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Is Virtual Reality the Future? Facebook Thinks So.

Facebook is now Meta. Well, kind of. Last month, Facebook changed its parent company’s name to Meta, a nod to the company’s growing focus on the “metaverse.” Now, this doesn’t mean you’ll be liking vacation photos on meta.com any time soon. The company that owns Facebook is now Meta, not the social network itself. But why did Facebook change its name? First and foremost, it signals a shift away from social media, toward a more unique (and less controversial) form of technology: Virtual reality. 

Although virtual reality has existed in some form for decades, the technology is now becoming advanced enough to offer legitimately useful features to consumers and businesses. For example, Meta showed off its VR prototype during its name-change announcement video. The company showed off a virtual meeting room filled with cartoon avatars. The goal, Meta states, is to create a virtual meeting place that is nearly indistinguishable from a real meeting place. With more people working from home than ever before, this appears to be a useful goal. After all, Zoom meetings simply don’t have the same amount of interactivity and socialization as in-person meetings. VR could very well become the future of work. However, the widespread adoption of VR technology is still a long way away.

The History of Virtual Reality

The origin, and even the definition, of virtual reality is disputed [1]. After all, modern VR headsets are what the public thinks of when “virtual reality” is mentioned, but technology that advanced simply didn’t exist just a few decades ago. However, virtual reality experiences have still existed for decades. One of the first items that could be considered a virtual reality product is the View-Master, a goggles-like device that showed stereoscopic photographs. When utilized correctly, the user’s entire field of vision was dominated by the three-dimensional image. Although primitive, the View-Master may have been the first virtual reality device to appeal to the general consumer. This product ultimately highlighted just how immersive future virtual reality technology could be.

Beginning in the 1960s, researchers began to realize the potential of this futuristic technology. Specifically, they began to utilize virtual reality for military and flight simulations [2]. This allowed soldiers and pilots to train under realistic circumstances. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, virtual reality was mostly used as a training tool for professionals, as the technology was far too expensive for mass-market appeal. 

However, beginning in the 1990s, VR technology became advanced (and inexpensive) enough for companies to begin crafting virtual reality experiences for the general consumer. Ever since then, virtual reality has become intertwined with the gaming industry. In the early 1990s, video game giants Nintendo and Sega began creating virtual reality consoles, with marketing that promised to transport players to an immersive, realistic world [3]. The hype of virtual reality was at an all-time high. However, this optimism soon began to dwindle. In 1995, Nintendo released the Virtual Boy, a virtual reality video game console [2]. However, soon after its release, consumers were quick to point out the major drawbacks of virtual reality. The console itself was uncomfortable and dizzying, and only showed games in black and red [4]. For most consumers, this virtual reality product simply wasn’t realistic enough, and the console flopped.

Modern Uses of Virtual Reality

After the commercial failure of the Virtual Boy and other early VR headsets, the technology was mostly relegated to professional use. However, with the recent rise of newer, more realistic and more comfortable VR headsets, it may finally be time for virtual reality to enter the mainstream. 

While the VR market has undeniably grown, consumers still mostly see virtual reality as a cool gimmick, rather than a necessity. Today, most of VR’s use is for gaming, and while the industry has found a niche group of enthusiasts, just 34 million total headsets have been sold in the last five years [5]. Additionally, while the cost of virtual reality technology has dropped, headsets still aren’t affordable for all. For example, Oculus, a VR headset company owned by Meta, prices its cheapest headset at $299. While the technology has evolved and prices have dropped, committing to virtual reality is simply too much of a financial commitment for many.

The Future of VR

With Meta turning its focus to virtual reality, VR is certainly here to stay. But how will VR be utilized in the future? Will it become a business necessity, like Meta seems to think? Or could it continue to grow as a gaming product? Finally, can VR finally overcome its gimmick label? Simply put, there are a lot of questions about the future of virtual reality that we simply don’t know. However, a major company like Meta shifting its focus to virtual reality presents an opportunity to the industry that it has never had before. Meta’s massive, public commitment to virtual reality could usher in the widespread adoption of this emerging technology.

However, public acceptance of VR isn’t the only potential downfall to the industry. A common concern regarding virtual reality is the technology’s privacy and security. Modern VR headsets are filled with sensors, cameras, and microphones. Of course, headsets need this technology to function, but the data collected through this technology needs to be guarded securely. Put simply, virtual reality collects unique user information. With this information, advertisers can learn even more about you to sell their products. Even worse, there are no regulations for data collected through VR, further putting user privacy in the backseat [6]. So while virtual reality may offer new opportunities to connect and play, it also gives advertisers a new way to collect even more information on users.

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[1] Schnipper, Matthew. “The Rise and Fall and Rise of Virtual Reality.” The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/a/virtual-reality/intro.

[2] “History of Virtual Reality.” Virtual Reality Society, January 2, 2020. https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/history.html.

[3] Karpf, David. “Virtual Reality Is the Rich White Kid of Technology.” Wired. Conde Nast, July 27, 2021. https://www.wired.com/story/virtual-reality-rich-white-kid-of-technology/.

[4] Greenbaum, Aaron. “Here’s Why the Virtual Boy Was a Complete Failure.” Looper.com. Looper, August 4, 2020. https://www.looper.com/233207/heres-why-the-virtual-boy-was-a-complete-failure/.

[5] Alsop, Thomas. “VR Headset Unit Sales Worldwide 2024.” Statista, July 19, 2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/677096/vr-headsets-worldwide/.

