouldn’t be able to afford all the real world traffic violation tickets.
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Not so sure, isn’t it far better to teach kids how to to enjoy and appreciate direct phenomenological exploration of the ‘real’ world and their immediate surroundings? Anywhere and anything can be interesting, and is far more likely to stimulate the imagination than pre-packaged clichéd virtual stuff.
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Perhaps.
However, if I think back to my school days, I grew up in a small market town in Wiltshire (the thing it’s most famous for is a factory for expensive vacuum cleaners). My geography teacher would’ve had to be exceptional to make the town and surrounding area come across as exciting. As it is, he was very forgettable and I didn’t feel engaged during his classes.
That’s probably as much down to my learning style when I was young as it is his ability to teach. I was often described as aloof but really I was not stimulated. I’ve realised since that I’m a very visual learner, so having a teacher like him who’d just stand in front of a class and talk didn’t work for me… I got distracted too easily.
That’s why I think having something like virtual reality headsets that could briefly ‘transport’ me to a beach to see what’s actually meant by coastal erosion, or to ‘fly’ through clouds to see what they look like and understand the different types, etc… would have given me the visual stimulus I lacked from just hearing the teacher talk or from reading walls of text.
Sadly the closest thing we had to VR headsets was an overhead projector!
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Remember the old Viewmaster? 
I was entranced by dinosaurs as a 5 year old.
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VR may be a double edged sword…
Of course, exploring reality is critical but in many cases, where reality isn’t possible, VR can fire up imagination and transport the immobile to wondrous places, like outer space, so perhaps it is a tool to inspire. Seems particularly to enervate children. Pity it is so expensive though.
On the other hand, I hope that more folk don’t end up like Japan’s poor hikkomori, living entirely in their own little virtual world and never leaving their bedrooms.
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Synchronicity at work, I was talking about hikikomori last night with my colleagues, mainly saying we have quite a few pupils who are well on the way.
Oh dear! Seems to be a very adverse effect of online temptations and social media. Parents must be at their wits end.
Parents are the problem, what a useless irresponsible bunch some of them are. They think being a nice or good parent is letting their children do anything they feel like doing (nb feel not think) so of course their children despise them and pay no attention when they do occasionally say something, too little, too late. They forget who us actually the adult.
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That’s just a recording of a taxi ride from Riyadh airport to the downtown Hyatt.
Sometimes. Here is an article on an interesting study of the phenomenon in Spain, including comparison to issues in Japan and Asia.
May also be a genetic illness evolving through families 
That article (very interesting) has a far wider age range than I am observing, in the cases I’m seeing I think the parents are enabling and even creating it (either actively or passively), practically all the time.
Oh dear. That is sad.