VIDEO: IS IT POSSIBLE TO FALL IN LOVE IN VIRTUAL REALITY?
Rewind to 2013 where the movie Her, written by Spike Jonze, shows a lonely writer developing an unlikely relationship with an operating system. Oculus has now launched a new experiment called 'Fall in Love' which is a VR experiment for the Rift headset. Oculus plans to launch the experiment on the Gear VR next week, giving users a unique first-person conversation experience that aims to see if it is possible to fall in love in virtual reality.
The project was inspired by a New York Times Best-Selling piece called The 36 Questions That Lead To Love and seeks to give people the opportunity to ask these questions in a virtual reality setting. Users start by choosing an actor they would want to fall in love with, then continue by asking a series of specific questions that will garner voice-driven responses from the chosen actor.
The idea behind the whole thing is realism, letting users feel as if they were actually talking with another person in the same room as themselves as they ask these questions. The app uses voice recognition software to capture the questions asked by the user, and responses are said to be timed in such a way that it feels as natural as possible and more immersive as if everything was happening in real life.
The video is not all that great and does not carry the idea over very well unless you know a bit more about the whole experiment. The actors that people can interact within this experience are not computer generated or avatars and the entire set of people you can ask questions to includes five different people in total – two women and three men.
The actors sat across from their significant others when facing the cameras and being asked all these personal questions so that they could make each person feel comfortable and get as natural of a response as possible. This was so that when users ask the questions during the experience, they will be getting real answers that are filled with vulnerability and emotion to make the experience feel much more real. Fall In Love is a free download for those that are interested and it’s already available on the Oculus Store.