Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
It's funny.  Laugh. Technology

VR to the ER: Metaverse Early Adopters Prove Accident Prone (wsj.com) 74

Tally includes broken vases, dislocated shoulders, injured girlfriends; "Why don't you go to the gym like a normal person?" WSJ: A few hours after Toby Robicelli first strapped on the $300 virtual-reality headset he got for Christmas, the Baltimore teenager, who was playing a shooter game called "Superhot VR," lost his balance and fractured his kneecap. "We set it up around 2:00," said Toby's mother, Allison Robicelli, of the tech gadget, "and by 8:00 we were on our way to the ER." She fainted when she saw his leg, she said, and Toby, 14, is now using crutches. Sales of VR headsets rose more than 70% last year from 2020, according to International Data Corp., to 7.9 million units. Demand is driven in part by rising hype around the metaverse, a term proponents use to describe a future 3-D version of the internet, comprising virtual worlds where people will get together to work, learn and play. With interest in the devices growing, so is their reputation for being a source of pain and embarrassment.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

VR to the ER: Metaverse Early Adopters Prove Accident Prone

Comments Filter:
  • by sjames ( 1099 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2022 @05:40PM (#62228153) Homepage Journal

    Shouldn't that foot be in a cast?

  • by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2022 @05:43PM (#62228165)

    This is why the wiimote has a strap. This is not a new problem. People do dumb things, its not technology's fault.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • A hundred million years ago or so, when I was in high school, the computer lab teacher had a sign on his desk. "To error is human. It takes a computer to really foul things up!"

      We've just hit the point where the computers are helping us enhance our clumsiness, instead of just our general stupidity.

      • by narcc ( 412956 )

        In our school computer lab, we had a poster of a monster eating a floppy disk that read "Always back up your data, or your data will meet a horrible fata!" There were others, but that's the only one I remember.

        If anyone knows anything about those posters, who made them or where I might find someone selling them, I'd love to get a copy of them for the computer lab here.

    • This is why the wiimote has a strap. This is not a new problem. People do dumb things, its not technology's fault.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      It is if the "dumb thing" is simply using the technology as intended.

      I don't have much experience with VR games. But if the game incentives vigorously moving around while obstructing the user's vision then accidents are somewhat inevitable.

      • > if the game incentives vigorously moving around while obstructing the user's vision then accidents are somewhat inevitable

        Umm, maybe you should understand and be prepared for what using VR entails and make an appropriate space for it. Just like the guy in the video I linked could have just put on the strap. If you strap a vision blocking device on your head and you start flailing around and you break something then you only have yourself to blame.

    • The wii strap prevents you from losing your balance?

      Jokes aside there's a lot of technology which goes into protecting users in their home. The latest Quest 2 Guardian (which it demands you setup when you first put on the headset in a new environment) now not only maps out walls but also furniture so you don't trip over your couch when in VR.

      It can't do much about animals or kids coming into the room though.

  • I blame the parent there.

    I have on occasion allowed children and teenagers to use my VR system. It was quite instructive how addictive it is to undeveloped brains, even in its current, primitive form. There's no way I would let a teenager use VR for any length of time. Their brains are already addicted easily to screens and the instant gratification that comes from modern, immersive games.

    I started using a computer when I was 6 years old, but it was quite a different thing back then. I spent my time explo

    • by caseih ( 160668 )

      Oh my. I previewed that before posting and still got it wrong. I meant to say computing as a child did *not* do me more harm than good. It was a positive, good thing! For the record. Sigh.

    • Don't forget that we were limited by the hardware too back then (512KB RAM, segment/offset architecture, floppies, etc). It required serious creativity to stay within the limits of the hardware and quite a few people got really good at it. Nowadays, you want to allocate 2GB RAM or use 2TB of disk space? No problem. Just allocate and waste those system resources.

    • "more harm than good" - BASIC harmed many inquiring minds. At least this kid's knee will sort-of heal.
      • by caseih ( 160668 )

        Haha. Yes I misspoke there. Despite BASIC, it did me more good than harm! I don't think I've ever met an actual programmer who was harmed by BASIC .

    • by caseih ( 160668 )

      I suspect those who modded that comment down were not parents and haven't seen first-hand the problems this stuff is causing. Seriously. Phones are enough of a problem. say no to Meta's version of the metaverse. (Actually say no to Meta period.)

  • Does any one have the rom's / HDD for that game?

    • I remember that from the 90s ( early 2000s ? ) !!! I never found one again. They had that VR arcade at my game store when I was a teen. It definitely factored in my choice of career :p
  • Aside from niche use cases VR and AR are effectively dead before they even launch.

