Virtual reality is here to stay

The march of virtual reality is unstoppable, writes Colm O’Regan

As if real reality wasn’t enough to be dealing with, now it appears the march of virtual reality is unstoppable. There is one sign that it’s taking off: Politicans wearing the headsets in photo-opps. The politician photo-opp has many incarnations. Some are timeless like kissing babies or wearing a hard-hat at the launch of a new construction project. Then there are those that augur the arrival of technology. Remember when Enda mentioned cloud computing? And now you’re granny is talking about server farms and data centres. This time it’s the VR headset — all over the world you will see an otherwise stern head of state with half their face encased in what looks like the rear-view mirror from a Ford Mondeo, their hands waving, a slightly nervous spin-doctor standing nearby, wondering how this photo-op is going to be photo-shopped the following day.

Virtual reality is here to stay, if indeed we know where here is anymore.