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When the first pictures of the Oculus Rift were released online, I had my doubts. Touted as a breakthrough virtual reality headset, it looked more like a Cyclops visor – a clumsy design still in concept development.
But fast-forward to three years later (after an unexpectedly successful Kickstarter campaign and a R4.7 billion buyout by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg) and the slick, smooth device I now have attached to my face feels more like a pair of Ray-Bans than a B-grade sci-fi movie prop.
But that’s before it turns on – a moment I won’t soon forget.
I had read somewhere that it was akin to a 3-D computer screen, so I envisioned a high-quality Avatar-type experience, with things coming at my head and flying dust particles everywhere. But this was not that.
Imagine you are standing on a glass plinth in a spherical room where all the walls are made of TV screens – and suddenly, as opposed to simply watching a movie that plays out in front of you, you now control what you want to see. Sound good? Wait until you fall headlong into the 1s and 0s of the matrix.
My stomach lurched as it happened, making my legs leaden and heavy. Suddenly you’re inside a computer, moving through cyberspace, not entirely sure where reality ends and the virtual world begins.
From being in an office block in grey, dusty Rivonia, I was now in the hills of Durban, running alongside Bruce Fordyce. He was telling me things I couldn’t actually process right then as I turned my head around, looking at the road behind me, my brain exploding from the visual onslaught.
Now there were cliffs to my right where the office wall used to be, tarmac was moving beneath my feet where the laminate flooring was. I was literally sweating from excitement.
I am here because Hero, the ad agency behind this extrasensory virtual experience, decided to take the road to the runners by giving them a heads up of what to expect from this year’s Comrades race. They imported six of these cutting edge devices – the first batch to make it to our shores.
Standing at Cowies Hill (where a passing car nearly knocked digital-me over), Bruce was saying that if by this point I am tired, I probably won’t finish the race. I understood. I could feel myself being there and recognised the usefulness of this type of instruction.
When Zuckerberg said in a status update that the Oculus Rift was “the clear leader in something that has the potential to be one of the next most important computing platforms”, he underplayed it.
Find out more at oculus.com
