What do you mean by the new medium going forward? What are you expecting it to replace, or do you not expect it to replace anything?
I think it will get better as time goes on, but it is already really compelling. I realize I'm an early adopter, but my enthusiasm is only increasing. WebVR is fascinating, and it's possible to create, for example, a really compelling shopping experience where you could see the actual size of objects before buying.
[1] http://store.steampowered.com/app/447270/
[2] http://www.ikea.com/us/en/about_ikea/newsitem/040516_Virtual...
VR is more a different direction, it's hard to take your house and represent it in VR for you to furnish. You could use something like the Matterport, but even then it's an hour or two before you can use it in VR.
The great thing about project tango is that since it has accurate depth sensing and builds a 3D model of the space, furniture placed is accurate to scale. Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gYwc6nS7qs
Really? So, TV and movies starved audio commentary and discussion for time? I suspect TV and movies became dominant, but they didn't completely eliminate audio. Games are a new medium, and they seem to coexist with other media. Books don't seem to be going away. If anything, new forms of media seem to be synergistic with the existing forms.
That said, the amount of attention people can pay to all media is essentially finite, and new media decreases the hold of old media. In a very real way the internet is killing print newspapers, by drastically reducing the amount of attention that is paid to them.
Likewise, if you look at printed books, they are much less important than they were 100 years ago, largely due to radio, television, movies, computers, and the internet.
That's kind of an arrogant categorization.
1) We all read, regardless of the material the text is presented on.
2) I've bought and borrowed an immense amount of really awful books, and I've read a ton of truly insightful, well worded and interesting stories, posts, discussions online.
Sure internet is ful of crap, but I believe it's equally full of great ideas that wouldn't get a chance to be published on paper, whether that is because the author doesn't feel he/she can fill a book, they are not appropriately confident about their work or any number of other factors.
Online, you can crowdsource the editing process and everything (most) good will be visibly published. If that is not succeeding a medium I don't know what is. Honestly I'm not even comfortable calling them different medias. I believe text is the medium, the same way 2d video is a medium, from 35/70/135mm celluloid through VHS/betamax through all imaginable codecs online. There's really no difference in how you process the information.
And I doubt that the next "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" will originate online either. It might be advertised online, eventually people will pirate it in epub form but no one is putting a great work online first. Because what I'm saying is true.
"I've read a ton of truly insightful, well worded and interesting stories, posts, discussions online"
As have I. It's not worthless, I love the internet. It's just not replacing books. When all the drives fail that store this conversation, there will be a million copies of The Iliad still in existence. I stand by my original statement, books dwarf all these other mediums.
There's no difference between a printed and bound book full of (for the sake of argument) Tumblr posts and the same posts online - or alternatively, a betamax video, and the same video captured and encoded in an MKV container.
Sorry for the ambiguous phrasing.
There's a bunch of apps that are trying to make virtual desktops in VR or 360 movies and the like. I don't personally buy into those that much, I think 360 movies are difficult to make interesting and virtual desktops are more for Augmented Reality.
Besides the obvious (VR games), I think there is a potential for a new form of entertainment (maybe a hybrid of theatre/cinema), for more advanced design tools that make faster work of 3D-based design, for educational experiences. Some things might be "replacements", but there are a lot of possibilities that a VR environment opens up for things that would not be compelling or practical on a 2D screen with common input controls.
Theatre is niche whereas once it was mainstream though. And it has been ages since its been culturally relevant in the way movies are discussed etc, even for high-bro audiences (e.g. since the 50s or so in the US, or around the 70s for European audiences).
With VR, you're trying to be 'inside' the media. Imagine a bunch of people feeling around for their drink or bumping heads as they try to whisper. I think if this iteration of VR becomes successful, it will be because they found a niche for themselves. But I can't imagine it becoming the default medium for anything, not even games.
Google at IO/2016 showed some experiment with schools using cardboard where they raytraced where each student in a classroom was looking at. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuceLtGjDWY
With full body tracking and depth cameras you could put 3d avatar bodies in.
Obviously the face would be obscured by the headset, but it's dark in a cinema and people are normally looking at the screen when watching TV at home. So it might actually end up being more social.
Even with just simple 3d positioning of the headset and input devices with a simple visual indicator is enough to get a sense of someone being present. Add a microphone and 3D spacial positioning of voices.
Of course the current generation of technology would make that hard and rare. Not too many people you know will buy a $1000 headset. Everyone would need to bring that and a fairly powerful computer to the one place.
Although physically being present in the same room isn't required.
The most successful content in my view capitalizes on this freedom, and provides new spaces for participants to express themselves. You do not have to roll on the floor to dodge lasers in the arcade shooter Space Pirate Trainer, but it is fun to do, gives you a workout, and was not programmed into the game.
If it replaces anything, it will be things like museums, casual sports (ping pong, pool etc that require big space commitment for a singular activity), and social interaction tools like skype.
It depends on how you define VR ... if you define it as covering every sense, then yes, by definition is encapsulates all other media. But if you define it as how its implemented, then no, because net every sense has been implemented. Smell, temperature, wind, acceleration, weightlessness, full-body touch ... we're a long way from the holodeck.
Will also replace pictures in real estate listings I suppose.
Basically a bunch of 360 panoramic shots with spaces you can click on the ground to traverse to the next spot that gives you another view, and it fades between the two, kind of like moving down the street in Street View with Google Maps.
It did a pretty damn good job of giving you a feel for the apartment (we toured many of them afterwards).
Obviously actual VR would be better, but what they've got now is pretty darn good already, and definitely a lot better than pictures.
That being said, I think most home listings still rely on low-res still pictures, which is a shame.
If facebook and google have any say, then America will too.