Uncanny Valley | WIRED15 Sep 2022

Visualizing VR’s Future

Virtual reality has long been hailed as the next big thing in tech. It's pure escapism; strap on a headset and immerse yourself in a different world. At least, it would be easy to truly immerse yourself if the headsets were comfier to wear, less awkward to use, and a little more cool-looking. As unwieldy as the headsets are, the technology inside them is actually getting pretty good. The latest headset to make news is Sony’s PlayStation VR2. It’s the first update to the PSVR in six years, and Sony gave us a preview of the device as it nears an official release next year. We are also expecting to hear details soon about Meta's newly beefed Oculus headset meant to better hook you into the company’s weird metaverse.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED staff writer Boone Ashworth joins us to talk about his experience trying the PSVR2, what's next for Meta and Oculus, and whether if you die in VR that means you die in real life.

Show Notes

Read Boone’s impressions of the day he spent trying out PSVR2. Read Lauren on the recent Oculus price hike. Read all of our virtual reality coverage.

Recommendations

Boone recommends Paradise by Lizzy Johnson. Mike recommends the game Johann Sebastian Joust. Lauren recommends breakfast salads for some reason. Boone Ashworth can be found on Twitter @BooneAshworth. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth. Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(448)

Tim Heidecker Thinks Twitter Should Be a World Heritage Site

The satirical news publication The Onion is trying to take over Infowars, formerly owned by far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and planning to put comedian Tim Heidecker in charge. Their vision...

17 Jun 39min

Why Anthropic Shut Down Its Best AI (Special News Update)

Over the weekend, the Trump administration placed export controls on Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 — their most advanced AI models — citing national security concerns. This effectively leadi...

15 Jun 19min

Why You Might Already Own SpaceX Shares; Inside the Knicks' Owner's Surveillance Machine

This week, the team discusses Apple’s Siri AI brand new release, SpaceX officially going public — and who will benefit the most from it. They also get into how Meta removed a facial recognition featur...

11 Jun 40min

Trump Foe Mounts Competitive Senate Bid in Florida

When Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vindman, a key witness in President Trump’s first impeachment trial, announced he was running for one of Florida’s senate seats, he was considered a longshot....

9 Jun 39min

The AI IPO Race Gets Weird; Elon Musk Sued By DOGE Whistleblower; Instagram's Hacking Incident

This week, the team discusses why the race among the top AI companies to go public has just gotten started but it is already creating bizarre repercussions — including numerous San Francisco real esta...

4 Jun 26min

The Tech Behind McLaren Racing’s F1 Dominance

Formula 1 racing is a global phenomenon. McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown joins Katie to break down the historic turnaround of one of motorsport’s most iconic legacy teams. After turning around a decades-...

2 Jun 38min

How Crypto Scam Compounds Use Romance to Make Billions

Last year, a mysterious source reached out to WIRED’s senior writer Andy Greenberg — someone who claimed to be an engineer trapped in a scam compound in Laos. According to the whistleblower, the compo...

28 Mai 16min

How the Internet Could Help the Iranian People

It has been nearly three months since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran. Journalist Jason Rezaian, a former detainee of the Iranian regime, talks about its brutality - and his hopes for the...

26 Mai 43min