Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Pandora
This is the full transcript for season 7, episode 3— VR headsets: We’re practically there — of the Quartz Obsession podcast.
Gabriela: By plenty of accounts, the soaring promises of the metaverse failed. After experiments held in the social distance days of 2020 and ‘21, the applications Big Tech imagined for how virtual reality would transform our spaces haven’t really come to pass. We’re not telecommuting to so-called virtual offices, nor holding concerts on virtual stages.
We’re not going to gallery openings at virtual museums, nor visiting far-flung cities via virtual tour guides. The company who staked its literal name on the metaverse? Well, Meta’s making more headlines lately about its social platforms and AI expenditures than it is about any alternate verses. The VR headset, so it seems, is an unnecessary, maybe even indulgent, escape to somewhere we don’t know.
If that’s true, Laura, why are we still talking about VR?
Laura: Honestly, don’t get me started. There’s so much to unpack there.
Gabriela: I’m Gabriela Riccardi, the host of Quartz Obsession Season 7, where we’re taking a closer look at the technologies and ideas that define our lives. So get your head set, because today I’m talking to Laura Bratton from Quartz about VR headsets.
The difference between VR, AR, and the metaverse
Gabriela: So first things first, Laura, there are a lot of terms when it comes to virtual reality. There’s VR, there’s AR, there’s this amorphous thing that we call the metaverse. Can you break down the differences between all of them and explain when headwear gets involved?
Laura: I think we can start with VR because that feels the most obvious, and VR stands for virtual reality.
And then the metaverse is what I’d go to next, because VR really is at the heart of it, being in the metaverse. The metaverse, McKinsey has defined as “the emerging 3D-enabled digital space that uses virtual reality, augmented reality, and other advanced internet and semiconductor technology to allow people to have lifelike personal and business experiences online.”
So that really brings me to the next one, which is AR, and that stands for augmented reality. So imagine that you’re in a room and you’re wearing these headsets and you’re seeing both the room around you and some sort of virtual thing that isn’t actually in your physical space. So that’s where headsets come in and virtual reality headsets, as they’re called, actually mix both augmented reality and virtual reality these days.
What is a VR headset?
Gabriela: Could you describe for us the experience of putting on and wearing a VR helmet? What is it? What’s it like? How do you use one? And what are the components of a helmet or a headset?
Laura: So VR headsets have changed a lot over time. It used to be that there was a big wire extended from a ceiling that had to support the headset because it was so heavy.
And then obviously we’ve seen Apple come out with a headset and that headset really is just like a pair of ski goggles. What you do is you put them on and you sort of see these apps in your physical space and that’s where it’s kind of like augmented reality. You can actually pick up these apps and select them with your hands.
Other headsets in the past, like Meta’s Quest, you wear gloves and have controllers.
What is the history of the VR headset?
Gabriela: How long have tech companies been developing this technology? Headsets go back to, I don’t know, I’m assuming the 80s, the 90s?
Laura: So the first virtual reality headset was actually made in the 60s. But before that, a lot of people argue that the basis for virtual reality headsets today was created by Charles Wheatstone in 1838.
A lot of modern VR technology all builds on the invention of Charles Wheatstone. Charles Wheatstone invented the stereoscope, and the stereoscope basically makes 2D pictures look like 3D objects.
Gabriela: Oh, cool. I just, I kind of can’t believe that we’re talking 19th century stuff. We’re talking the 1800s here.
Laura: A lot of people recognize Wheatstone as like the OG virtual reality inventor. Smithsonian Magazine called his stereoscope the “original virtual reality.” And then, you know, even before the 60s, There was some sort of VR technology emerging. A cinematographer in 1956 made something called the Sensorama, and it was a VR machine that actually used a stereoscopic 3D screen.
And if you can imagine, it was kind of like if you’re going to an arcade or one of those games. If you sort of put your head inside of a booth. It was huge though. Nothing like the VR goggles that people are wearing today.
Gabriela: Huh, is it like a photo booth, but for your head? Like it’s a portal to a different universe?
Laura: Kind of, yeah. It’s like, imagine that there is a photo booth, but instead of stepping into it, you’re in a chair sort of just sticking your head inside of it.
Gabriela: Huh! Oh my gosh. You know, I love that it’s called the, what was it called? The Sensorama? That’s, like, such a old-timey 1950s concept of what the future could look like, you know, like, what advanced technology looks like at the time.
Laura: It’s funny how you talked about that the Sensorama was forward-looking, because where the 1950s VR tech was forward-looking in its name, the 1960s VR headset was backward-looking.
