Blurring the Lines: 10 Uses for Oculus Rift

You can experience a live concert from where you stand. Fumbling with tickets, pushing through crowds, and waiting in long line ups could be a thing of the past. What could we be losing? The experience of hearing this music with thousands of other people in the same space. We lose connectivity and then what was communal becomes individual.

No more airport security or stale peanuts in the sky. It is possible to be in your favourite city half way across the world with virtual reality. But let's face it, there's nothing like actually being there and seeing Paris or Rome with your naked eyeballs.

Virtual reality could be quite beneficial for the medical world. Realistic surgery simulation and helping amputees are just a few of the things this device can do. It could also minimize the use of animals for experimentation.

Gaming is probably the first thing you think about when you hear the words "virtual reality". Oculus Rift changes the feeling of gaming by making it significantly more realistic, and therefore integrating it right into reality itself.

You can be part of historical events and re-live them as if you were standing right there. This could be revolutionary for learning, but, this depends on who is behind the re-construction of this history.

They say "always be yourself", but I think it's safe to say that we've all thought about what it would be like to be someone else for a day. You can switch bodies, names, and lifestyles with this virtual reality. What could this do for empathy? It might change the world for the better.

You can walk through your dream home or test drive that future car by using Oculus rift. This means that more consumers can have the experience in shorter time.

Instead of watching a movie, you can actually be in a movie. Some software developers are working on making you the main character. This can change the way we watch movies, how we feel about the stories, and the viewers gaze all together.

You can be in the lecture hall and ask questions in the moment with virtual reality. There's no more packing up for your dorm room and moving away from home. What you might lose is the entire experience of post-secondary education, like parties and people, unless the rift can incorporate that somehow.

One of the most exciting possibilities for Oculus Rift is the ability to create virtual worlds and build new constructs within them. This means we could test out different economies and ways of living that could lead to a world of justice and solidarity. As long as we move the ideas from the rift into the real world.