Flying cars and pill-shaped dinners aside, a key missing part of the brave new future we were promised in the fifties is the serious use of virtual reality. I’m not talking about some stupid philosophic argument about how our constant immersion in the Internet and Second Life is a substitute reality or any of that fluff, I’m talking about climbing inside of a chamber and submerging yourself in a computer-driven universe.Virtual reality is one of those buzzword concepts that seems to be reattempted every decade. The last generation of serious attempts, those in the video game world in the early-to mid-nineties, were either headache-filled, nausea-inducing disasters or just expensive and not very fun. In any case, anything claiming to be virtual reality seemed like not much more than a half-baked attempt at skirting false-advertising laws while still making futuristic claims on toy boxes.Enter inventor Ray Latypov, who, along with his brother Nerulla, invented the Virtusphere, an enormous egg-looking pod that offers users the chance to dive headfirst into whatever virtual reality they choose. Motherboard interviewed Ray in 2009 to find out why he felt like tackling the VR problem and what makes the Virtusphere so great. In short terms, the spherical form factor addresses a huge problem with prior VR attempts: locomotion. The Virtusphere is mounted on omnidirectional rollers that allow users to run around like they’re in a giant hamster ball. Combined with virtual sight and sounds, the Virtusphere covers three of the five senses, and is the most immersive virtual reality device ever invented.By Derek Mead
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