A Fully Integrated Web-VR World, Not A Distant Dream Anymore

Imagine this. You just don’t have to pop over to Facebook on your web browser to check your feed.

12:50 05 August 2020

You don’t have to launch the app on your phone either. Just strap on a VR headset to get automatically ported to the walled garden of your Facebook where a whole new world of augmented/virtual reality awaits. That’s what the tech giant is working towards. A world where there are no clear boundaries between work, play, networking and entertainment. This might sound a little overambitious and farfetched now but we’re slowly but surely getting there, bit by bit. Step by step.

 

Although how tech companies are pulling their strings to bring their futuristic vision to fruition is beyond the scope of this piece, let’s back up a little to see where we’ve come from.

 

What looked impossible to achieve a few years ago is now commonly seen in many new VR devices. But what stands out is how the scope of VR has extended into new applications in just a few years. To put things in perspective, the world of VR has expanded its horizons and still continues to push into new boundaries. Just think about it. Many VR headsets that came out a few years ago were not built to handle even bog-standard web browsers. And not many browsers were smart enough to handle VR content. But the landscape has radically changed and how. It was just the beginning for web browsing in VR and we’ve really made good progress since. Experimental versions of some popular browsers, like Chrome Canary, were rolled out, and along came many new purpose-built web libraries, APIs and specifications like webVR showing great promise in extending the functionality of the VR headsets to a greater degree.

 

Advanced versions having better compatibility with VR, superior features and wider support replaced them and as a result it’s now easier to experience the web in virtual reality. Yes, that doesn’t sound real. But, you can now navigate a whole world of applications and browse through websites in VR without any issues in VR. Just connect your phone or computer to your VR headset. That’s all it takes. With the world wide web made more accessible through VR, it was easy to view and interact with websites, move back and forth between 2D and 3D immersive content experience, follow through links between pages. Creating, enjoying and sharing VR experiences on the web was never the same. Sites started tapping the power of VR to deliver standard content in fascinating forms, with some sites offering a blown-out, completely immersive VR experience and some allowing users to dip their toes in the world of VR with standard features such as look around in 360 degrees. A host of websites wanted to jump on the bandwagon and started exploring how they can dish up a solid VR experience to their users. And this created a spiral which didn’t even spare online casinos and gaming websites. There is a new trend among online casinos to go VR direction and some of them are working on new technologies in the field, but before you choose an online casinos make sure you read a review from a trusted source like casinofy.com.

 

The web-VR ecosystem has quickly picked up steam for sure but we have just scratched the surface in terms of unlocking the true potential of a unified web-VR interface. Leading tech companies like Google and Mozilla are spearheading the effort to create VR enabled browsers with a robust framework that makes it easy for web and VR to converge into a single point. And that means more platforms and networks will come to the fore and more VR applications with distinctive capabilities will follow. And, they’re clearly working with the larger goal in mind- VR supplanting the web to create a virtual platform where it’s easier to work, play, interact and socialize. The idea of living in the walled garden of Facebook might sound a bit too futuristic at the moment, but it won’t be too long before accessing the web in VR becomes more and more mainstream.