Some VR experts believe the technology can endanger users in the real world, and in fact, Oculus Rift's Terms of Service warns consumers of just that -- however, you need to dig around to find that caution. Item 15 of Oculus' ToS, "Disclaimers", points to a .pdf document with safety warnings, then says "BY USING THE SERVICES, YOU REPRESENT AND WARRANT THAT YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTAND THESE WARNINGS AND INSTRUCTIONS". The "Health and Safety" document is pretty standard for high tech devices until you get to the Discomfort section, which lists a host of symptoms ("seizures, loss of awareness... involuntary movements; altered, blurred, or double vision or other visual abnormalities" etc. etc.) followed by a passage in bold (captured above), which says this:
Just as with the symptoms people can experience after they disembark a cruise ship, symptoms of virtual reality exposure can persist and become more apparent hours after use. These post-use symptoms can include the symptoms above, as well as excessive drowsiness and decreased ability to multi-task. These symptoms may put you at an increased risk of injury when engaging in normal activities in the real world.
So yes, this is enough of a problem for Facebook's $2 billion company to add an ass-covering disclaimer. I'm not a lawyer, but this doesn't strike me as super bulletproof, especially when there's copious videos out there of people acting disoriented and crashing into crap after using VR (LOL!), and the symptoms don't include "belief that one is still in virtual reality hours after being in the real world".
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And the iPhone's health and safety manual warns of hearing loss, but obviously it's designed to not cause hearing loss.
You wouldn't say "So yes, this is enough of a problem for the world's most valuable company to add an ass-covering disclaimer". Problem? A super remote possibility that's designed against.
"there's copious videos out there of people acting disoriented and crashing into crap after using VR (LOL!)"
Define "copious" relative to the hundreds of thousands of headset owners, and then link. You won't be able to produce ready examples on the scale of the Wii-mote tossing epidemic or such cases where products clearly needed safety work. Probably one or two weird examples much like you use the Anshe griefing as proof to yourself SL is full of griefing.
And since you don't own a VR headset yourself there's no first-hand experience you can give to educate yourself sadly.
You should reach out to a guest blogger or few who own Rifts or Vives to give reviews or experiences you're incapable of. Better yet, report first-hand on more substantive topics like new software and games available for VR.
Posted by: Ezra | Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 02:00 PM
"report first-hand on more substantive topics like new software and games available for VR."
I literally wrote two of those last week.
Posted by: Wagner J Au | Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 04:39 PM
It's probably because when you wear the HMD you can't see the real world.
Posted by: Adeon Writer | Friday, June 24, 2016 at 10:21 AM