Well, I\u2019ve not only seen it, but I have immersed myself into the future.<\/p>\n

As I write this, I have just emerged from being inside (that\u2019s the verb I will use) my newly acquired Oculus Rift for an hour. An entire hour.<\/p>\n

The headset-caused wrinkles, an unfortunate side effect, are still fresh across my face. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been exploring augmented reality for more than five years, and virtual reality for two and I am in more awe now than ever before. <\/p>\n

Yes there is hype around VR, but from what I just experienced \u2014 and have experienced before \u2014 there is a bright future ahead of us.<\/p>\n

And if you\u2019re in the content business \u2014 of any type \u2014 get ready for the next seismic disruption.<\/p>\n

While I was \u201cin\u201d I played a VR platformer game called Lucky\u2019s Tale, and instantly fell in love with the design and, more importantly, naturally fell into the user-interface and VR logic.<\/p>\n

The game all around is, well, simply wonderful.<\/p>\n

You will hear this time and time again with VR, but you have to experience it to really appreciate it.<\/p>\n

After completing the first chapter of the game, I went back \u201chome\u201d (which is a gorgeously designed living room) and explored some other free experiences I had downloaded before.<\/p>\n

I selected Dreamdeck, with is a collection of different short stories, experiences and scenes. I had done a couple before, but this time I was standing eye-to-eye with a dinosaur, was inside a fly\/blood cell thingy, making faces at funhouse\/tea party mirror, was in the middle of two robotic arms having a magical battle over a rubber ducky and, my favorite, observed a day in the life of a mini cartoon town (I tired to eat the plane).<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing I want you to take note of: I used different verbs to describe the experiences. I did something, rather than watched something passively.<\/p>\n

Lastly, I watched Oculus\u2019 short film lost, a clear homage to Iron Giant. It was cute and who knew so much personality could come from the wagging of an iron tail.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019m in. I\u2019m in deep.<\/p>\n

Look, I am in the journalism business and if we take a step further back, I am in the (non-fiction) storytelling business. And VR is the latest tool in my arsenal aimed at informing my community by any ethical means necessary.<\/p>\n

My excursion into the virtual world was a (much needed) break from producing VR Journalism experiences with my USC Annenberg students: Jovrnalism.<\/p>\n

We find ourselves in post-production right now and, while tiring, we\u2019re having a blast experimenting and defining this new style of storytelling.<\/p>\n

VR is the future.<\/p>\n

Well, for now. I see have my eye on the bigger prize, AR.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, I\u2019ve not only seen it, but I have immersed myself into the future. As I write this, I have just emerged from being inside (that\u2019s the verb I will use) my newly acquired Oculus Rift for an hour. An entire hour. The headset-caused wrinkles, an unfortunate side effect, are still fresh across my face. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[269,21,260],"tags":[270],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2926"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2927,"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2926\/revisions\/2927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.webjournalist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}