How close are we to Holodeck technology?

[DaystromDropout]

I can recall listening to my family discussing Roy Orbison and his band from Wink playing at their high school proms. I could envision it, and as the records played imagined what it must have been like.
Then Star Trek came along and we saw how I was not alone, and Rodenberry invisioned that in the future we could turn our imagination into playgrounds called Holodecks- Decks on a starship that created holograms so realistic you would think you were actually there.
We seem to be very close to making Holodecks a reality. I see Roy Orbison In Dreams touring, where a hologram of Roy Orbison, so realistic, plays and reacts to the full orchestra behind him.
We also see how Virtual Reality has become even more realistic as well.
Does anyone else have anymore insights on how much closer we are to actually having virtual playgrounds, like Holodecks?

 

[Finn]

TNG-era holodecks? Not for very long time if ever.

But we might have rooms where we have to wear glasses to view objects. They won't be tactile.

 

[dupersuper]

More relevant to me: how close are we to affordable holodeck technology. Some billion dollar U.S. military experiment won't help me fly like Superman, have sex with movie stars, stand atop Everest, fly a spaceship...

 

[DaystromDropout]

More relevant to me: how close are we to affordable holodeck technology. Some billion dollar U.S. military experiment won't help me fly like Superman, have sex with movie stars, stand atop Everest, fly a spaceship...

How realistic are the VR Goggles? Anyone tried them?

 

[DaystromDropout]

TNG-era holodecks? Not for very long time if ever.

But we might have rooms where we have to wear glasses to view objects. They won't be tactile.

Yeah, the tactile part of the holodeck always annoyed me, but then I get to thinking about the replicator, and I guess it's the same technology that can make the holograms able to be tactile.

 

[at Quark's]

More relevant to me: how close are we to affordable holodeck technology. Some billion dollar U.S. military experiment won't help me fly like Superman, have sex with movie stars, stand atop Everest, fly a spaceship...

But it might get them a step closer to you. Computers started out that way, after all. Then they gradually became affordable for increasingly small companies, and finally, average individuals.

 

[Timo]

The TNG holotech is its own special problem and solution. In reality, it's nigh-impossible to really suspend imagery in empty air: things can only be made to look 3D from a certain vantage point, and two users can't view the same image, then. They will have to view two different images depicting the same thing, which is twice the effort for half the gain. But TNG holodecks actually erect 3D objects in space somehow, so painting 3D imagery on them is sort of trivial.

Realistically, the TNG effect could best be achieved by creating a VR suit around each user, only one that isn't made of clumsy matter in touch with the user but of local projections. But Trek technology apparently makes it easier and more comfortable to create the actual VR environment that can then be observed shirtsleeves by an arbitrary number of arbitrary observers.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

How realistic are the VR Goggles? Anyone tried them?

They're amazing. I have a Valve Index, and it's like stepping into another world, especially playing a AAA game like Half-Life: Alyx. The very first environment I tried? The USS Enterprise. The sets are a lot smaller than they look on TV

Stage 9 was shut down by CBS since it "competes" with their official Trek VR games, but it can still be found and is amazing to explore

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There are also cool Trek-related things to explore like the Roddenberry Nexus on Sansar, a Star Trek museum.

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There's a forthcoming Discovery-based VR game coming called Away Team. If it's the ancient Judgement Rites or A Final Unity in VR it'll be amazing.

 

[Finn]

The people in the first video creeped me out.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The people in the first video creeped me out.

Videogame characters are 10x more creepy and uncanny valley when they're standing right next to you.

 

[Oddish]

Given how unreliable the holodeck safeties are, maybe the operative question is SHOULD we develop them?

 

[DaystromDropout]

They're amazing. I have a Valve Index, and it's like stepping into another world, especially playing a AAA game like Half-Life: Alyx. The very first environment I tried? The USS Enterprise. The sets are a lot smaller than they look on TV

Stage 9 was shut down by CBS since it "competes" with their official Trek VR games, but it can still be found and is amazing to explore

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Accept third party cookies

There are also cool Trek-related things to explore like the Roddenberry Nexus on Sansar, a Star Trek museum.

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Accept third party cookies

There's a forthcoming Discovery-based VR game coming called Away Team. If it's the ancient Judgement Rites or A Final Unity in VR it'll be amazing.

This is incredible. I didn't realize the VR had gotten his interactive. Thanks for sharing

 

[Oddish]

I think that before we have holo tech, we'll have cerebral interface video games, similar in nature to the Matrix. All sensations: smell, taste, touch will be involved. Even pain, if you want it. Hopefully, though, dying in the Matrix won't kill you for real.

 

[at Quark's]

I think that before we have holo tech, we'll have cerebral interface video games, similar in nature to the Matrix. All sensations: smell, taste, touch will be involved. Even pain, if you want it. Hopefully, though, dying in the Matrix won't kill you for real.

You'll probably get such stories, though. You know, how a game addict tweaked the settings just a bit too high, and then died, not because of any direct input from the system, but because of the stress it caused on his system, leading to a heart attack or something similar - leading to vitriolic discussions about how safe these systems really are.

 

[Oddish]

You'll probably get such stories, though. You know, how a game addict tweaked the settings just a bit too high, and then died, not because of any direct input from the system, but because of the stress it caused on his system, leading to a heart attack or something similar - leading to vitriolic discussions about how safe these systems really are.

Oh, indubitably. Anything fun can kill you, if you take it too far.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Having a room with fully 3d holograms seems plausible. Being able to bang them seems much less so.

 

[Orphalesion]

I think that before we have holo tech, we'll have cerebral interface video games, similar in nature to the Matrix. All sensations: smell, taste, touch will be involved. Even pain, if you want it. Hopefully, though, dying in the Matrix won't kill you for real.

Yeah that seems the more "realistic" route. Though even then it probably won't ever be quite as tactile or close to the real thing as the Holodeck is frequently portrayed.

You'll probably get such stories, though. You know, how a game addict tweaked the settings just a bit too high, and then died, not because of any direct input from the system, but because of the stress it caused on his system, leading to a heart attack or something similar - leading to vitriolic discussions about how safe these systems really are.

Or stuff like people starving to death because they stayed hooked into the "Matrix" for days/weeks straight. Though a real life version would probably have a fail safe that forces you off if you stay in it for a period that could get dangerous, but again, somebody could fiddle with the system and deactivate it because they want to live in their simulation all the time.

 

[Ronald Held]

Without replicator technology and tractor/pressor fields, can you make a TNG Holodeck?

 

[Oddish]

Or stuff like people starving to death because they stayed hooked into the "Matrix" for days/weeks straight. Though a real life version would probably have a fail safe that forces you off if you stay in it for a period that could get dangerous, but again, somebody could fiddle with the system and deactivate it because they want to live in their simulation all the time.

As long as we've been introducing new tech, people have been figuring out ways to kill themselves or others with it. Everything from fire and stone axes, all the way through lasers and computers.

 

[Orphalesion]

As long as we've been introducing new tech, people have been figuring out ways to kill themselves or others with it. Everything from fire and stone axes, all the way through lasers and computers.

True, after all there's also people who give themselves strokes (sometimes fatal) from excessive gaming. And a few months ago I read an article about a guy who died from eating excessive amounts of licorice. Licorice. Something in it caused his heart to stop iirc. But he ate like really huge amounts of it, and every day for a long time.