Immersive education 2015 virtual reality

This iED summit will take place in Paris this year. The 2015 immersive education summit will be held in the Fall. This summit as like the others will build off the success of the previous years summit. The thing that excites me the most about this years summit is that they will be discussing virtual reality hardware.


I learned a little about the Oculus Rift last year in one of my immersive education courses. I was quite impressed with what I saw and actually pretty excited. I am eager to try one myself and I think I will get the opportunity to because the price tag is pretty affordable. I was expecting around a thousand dollars for such a piece of equipment. But the latest oculus rift is only about $350.

The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality head mounted display. The rift gives the user a fully immersive type of video game experience. The player actually uses the movement of their own bodies to control their playable character. The Oculus Rift is a more enjoyable virtual experience because the games are specifically tailored to the rift.

A similar product has been made by big name company Samsung. Their product is called the Samsung Gear VR. The Samsung product gives the user a 96 degree viewing angle. That is quite impressive. The gear VR can also be used as a home cinema. Also the Gear VR allows the user to enter a virtual world where they will have a complete 360 degree viewing angle.

Google has a virtual reality product that is more less technical and much more affordable. It is so simple that people are actually able to build one themselves. It is basically just a box made out of cardboard. But when used with the right smartphone it can be transformed into a fully virtual experience. This video below demonstrates both the Oculus Rift and the Samsung Gear VR. The video also shows the strengths and weaknesses of both products. I am impressed by both products and how well they can used to have a virtual game experience and a cinema experience. The summit will go into great detail about virtual reality technologies.

This is an assignment from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Collaborative Computing. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc