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Uncanny Valley | WIRED

Visualizing VR’s Future

Uncanny Valley | WIRED

WIRED

Technology

4.1571 Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2022

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Mike.

0:01.0

Hi, Lauren.

0:02.0

Hi, Mike.

0:03.0

When's the last time you hung out with a friend in VR?

0:07.0

Never.

0:08.0

Literally never.

0:09.0

Never have.

0:10.0

All of my VR excursions into the Metaverse have been solo so far.

0:17.0

What are you doing in there?

0:19.0

Playing games, moving things around.

0:25.6

Well, Mike, despite how fun VR can be, not a lot of people have gotten into it.

0:26.5

That's very true.

0:28.9

It's still less than mainstream.

0:29.9

That's correct.

0:31.0

We should talk about this.

0:31.9

Let's do it. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior writer at Wired. And I am Michael

0:44.4

Coloria. I'm a senior editor at Wired. And this week, we have a very special guest. We're joined by

0:49.2

Wired writer Boone Ashworth, who is typically here in the room with us for this podcast because he's the

0:55.4

producer of this show. And he gets to hear all of our inane dialogue every week. And now he gets

1:00.6

to participate in it too. Hey, Boone. Hi. How's he going? It's weird to be on this side of the

1:06.5

mic. I'm so excited. Yeah, listeners may know Boone is the voice of the ad. Yeah. Because he reads most of our ads. Do you like this mattress in a box? Yeah. He's like our Paul to David Letterman. Exactly. Yeah. Also, Boone Ashworth is his real name. Yeah. Like, it's such a cool name. It sounds made up, but it's real. Yeah, I blame my parents. Hi, Mom. Who's,

1:28.6

who's running the board, man? I don't know. I guess we'll see how this goes. What could

...

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