I remember it being 1996, flipping to the back of Girl's Life Magazine, to a directory of websites I could visit; it was a short list. After I had exhausted Yahoo Kids and this, I really wasn't sure where else to go. There was still a lot unsafe things for kids at the time and so my access was quite limited. 

Naturally, when a technology is new, content is a bit sparse. It was probably the same with books when the printing press was developed, and the same with TV when that got started.  If you don't think so, look, this TechCrunch article said so, and they, at this moment are more credible than me. 

This has been the most difficult post to write so far, because it required hours of scouring the internet, 403's, bad writing, outdated information, missing information, information written for experts and so on. Oh, and also, to be a real boss at coding for VR/AR requires an understanding of the underlying elements like geometry and objects and even more dense information like this. It's enough to deter the average person, but let's chug on. 

Questions to ask before getting into it, or questions in general... 
What kind of AR/VR do you want to make? Mobile or PC/System based? 
Mobile: Unity (see below) 
PC/System: Unity or Unreal 

​If you're wondering, what's an SDK? Software development kit; set of tools that allow you to build whatever it is you're trying to build. Here's a chart to compare the different ones.  

For Beginners:  
Unity3d. You can do very basic things without any programming knowledge, but as soon as it's a bit more complex, you'll need to know Javascript or C#. Worth noting Unity also has built in support for Oculus 
Unreal Engine: C++ 

For Experienced Programmers: 
ARToolKit (recommended open source) 

Core Languages to Know: 
Javascript, C#, C/C++ 

Good answer to this question on Reddit 

YouTube Tutorials on Basics of Making Games: 
The Making of Google Cardboard Games Ep. 1 - Unity SDK Intro 
Setting Up Google Cardboard Unity SDK and Unity Navigation Plug-in 
Create a Virtual Reality Game in Seven Minutes (Google Cardboard) 
Tutorial: How to Build a Mobile VR Game with Unity (Google Cardboard) 

Official Resources from the Makers Themselves: 
Samsung GearVR
Google Cardboard
Oculus Rift  

Originally this post was supposed to be about Microsoft HoloLens but I thought I'd take a step back and explain more on the differences between Virtual Reality  and Augmented Reality. 

Virtural Realty (VR) is a computer generated simulation of an environment. It's not a real place, yet with the use of a headset, you feel as though you are there, with a 360 degree view of everything and ability to interact with objects or scenes (though can be limited). You can manipulate the world around you. 

Augmented Reality (AR) is a live view of a physical environment that has elements that are generated by a computer. For example, I was at the opening of the Globe Store in Greenbelt where you could set up AR viewing and when you opened your camera phone, you could look around the store but Star Wars characters would appear. Augmented reality is much closer to the real world, well, mostly because it incorporates the actual real world in it. Common usages right now are during sports games, in video games, etc. 

What's Better? / More Promising? / Really the Future? 
It depends. It's too early to tell, but from what I've seen via the HoloLens, AR will be more accepted and have more applicability and use cases in the more immediate future. VR, for the moment, is quite limited to gaming. 

Applications; 
Military, Sports, Adult Industry, Retail, Gaming, Education, Medical, Real Estate/Infrastructure

So much has been going on in the last few days in the VR world, it's been overwhelming. A few days ago, (3/26/16), the very first Oculus Rift was shipped, at the high but not horrifying price of 599 USD. 

Immediately, those lucky enough to get their hands on a set were sharing their thoughts. From hardcore gaming community to tech writers, what seemed to be the general consensus is: the headset is awesome, it looks great, you are very much transported to another world, but for now it's only advisable for those early adopters in the gaming world. Everyone, however, agrees it's the beginning of a game changer. I've summarized my findings below. 

Some issues with this version: 
-Associated hardware is very costly. Will set you back another few thousand USD 
-Issues of motion sickness with the headset on haven't fully been resolved 
-Even at barely a pound in weight, it leaves marks on your face if worn too long, like ski goggles, maybe not such a big deal 
-Isn't "room scale" meaning you're expected to be seated or standing and not move more than a few feet (don't walk around, you'll get injured like me) 
-Peripheral vision is limited
-No hand controllers yet. Still interacting with games the same, old fashioned way, even if the experience is different. 
-Game installation seems to be annoying and complicated 

But the good parts: 
-Images are very clear. You can adjust the distance between your eyes to match what yours actually are. If set up correctly, the image is incredibly clear. This is called the interpupilary distance (IPD) and effects your focus on images 
-Looking around is smooth sailing. 90-frames-per-second refresh rate is very smooth and you don't get any kind of visual lag that you do with lesser equipment (which is the case with a lot of mobile VR right now) 
-Great accessories. Comes with 3D Audio earphones and a controller that seem to do their jobs well 
-Doesn't obstruct your mouth so you can eat and drink without taking it off (serious plus for serious gamers or entertainment consumers, though I'm not sure how you'd see what you're eating, until they figure out how to incorporate human sustenance into the view field 