The first virtual reality headset was actually named after a parable written by Cicero, the Roman philosopher. It was called the Sword of Damocles. And it was invented by a Harvard professor and his students, who were just really interested in what computers could do. It’s the 60s. It’s not really a time when people are thinking about actually using VR tech in their day to day lives. They’re figuring out what computers can do. The internet hasn’t even been invented yet. But as people are figuring out what computers can do and experimenting with them, this professor Ivan Sutherland presented an idea while he was a PhD student at MIT.
Then he actually made the headsets in 1968. And Ivan Sutherland said he had no idea what it would lead to and he did it because it was interesting to do. He said, “I was given access to a computer, I wanted to make drawings on that computer because I like drawings and I liked making them neat. And the computer delivered that.”
So it was pretty funny to me reading that and thinking about where VR is now.
Gabriela: This is so endearing to me. You know, it’s like the total antithesis of like the tech titan as God who’s like steering the path of humanity forward, you know, creating the technology that will transform our lives. Here’s a guy right here who’s like, “I don’t know what this is going to do, you know, but I thought it was interesting.”
And fast forward, you know, half a century later, look at where we are now.
Laura: Totally.
Gabriela: Let’s get into the 80s, the 90s, and then the new millennium. How do they get developed from there? And how do they start to resemble the VR headsets that we’re using today?
Laura: I think that when people are thinking about VR headsets and the history of VR headsets, the 80s and 90s and gaming is really what comes to mind. So, the first VR headset company is founded in the 1980s. It’s called VPL Research Incorporated, and this is really when gaming headsets got going. So one really popular game that emerged in 1991 was called Dactyl Nightmare, and it was super popular among gamers.
Virtual reality games were making their way into arcades. But experts of the time say that the tech was actually deployed too early, when it was still in its primitive stages. So if you were playing these games, they sort of looked, you know, fuzzy or funky or not as coherent as if you were playing a video game on just a flat screen.
So anyways, so, VR didn’t super take off. after the 80s and 90s, even though it was making its way into the arcades. It was really later in the 2010s when VR started emerging, especially when it came to Big Tech companies investing in this technology.
Gabriela: Is this when the big players get involved? Is this when, you know, the Googles and the Apples and the Metas and, you know, some of the other leading headset companies that are their own developers? The Sonys? Is this when they’re all getting in the game?
Laura: Yeah, exactly. So Oculus, which is a big name in VR, got into the game in 2010, well, at least that’s when 18 year old Palmer Luckey created the prototype for the Oculus Rift VR headset. Oculus was later acquired by Meta and created the foundation for Meta transforming itself into Meta from Facebook.
And then, you know, two years after the first prototype for the Oculus Rift headset was made, Google released its smart glasses. I don’t know if you remember the smart glasses, but it’s kind of funny looking at photos. There’s been talk that Google didn’t make it with its smart glasses because it really marketed it towards elite members.
You had to jump through all these hoops to get the Google smart glasses.
Gabriela: Oh, so it was highly exclusive.
Laura: It was highly exclusive. They wanted the elite company leaders to be using its glasses. But at a time when this tech wasn’t, you know, widely adopted anyway, that really just wasn’t the right marketing move.
And the smart glasses had a camera that could be controlled with voice commands. And you know, this is 2012, when people are just really getting used to iPhones. So it’s not something people were going to be going to a store and purchasing. I think I was still using, like, a super clunky desktop in 2012.
Well, no, I had a laptop by then. But anyways, later versions of the Google glasses had VR and AR capabilities. And then 2013, a year later, is when Oculus, which, you know, I talked about their Rift headsets. ship their first developer kits. And these developer kits were used by game developers, not really by consumers.
But Oculus would later start to sell its glasses to consumers, and a lot of gaming fanatics would buy these developer kits just so they could experience VR technology for themselves. And then, you know, later, a couple years later, that’s when other big players like Sony, Samsung, Microsoft started investing in VR technology, but that technology never really took off.
Gabriela: So let’s fast forward to today. Who’s got VR headsets out now? Any major releases? Why are we still talking about them?
Laura: So I think a lot of VR talk has come back into play because Apple, which for a long time has been the most valuable company in the world, although it’s been losing money this year. So it’s fallen a little bit behind Microsoft, but Apple released its Vision Pro.
