![]() ![]() Good old-fashion FaceTime works well enough for me. After a while, I forgot we were even in VR.Ī few months later, though, I haven't gone on any other vTime dates. We chatted about his background in video game design and mine in journalism. We discussed the detail his team puts into the experience, such as how the Earth to our left subtly turned and completed a full rotation if we sat there for 90 minutes. In my space-date, I met Paul Hollywood, the product director at vTime. can "sit" inside the photograph together. He can capture an image of his hotel room, then jump into the app and so he and T.L. MacNaughton also uses a feature of vTime to "share" 360-degree photos of his travels. At one point, an orca and two narwhals surfaced from the water in front of them. on a blanket by the ocean, talking about their day. In one exchange, MacNaughton put on his headset while traveling, and suddenly, he was sitting next to T.L. Oh, and another thing from the real world being recreated in the virtual one: texting. Its competitors are also free, like AltspaceVR, whose eponymous service promises experiences like virtual comedy clubs, games with other users, mazes and art galleries. The company wouldn't say how it ultimately plans to make money. The service from vTime is free and I didn't see any ads while using it. My experience was powered by an Oculus headset in our office. Was my VR date a window into the future? Dating site eHarmony predicts we'll regularly go on full-sensory (including smelling your partner's perfume) VR dates by 2040.Īnd it might happen with apps like vTime, which works on devices ranging from the $599 Oculus Rift to the often-free Google Cardboard, which is powered by your smartphone. "You create a whole different level of immersion and presence in the virtual world and that can make you genuinely feel that you are somewhere else and you are with another person," said Clemens Wangerin, managing director of vTime, which made the dating app that sent me to space. ![]() Now, some developers are imagining how it can be used to go on dates. People are already using the tech for education, architecture, communication, history, entertainment and even a novel form of exposure therapy (imagine putting an arachnophobe "in" a room with spiders). Have gotten involved in VR tech in some way. Then, in 2012, a company called Oculus took the industry by storm and two year later Facebook snatched it up for $3 billion. It's an idea called "presence."įive years ago, that experience seemed like a pipe dream, the stuff of sci-fi movies and tech nerds. By strapping on a screen close enough to your eyes, your mind can be tricked into thinking you're in a computer-generated world that feels pretty real. This is the promise of VR, a decades-old technology that's been hitting store shelves in new incarnations in the past year. ![]() I'm back in CNET's office, alone, with a pair of We chat while taking in the the endless expanse of stars surrounding us.Īfter about half an hour, we say our goodbyes, and I reach up and remove my headpiece. He's smiling and pointing to a space shuttle docking next to us, his eyes wide with excitement. There's also a man, floating there with me, dressed casually in a T-shirt and pants. In front of me, a brilliant shooting star soars across the galaxy. ![]() Earth is to my left, just out of my grasp. ![]()
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