    The user base of these products always plateau out to something so trivial that it's not worth supporting anymore. VR is like a honey trap for big tech CEO's. It pretends to offer an unexplored land of riches and wonders. But in reality it's just a giant whirlpool sucking in money.

    We are many decades away from any sort of technological interface that will enable a seamless experience in a VR like setting. Goggles and sticks

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by Megane ( 129182 )

        The goggles and sticks are awkward at first but you do get used to them.
        Twisting and pushing virtual buttons and dials using the controllers is definitely a thing you have to practice.

        But is it worth all the effort? Is it fun enough to do this all the time? Would you really play more than, say, ten hours of this every week?

        And ask yourself: when is the last time you watched a 3D movie? Why aren't you watching 3D movies more often? Is it the cost of the equipment? (you need a TV and player supporting 3D, goggles, and some movies, do they even have them on streaming?) Are there just not many movies? (maybe they're too troublesome to make, maybe not enough people care to watch them?) Then

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • by upuv ( 1201447 )

            Costco sells crap it can buy in bulk for cheap and sell at just less than the other guy. They usually have a restock deal with the supplier as well. So if it doesn't sell they just return it.

        • by upuv ( 1201447 )

          I truly have to agree,

          VR is just taking longer to die off than 3D Movies, and curved TV's did.

          But some CEO will dump tons of money into again and again. As the pot at the end of the rainbow is just so damn temping. But right now that pot of gold is just a shiny illusion.

          Yes there is going to be the odd person that is "super" into it. It's likely they can't really see that the masses are just flat out rejecting VR. The sales of headset are rising but they are simply trivial in number compared to the pop

    • Aside from the (more obvious) game use-case, I imagine being able to have a massive "desktop" in around me and just work on whatever whenever. I'm not sure how a video call would go with my team though - if we're all using avatars, then there's little point having video switched on at all.

      Over the years people have experimented with "3d desktops" - they've never worked out, mainly (IMHO) because a mouse is 2D and so is a monitor. When relieved of those constraints, a 3D desktop where you push a window away

  • Fool's story (Score:2, Interesting)

    As a responsible VR owner I have emptied out the room my VR gear is in. I wear blue foam knee pads, crocs and sweatbands to play, not a joke. It is pretty easy to get into it and drop to your knee to take cover and shoot only to find your knee crushed under your own weight into some hardwood flooring. Think about what you are about to do, like for longer than 15 seconds. Personally I don't drive and have no desire to sweat it out in a gym like a 'normal person' and gyms don't tend to have immersive art and
    • by dohzer ( 867770 )

      It is pretty easy to get into it and drop to your knee to take cover and shoot only to find your knee crushed under your own weight into some hardwood flooring.

      Really? I've never been that immersed in a VR game. Nor have I had the motion sickness a lot of my friends complain of.

      I can't imagine how immersed someone would need to feel to forget they're in a game, even after spending more than half an hour admiring a single scene in Half-Life: Alyx on more than one occasion.

      • Personally, Super Hot, Space Pirate Trainer, Gorn, Rec Room and a few others can really get me into the action and moving throughout the space I have. The speeds at which one may move could be quick to avoid bullets, lasers, etc. and you're surrounded by what? Drywall, plaster, brick, wood, people? The safety concerns around home VR are typically laughed at in videos of people breaking stuff, which is why I kind of like this story. People should be safe when using VR and really dedicate, dare I say it, a 's
    • VR or not, dropping on a knee without a kneepad is a fools game, paintball or military exercises, of course there is a rock right under your knee. Knees are not evolved to be used that way.
  • by self-inflicted ( 6168820 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2022 @06:52PM (#62228409)
    When you set these things up, they make you draw a boundary around an area that's safe to play in. They make you re-draw it if you move, and keep making you re-draw it frequently even if you don't. If you allow stuff in the safe zone that will hurt you when you hit it, that's on you.

    As long as you stay within the safe zone (the software clearly alerts you when you get to the edge), there is zero risk of being hurt aside from what you can do swinging your arms around in a meadow. Although I personally prefer weightlifting, it's actually pretty good exercise, particularly the way it can detect when you squat. This article is pure anti-VR clickbait.
  • Get woke, get broke

  • Swivel chairs have always been the objectively most suitable movement platform for home use of VR. Yet headsets have lacked support for it.

    If Occulus had launched with a rotating coupling and ceiling/frame cable mount for swivel chair use it could have set a good trend, instead it set a crippling trend.

  • An article with a great subject line
  • Eventually someone will sue for getting hurt while using a virtual-reality headset. A $$$ hungry lawyer will be there to help.
  • Just visit Google [google.com]
  • That's as stupid as saying "We purchased a bicycle for little Johnny and within hours we were at ER with a broken kneecap".
  • worlds-tiniest-violin.gif playing a really tinny tune, really badly.

Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.

Working...