EsRealidadVirtual 2017 highlighted the most human and social side of technology

In addition to the intervention of different experts, whose presentations focused on the uses and applications of this technology, Attendees were able to enjoy experiences with the main VR devices on the market: HTC Vive, Google Day Dreams, Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR y Fove.

The University Center for Technology and Digital Art, U-tad, The second edition of the EsRealidadVirtual event was held at Campus Madrid, where experts and professionals from various sectors shared their knowledge about virtual reality and its multiple uses, a technology that took off in 2016 and which still has much to offer.

“Virtual reality is not a bubble, goes forward. It is something that brands and major media outlets are taking very seriously.”, declared Edgar Martín-Blas, CEO of New Horizons VR and director of the Production Specialization Certificate for Virtual and Augmented Reality at U-tad, during his presentation 'Virtual reality invades everything'.

VR is not only a technology with application in the recreational field but also offers new ways of educating and telling stories and which encompasses “all types of sectors.”, clients and projects. “We are only at the beginning”, concluded Martín-Blas.

Laura Raya, expert in virtual reality and responsible for this discipline at the U-tad University Center, presented in his presentation 'Cicero: VR Speech Coach’, a project that helps students with Asperger syndrome overcome, thanks to training, the difficulties they have when presenting in public or working in groups. “This technology has a very good capacity to be adapted to multiple environments.”, like accessibility, medicine, architecture… The immersive capacity of VR makes us feel present in a different world and move forward in it as if it were the real world”.

Laura Raya invited attendees who are working in virtual reality to, like U-tad, bet on social projects, since it is “the best way to change and improve the world. Guide VR projects towards accessibility, "Equality or disability has a very great reward for oneself and for society.", Raya expressed.

The psychologist Luis Miguel Samperio assured that “virtual reality is going to play a fundamental role in the design of happiness”. Human beings tend to quickly forget positive experiences and torment themselves with negative ones.. This technology can help us change that perception. It has the ability to induce the state of flow, the most addictive state, pleasant and well-being that exists”.

Samperio also talked about where this technology can go. There are trends that indicate that, from here to 20 o 30 years, virtual reality with glasses becomes within our own nervous system.

In his presentation, Sexologist Ángela Aznárez Gámez explained the relationship between virtual reality and sexuality. “VR has a lot to do in helping victims of sexual abuse who have post-traumatic stress disorder”.

Platforms such as 'EMMA's World' have been created, Aimed at psychologists and mental health professionals, which uses scenarios that represent the event experienced by the person in the most realistic way possible so that they can cope with the situation in a controlled environment. The sexologist also presented projects that use virtual reality for education and sexual self-knowledge such as OMG Yes or Virtual Sexology.

Immersive demos

In the demonstration area, thanks to HTC Vive, Day Dreams de Google, Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR y FOVE, attendees were able to live different immersive experiences.

They became a drop of water that filters until it reaches a secret spring, They put themselves in the shoes of a Syrian child who suffers the consequences of the war (ashes), were introduced into a human body with type A and B diabetes to learn more about this disease, They toured the painting 'The Garden of Earthly Delights' by Hieronymus Bosch, as if you were part of it and thus discover every detail (ImmersArt), among many other experiences.

You could also play Farpoint, the PS VR game that uses the new Aim Controller.

https://youtu.be/zFOkOkoOtUM