And that’s after, you know, it seemed really clear that Tim Cook, its CEO, wasn’t going to invest in this technology, but decided, obviously, that there was something valuable there, and that Apple wanted to throw its weight behind this technology. There’s been a lot of critique of the tech itself. Users have said that it’s had glitches, it’s clunky, but I think people are more excited about where it can go because Apple has been a market disruptor before, you know, it wasn’t the first to put mp3s on a device and it wasn’t the first to make a smartphone, but the iPod and the iPhone have sort of become synonymous with the actual products themselves. And I think people, Apple fans, investors think that that’s where Apple’s Vision Pro can go. And it can, you know, eventually come to dominate the market. Apple also has its suite of developers that come with its App Store. And so there’s a ton of potential for developers to get on its Vision Pro-compatible App Store and create apps for the Vision Pro that tons of people will eventually use.
Gabriela: So it sounds like even though it’s not by any means the first entrant in the market, Apple’s kind of reviving an interest in VR headsets.
Laura: It’s really interesting that you say that because I actually spoke with a business leader at HTC, and that’s a Taiwanese tech company and they make headsets.
HTC Vive is their brand for making headsets and the director of their product operations told me that they’re actually really excited that Apple is making this technology because Apple is such a big name brand that it’s just drawing attention to the potential for this technology, and you know, while Apple’s Vision Pro is arguably in beta mode, companies like HTC have been investing in this tech for seven years now.
And so even though Apple’s tech isn’t quite there yet, it’s drawing attention to lesser known players who are rivals to what this technology can actually do. And I would argue that there hasn’t been widespread adoption of VR headsets among consumers, but there are huge potentials for where it can go in business and healthcare.
And there was a study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, one of the big four accounting firms in 2022, that found that about half of U.S. companies are either in the process of integrating virtual reality into their strategy, Or they’ve already built it into at least one line of their businesses. So I think that VR use is a lot more widespread than people actually think it is.
How are VR headsets used today?
Gabriela: OK, so that makes me so curious. Like, obviously there’s a lot of people and even businesses that are testing use cases for how virtual reality can be integrated into everyday lives, the rhythm and flow of work, how business gets done. Like, what are some of those ways that VR is being used around the world via headsets?
Laura: It’s been actually really funny and surprising for me to look into which companies are using this tech because it really runs the gamut. You know, everything from big box retailers like Walmart to KFC are using this tech. So KFC used Oculus VR headsets all the way back in 2017 to train its workers how to fry chicken, which I thought was awesome.
Gabriela: Wait, stop. Wait, so we’re getting the perfect crispy chicken skin through VR.
Laura: Exactly. And then there are some more endearing cases where, you know, it’s being used by hospital systems to treat patients. Children who are cancer patients with the American Childhood Cancer Organization are using Meta’s headsets to help them tolerate treatment, which I found really amazing that this can be used in such a helpful way for pain treatment.
And that’s also, you know, veterans at like 160 facilities in the U.S. are using extended reality or augmented reality headsets for pain management. But then back to big companies, you know, we see UPS using it to prepare drivers for road hazards. Nestlé Purina uses it to plan how they’re going to stock their shelves in stores.
It’s also being used by police officers and militaries, which I found really interesting. For instance, Mexico City police officers use HTC Vive headsets to train in de-escalation tactics. Boeing used it to train astronauts in its Starliner program.
Gabriela: Wait, so VR is also being used in space?
Laura: Yeah, so for the Boeing Starliner program, it was just used to help train astronauts for space, but it’s funny you mentioned that because it is actually used in space too.
Gabriela: Fascinating.
Laura: Yeah, it is. So not just here on Earth, but we’re also getting virtual reality in outer space at the International Space Station. And the way it’s being used, interestingly enough, is to help astronauts return to Earth in a virtual reality space.
So, you know, if you think about being in a spaceship, which really stresses me out personally. You’re in a really enclosed space. You can imagine the effects that that can have on your mental health. So astronauts can get on an exercise bike, they can strap on these headsets and they can return to Earth and sort of feel like they’re biking through a green setting.
Gabriela: Mmm. I love that. So like simulating that you’re, you know, not just floating out in like a pool of blackness and stars, it kind of grounds you in a way. I also love these examples because, you know, I think our concept of virtual reality and what VR headsets sort of put us into… I feel like it’s been billed to us as a way to escape to a different universe, you know, a different reality, an alternate place to be. But in a lot of these examples, it seems like virtual reality is being used to sort of bring about the worlds that we want to see. One that has crispier chicken and happier astronauts.
Laura: Totally. I think that there’s a lot of uses of VR where it’s just helping us endure the world around us or helping us tolerate things that we find unacceptable about the world around us.
And I see a lot of that in healthcare with, you know, for instance, women in labor. There’s studies that suggest VR can help with pain management for women in labor; it’s being used to help train surgeons in a risk-free way to operate on patients; and another example, and maybe the best example of VR helping us experience the world around us even more than we already are, is that elderly people in senior centers are using headsets to revisit the childhood homes in places they can’t travel in their older age.
