science-and-technology

Virtual Reality addiction threat prompts cautious approach as VR nears 'smartphone-like' take-off

Virtual Reality, or VR, has finally become commercially accessible — a full-immersion kit with motion controllers is less than $1,000 — putting hardware and software tools in the hands of gamers and independent game developers for the first time.

But it is the appeal of this technology across the broader population rather than just the gaming community that has people like Microsoft multimedia and interaction researcher Mar Gonzalez Franco excited.

"We [the general public] will buy VR devices in shopping malls the way we buy smartphones today," she said.