In the nineteen-eighties, [Jaron] Lanier came to believe that virtual reality—the creation of computer-simulated environments in which real people can interact—would precipitate an extraordinary revolution in art and communication. In an interview with Omni in 1991, he described the allure of programs that would let you feel as if you were wandering at will inside a Moorish temple or through the chambers of a beating heart. In an early paper, Lanier wrote of the ability of some octopuses to express fear or anger by changing color. In a virtual world, he hypothesized, people would be able to communicate in similar ways. Tom Zimmerman, Lanier’s business partner at the time, recalls that Lanier was taken by the idea of hosting virtual-reality parties, where guests would arrive in strange and exotic forms. “I had this feeling of people living in isolated spheres of incredible cognitive and stylistic wealth,” Lanier explained.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/07/11/the-visionary

Jaron Lanier, considered by many to be the father of VR, was visiting from the future when I first saw him speak at the University of Georgia in 2001, I saw him again in 2010 at Town Hall in Seattle and somehow a little of the sparkle had faded. Where was the jetpack I was promised?

Six years later, I'm hearing the familiar rumblings, only this time, it's backed by funding from Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. And I'll be damned if I don't believe (yet again) that the future is nigh.

My sister first showed me her Nintendo 3DS around 2012; I was shocked that the technology existed and that I didn't know about it -- I couldn't figure out why people weren't foaming at the mouth for them, until I realized that perhaps they were like me, and not all that much a part of the Pokemon crowd--which apparently was the only master the technology served.

Fast forward to the arrival of my Google Cardboard (ahem, Google Plastic, I sprung for the "fancy" goggles) today. Yeah, it's clumsy and awkward, it's ill-fitting and uncomfortable, but I'll be damned if it isn't the most fun I've had in my living room since rewatching the Indiana Jones trilogy alone with a pint of ice cream. Now I just need a space big enough to walk around in freely (and blindly)... ask to see my bruises from walking into thing in Real Reality.

...and I need to figure out how I can be a part of the revolution instead of just a consumer...