[6] Maslin, Jared. “Concerns with Privacy in Virtual Reality.” Data Science W231 Behind the Data Humans and Values, March 2, 2021. https://blogs.ischool.berkeley.edu/w231/2021/03/02/concerns-with-privacy-in-virtual-reality/.

How Virtual Reality Is Being Used To Put An End To Cyber Attacks

**This is part of our series highlighting startups who share our mission of trying to make people’s lives just a little easier**

The explosion of new technologies has seen a huge rise in the quantity and – more importantly – the quality of cyber hackers out there. Crude attempts to hack into systems are a thing of the past, and instead expert attackers are collaborating with governments and crime syndicates to do questionable things with data.

For digital businesses in particular, this is a big concern. Large, distributed networks that are scattered around the web lend themselves perfectly to cyber-attacks from sophisticated hackers, and those hackers are more savvy than ever before.

New Israel-based startup Illusive Networks was built to stop these attackers in their tracks – literally (albeit digitally).

Malicious hackers will find every entry point they can to wriggle into a network, often bypassing firewalls that companies thought would protect them and their assets. Because of this, Illusive Networks has said goodbye to firewalls and has instead gone for a different method of creating a new world for the hacker to disappear into (and get lost).

If it sounds like something out of Minority Report, you might be onto something. And, if it sounds a bit farfetched, you’re on the same wavelength as us. I mean, creating a whole new world simply to distract potential hackers seems like a lot of extra effort, right?

This is where it gets interesting.

You’ve heard of virtual and augmented reality, right? These are two new technologies that layer an alternate reality over the top of, well, real reality to bring participants new perspectives and new worlds entirely.

Illusive Networks taps into these technologies and creates a false version of a company’s network to either trap the hackers in an alternate “reality” or kick them out completely.

Isn’t Illusive Networks Just Like the Others?

The answer to this question is, of course, yes and no.

Businesses have access to thousands of different security products these days, and there seems to be a new anti-cyberattack startup popping up every single day.

Because of this, business owners and security leaders are resisting adding even more tools to their security arsenal – the last thing people want or need are noisy alerts every time a hacker tries to break through a digital barrier.

“But technologies that truly look at existing problems in new ways and are purpose-built to help companies deal with the unexpected can deliver significant efficiencies that reduce rather than add to the security burden,” says Illusive Networks’ Founder and CEO, Ofer Israeli. “Distributed deception technology is certainly one of them.”

How Illusive Networks Works

On its website, Illusive Networks says that it:

  • Maps potential paths attackers can take to get to the goods (a.k.a. your most important assets)
  • Finds and gets rid of risky areas that help attackers reach your assets
  • Cloaks your system with thousands of high-fidelity deceptions that trigger an alert when one wrong move is detected
  • Offers real-time forensic reports to help response teams stay in control

But what do all these things really mean? And what even is “distributed deception technology”?

“There will always be a phishing or drive-by attack,” says Israeli. “Humans are the weakest link and always will be and will continue to make mistakes. But once the hacker is in, now we have an attacker who needs to orient himself.”

Essentially, distributed deception means creating a series of fake journeys a potential hacker could take. The aim is to confuse, deceive, and catch them red handed.

Illusive Networks creates an “illusive” version of a company’s network (that alternate reality we were talking about earlier). And, once a hacker finds themselves in this parallel universe, the tool identifies the individual and either keeps them shut in there forever or kicks them out for good.

Think about it: to strategically plan a pathway to the main asset, a hacker needs to consider two things. They need to know what options they have for where they can go next, and they need to know how they can access the powers needed to execute that particular move. In the security world, this two-step process is known as orientation and propagation.

You see, to get to the coveted prize, a hacker needs to make a series of hundreds or thousands of tiny moves – something that Illusive Network aims to put a rapid stop to.

Say, for example, there’s a hacker who has the option to take three different paths towards their next step. Illusive Networks then swoops in with a further twenty choices, of which only three are real and the other seventeen are traps. If the hacker takes any of those seventeen options which, let’s face it, is highly likely with the law of probability, the system is alerted to an unwanted intruder.

Likewise, if a hacker needs to gain credentials to make their next move, Illusive Networks will supply them with tens more credentials than they need so that, again, if they pick the wrong choice the system goes into lockdown.

So, rather than shutting out hackers entirely like firewalls do, Illusive Networks deceives them so it’s almost impossible for them to reach their end goal. The startup has even brought several ex-attackers on board who have shared their perspectives to make solutions more realistic and useful.

Perhaps the most advanced thing about the startup is that neither the professionals working for Illusive Networks nor the hackers can see the deceptions until they walk into them head first. This means the deception sensors are only triggered if someone “bumps into them”, but it also means that it only takes a few moves (out of potentially thousands) for an attacker to be detected and kicked out.

What Does This Mean for the Future of Cyber Attacks and Data Breaches?

Illusive Networks plans to bring a new age of security to digital businesses that will see less hackers succeeding despite them getting more and more sophisticated every day.

Data breaches could be a thing of the past, as distributed deception means hackers don’t have to just navigate one obstacle like a firewall. Instead, there are obstacles all around them (think security lasers in a museum as a real-life example), and every wrong move can be quickly detected.

But while it might be comforting to know that our personal data looks to be safer than ever, the technology behind Illusive Networks might not be limited stopping hackers in the future.

What if hackers start using it to their advantage? These are people that are highly skilled in tech-endeavors, so surely they’re buffing up on this new technology as we speak and working out ways they can use it to their benefit? If they’re not, maybe they’re missing a trick.

Systems like the one Illusive Networks is using are groundbreaking in the war against cyber attacks but only time will tell if they’re victorious.