So in that sense, it’s not really about escaping the world around you. It’s about experiencing the world around you if you’re unable to do it in the fullest capacity because of some sort of physical limitation.
The concerns of VR
Gabriela: Of course VR has its share of detractors as with any developing technology. We learn more as more people use it. So what dangers here should we be concerned about?
Laura: There are a couple of big concerns with VR that have been talked about. And one more obvious one is what people are calling cybersickness, and that’s motion sickness that people can get from wearing VR headsets. More specifically, cybersickness is when someone gets nausea, eye strain, headaches, vertigo, or disorientation from being in a virtual reality environment.
And research has shown that women are a lot more impacted by cybersickness. In a study done recently, the intensity of cybersickness symptoms for women were 40% higher. So that’s a huge difference.
Gabriela: Mmm. Wow, that’s wild that there’s these gender differences at play.
Laura: And then there’s one more thing that hasn’t really happened yet, but that experts are concerned about.
There’s a tech columnist for the Washington Post, Geoffrey Fowler, who talks about how there’s so much data being collected by these VR headsets, and it could be a huge privacy concern for users. So, if you think about Apple Vision Pro, for example, it has 12 cameras, six microphones, and a ton of sensors.
They’re not just being used to take pictures of the world around you, but also to track a ton of different things.
Gabriela: Whoa.
Laura: Yeah, exactly. Especially, the biggest thing is that it can track your eye movements. So, think about if Netflix, Hulu, any sort of developer of a software or product could figure out when your eyes are resting on a certain thing, when you’re taking breaks from TV shows, or what food you’re looking at in the space around you.
It can tell them a lot about you and your behaviors. Apple has said that kind of in the way you can ask your phone not to track you or ask an app not to track, or, you know, not accept cookies for a website. There’s going to be some sort of thing on Apple’s Vision Pro where you can be notified whether it’s going to track those movements or not.
HTC has a similar policy. I’m pretty sure Meta is a little more lax on that. But there’s definitely some concerns there that could arise. There’s no evidence that companies are actually selling this data to developers, but it could be a cause for concern in the future.
Gabriela: So just to wrap up, Laura, there are, it seems, so many places that VR and its headsets could go from here. What do you think about the future of this technology? What predictions do you have? How do you think we’re going to interact with it in the future?
Laura: You know, I’m not as sure on the consumer and gaming side, because honestly, I’m not a big gamer myself.
And I, as a consumer, cannot picture myself spending a ton of time in these headsets, but obviously when I was younger, I did not think I’d be using a phone with a touchscreen. So I could be wrong.
I think that the biggest impact of this technology is going to be on how we work, businesses, and healthcare. And while I don’t think we’re going to necessarily be going to work in the metaverse, I think that we’re going to start to see a lot of companies, and a lot more companies than are using it now, to be trained. I think there’s going to be a future where virtually all of us are getting trained on, you know, everything from DEI to how to operate our computers at work and other things in virtual reality headsets.
Gabriela: It’s totally fascinating to me. Laura, I came into this knowing 0% about all the stuff I’d be strapping onto my head and all of the different worlds I’d be stepping into, but you’ve told me so much more. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast.
Laura: Thanks, Gabby!
Gabriela: Laura Bratton covers tech and breaking news for Quartz.
This episode was produced by Ready Freddie Media. Additional support from Quartz Executive Editor Susan Howson and Head of Video David Weinstein. Our theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Suguira. If you like what you heard, follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you’re listening. And tell your friends about us.
Do you have a VR headset? If so, strap it on, head to your favorite VR locale, and tell five friends about this VR episode in virtual reality. How’s that for meta? Then head to qz.com/obsession to sign up for Quartz’s Weekly Obsession email and browse hundreds of interesting backstories. I’m Gabriela Riccardi, thanks for listening.
So I have here an article from our sister brand, Gizmodo, that’s rounding up some of the wildest and weirdest ways that people have been putting on and using their Apple Vision Pro. Wait, people are putting the Vision Pro on at the gym? OK, I actually resonate with this in that I would also like to be anywhere but the actual gym. I have to give it my kudos and my respect. I do empathize here. Thank you. Take care.
Oh, someone’s using the Vision Pro to learn the piano! Oh, it’s kind of like Dance Dance Revolution, like one of those video games that, like, it tells you to hit your marks, but you’re doing it with the real piano. I kind of love that.
OK, everyone pack it up. We cannot be driving a car with the Vision Pro. I mean, this is like the next frontier of texting while driving. Like, just say no. I don’t know. Just say no.