What is virtual reality?
Virtual reality is a technology which allows the user to interact with a environment that exists only in a computer. Usually the word is reserved for immersive technologies such as HMDs (head-mounted displays) or small rooms whose walls are covered with screens, rather than simpler computer games such as World of Warcraft. The term was coined in the early 1980s, when computer technology was improving to the point of being able to create virtual worlds with at least a superficial sense of realness. The concept of virtual reality has been popularized by dozens of books, movies, and TV shows, especially the 1999 movie The Matrix. The Matrix features a virtual reality so convincing that its inhabitants are unaware it is not the real world. In one of the movie’s most famous scenes, the protagonist is “unplugged” from the Matrix and finds out he is merely one of billions of people living in special pods created by artificial intelligences. In the movie, rather than delivering the virtual rea