For more details and reviews: 
Dan Stapleton, IGN 
Adi Robertson, The Verge 
Geoffrey Fowler, WSJ 
On launch games 

​Oculus as a company has played a huge part of the accelerated widespread acceptance of VR. I have to admit I'm part of this group. VR has been here for a long time, but Facebook's 2014 acquisition of the Kickstarter funded company was an integral part of validating the space. Imagine like you were just doing you, and then one day Leo DiCaprio wants to hang out with you, without any change, you're suddenly more cool and accepted. Same principle of social proofing applies. Everyone loves Facebook, right, even if you don't, you still use it or at the very least know about it. Mark Z know this is the future. He's often said the mind is the next frontier. 

Oculus was founded in 2012 by Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe in Irvine, CA. It was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for 2 billion USD. 
More on Oculus 

Today I suffered my (hopefully last, probably not), VR related injury. It happened at a retail store on 60th and Madison Ave, New York, which upon Googling, appears to be Tods, though in Youvisit is a high end retailer. 

I may form a bruise on my arm because I bumped into a wall attempting to get closer to some watches. It was frustrating; I would physically move forward and nothing would happen, I instinctively would reach out and touch, with no gratification. Most importantly, I wanted to do these things because I wanted to buy. 

I was skeptical of the application of VR for retail, thinking it should be used for more productive purposes, but after seeing the vivid scenes of the store, take that thought back completely. Though the experience was missing things- ability to touch, sounds of the store, a friendly person to assist you, and even that department store smell (maybe in the future there will be scent cartridges, like ink, that you can insert into the viewer!), I can see how this can be so powerful and possibly addicting. I'm not much for gaming, but for a woman, sure, I'll fall into the stereotype, I do like to shop and could get addicted to this! 

My favorite department store is Nordstroms; I live in the Philippines right now. I miss it there. I used to frequent their stores in Downtown Seattle, Bellevue, and Union Square. What if I could just go there right now? Buy all these things? YES PLEASE! Not sure how they'll get their branded bottled water to me though. Maybe with the help of a 3D printer that's in my fridge, haha. 

But I digress, let's review the app: 

First Impressions: 
The navigation is like a spaceship dashboard. Looks pretty cool. You do all the choosing inside the headset already instead of before, like with Vrse. 

Experience: 
There are so many different categories to choose from: Real Estate, Travel, Restaurant, Most Popular, Live Events, College, Hotel, Business, Venue, Other (porn? haha just kidding; wonder how they'll age verify that- hey your eyes are the size of a 12 year old, access denied!) 

The first one I chose was travel. I went to the Lourve in Paris, which I'd like to say I picked because I've been there, which is true, but in reality I picked it because the cursor was moving too quickly and accidentally ended up there. 

The first thing that came out of my mouth was *oly *uck. Really, looking around everything was just like it. Even the prototypical tourists. The sounds were there! But then the app kind of hung. I was having a hard time getting out, but eventually was able to. 

Last Word: 
I like this app a lot but I think it might be better if it were more focused; same can be said of Vrse. I don't see myself having a burning desire to open the app the way I felt about 2048 or Facebook. Is that what we should aim for with VR? Remains to be seen. 

I downloaded Vrse at the recommendation of my friend. He told me it was snippets of random stuff, and that it is. 

First Impressions 
When you open it, you scroll down and it a series of banners that are like movie posters. The first one I see at the top is called, "The Source" from charity:water. I was in an area without wifi and attempted to stream this because downloading wasn't an option. I discourage this method, at least in a place with conditions like mine. The picture quality was awful and intermittent. 

When I'm finally back at wifi, I reopen the app and keep scrolling until something interests me, and finally stop at at NYTVr's "Take Flight" it the cover photo looks creepy enough, with a girl suspended in the air in the classic horror movie garb of a white nightgown. She's contorted into an pseudo Exorcist style position. Naturally I gravitate toward this one. Download. 

Experience
Wow. You start on the ground of what I think is New York City (the fact I can't tell immediately says a something of both me and the app, I suppose), then slowly but briskly, you start to levitate! It REALLY FEELS as if you are ascending. It's wild. 

Within a few seconds you're in space. Creepy factor also ascends to another level, as people start appearing. Celebrities. Stationary. Why aren't they moving? I think to myself. They're just suspended there all around you as you look around. 

