CCTV9英语新闻：How far is virtual reality from the real world?

Virtual Reality is already the biggest investment story of 2016. This pioneering technology has promised a future that only exists in sci-fi movies. How far away is that future?  How real does VR feel?  Our reporter Ge Yunfei went to the Virtual Reality Summit of Global Innovator Conference in Beijing to find out.

 

Have you ever wanted to fight robots in space wars? Fire away! In an anti-Alien-invasion fight, I'm protecting the earth in a space station. This is a demo of the virtual reality game--Star Core.

 

Not only in space, but also back on earth, high up on Qomolangma, also known as Mount Everest.

In the freezing cold, I'm inching across the sky ladder toward the world's highest peak.

At least for me, this game successfully simulates a real experience of danger and beauty.

 

The experiences are all at the VR Summit of Global Innovator Conference on April 9th.  It rallied the best VR developers from the world, from China in particular.

 

The word I hear most summit is revolution.

 

While China's VR developers are aiming to revolutionize the world--and the Chinese entertainment businesses can hardly wait to embrace this revolution.

 

Observe, rotate, turn around...VR injects a real sense of movement into games or films. This is created by Magical World, a VR content provider that was just established last year. Already, thousands of companies like Magical World have sprung up in China, hoping to ride the first wave of the VR explosion.

 

It's more than just gaming.  This technology called SightPano can provide a livestream of a panoramic view of the exhibition hall.  This has the potential to fundamentally change the future of TV.

 

2016 has been dubbed, by many, the Year of Virtual Reality. Many hope it will be the start of  the big bang of VR applications. But can VR in 2016 achieve the same kind of wide success that smartphones did in 2006?

 

Well, it'll be much quicker than you think, according to Wang Congqing, whose company developed one of the world's best VR headsets.

 

"VR devices will overtake the smartphones in 4-5 years. In 5-10 years, nobody will need a computer or a smartphone," Wang Congqing, president of HTC VR Division of China, said.

 

"The experience of VR is so real that....it's just the beginning," Elijah Freeman, execitive producer of Crytek said.

 

A storm of VR is sweeping the tech world. And perhaps one day movies like Inception will be something not just to watch, but to experience.