Then, without warning, in the distance someone comes running toward you and shards of glass fly in your face as if he has broken glass to run toward you. He's not in love with you ladies, I'm not sure what the point is, but it looks cool AF. I'm not sure who put shards of glass on the drawing board, but I got goosebumps because I knew my face should be getting cut up and it wasn't. Lots of conflicting emotions here, as you can see. Pain, wonder, pleasure, awe, fear... it's like really nothing that I know to describe or have an imagination wild enough to make an accurate analogy. 

Then all of a sudden, you begin to fall, it's sudden. Then you're on the ground. The End. 

...

Some of the other titles include: 
A History of Cuban Dance
The Displaced (NYT) 
My Mother's Wing 
Virtual Giving Trip brought to you by Toms 
Walking New York (NYT Magazine) 

As you may deduce from the titles, these are largely videos that will take you to difference places and or experiences. Very serious ones, in fact. They are cool, interesting topics from a educational perspective, not really for getaway entertainment. 

Last Word: 
Would download it, but not sure how often content will be refreshed for me to keep it on as a stationary app. Content seems to be quality. Nicely curated list of videos. 

Update as of 5/11/16- never actually opened it again after this experience. Nothing compelling to bring it back. Deleted the app to free up storage. Nice to try it once. 

My brother got this birthday present that he couldn't figure out so I decided I would tinker with it. I've worked in tech in the past in non-technical positions but anyone not in tech in SV will assume that you are great with computers or anything related, and throw hardware problems with you as if you're a doctor and they handed you a stethoscope, with eyes that say, "do something, fix it now." 

This present was Cardboard, as pictured above. (www.imcardboard.com). As you can see from the photos, the packaging is pretty, but not friendly to anyone that isn't familiar with VR. I consider myself a fairly intelligent person and had some challenges figuring it out, so did my brother, who was better in school, so even better at following instructions than me. 

First Impressions: Looks 
Initial impressions: wtf is this? Looks super cool, but wtf is this? I must investigate. 

"On-Boarding": Personality 
Let's analyze the instructions:
​There are three basic steps. Super easy to follow because they are physical actions with the headset. The only instruction beyond that is to Scan your QR Code. There's a QR code on the side. I was like, ok, I will download a QR reader. Downloaded. 

I try to scan it. It comes up blank. Hmmm what now? I'll go to the website. 

Website tries to sell me more stuff. No salvation of any kind. Proceed to inspect packaging further, thinking, this shouldn't be that hard! 

There's a symbol on the back that says "Compatible with Google Cardboard." I thought to myself, ok, so it works with it, but that doesn't mean I need it right? Whatever, I'll just download it anyway. So I downloaded Google Cardboard App from the iOs App Store, insert the phone in the headset as instructed, and was on my way to the awesome demo that Google put together.

What the Real Instructions Should Have Read:
How to Use the DSCVR Cardboard: 
Step 1: Download Google Cardboard or any of the VR Apps listed on our Website (list some apps on the homepage of your site) 
Step 2-4: Current steps 1-3 on the box 
Step 5:  Hold up the viewfinder and make sure the images are in focus. Enjoy! 

Experience: How Was It? 
It was amazing. I felt like I saw a new color. I felt like I saw the future. I felt like I was in the Matrix. I felt like I was 9 and it was 1997 and I was running out of websites to go to but wanted to go to more. 

That's what started the love. I truly believe VR and AR are the future. 

The demo was simple, you can choose from a tutorial, explorer, exhibit, urban hike, kaleidoscope, and arctic journey. The best way I can describe it is that you hold up these glasses and look around and everything is exactly as it would appear as if you were there.

Let's say we took an Urban Hike in Paris. Look to your left, some guard rails and tourists. Look up, it's the Effiel Tower, look to your right, trees, pavement and a walking path. Look behind you? Some people cuddling on a blanket (not really, but if they wanted to make it more real, then yes). 

Or what if we were in the Artic? A bird pops up. You wanna know more about the bird. Why wonder when you can find out?! Move your eyesight next to the bird, press the button on the googles and violia! Instant info. 

The point is, all the things we yearn for, to discover, to be, to learn, to experience, to feel, etc etc are possible. It's early. The graphics are okay.

But the point is, in the future, we don't have to wait. The future is now. Time is the only thing we can't get back; make the most of it. 

Possible / Actual Cons: Kind of a pain to hold up, but you shouldn't be on there for long, which btw, I was informed after I was using it long enough to get a headache, that you're NOT SUPPOSED TO USE IT MORE THAN 15 MINUTES. Yes, that key info was also omitted from the packaging. 

Investment: The price is right. I saw it's 2 USD to 30 USD! Can get up and running in minutes. 

Final Say:
Yes, it's a nice entry level headset that got my interest piqued! Would happily give it to friend to try out.