Before I came to Syracuse I wanted to be enrolled in the VR Storytelling course because I have worked in the past with the technology and with the way stories should be told. I never did a combination of both. Unfortunately, every seat in this course was taken at the time I send my class choices to Newhouse. A week after classes began, my schedule advisor called me to say that there was some movement in the class and she could enrol me to the class. I was more than happy at this time.

As Professor Pacheco showed me the technology in the innovation lab, I was thrilled. I did work with a cardboard and VR glasses before, but I had never experienced the HTC Vive or even the Microsoft HoloLense. I, personally, was more than intrigued while trying the HTC Vive and thinking about the new ways of communicate your campaigns, visions or mission through this technology. Being in a room in real life but seeing another room was amazing. I really liked to teleport myself into new scenes and discover the possibilities of virtual reality in addition to reality. I think that holding the controller in the hand and walking around feeling the borders of the space, is the reason why I felt physically present in VR. For me, the HTC Vive has a very good screen resolution. Of course, can you detect that you aren’t in a real world, but this isn’t the purpose. The purpose of the HTC Vive is to feel in another world with having more opportunities than you would have in real life. With the headphones and the sound which you can hear, it even felt more real. The main disadvantage of the HTC Vive is that it is wired. I saw myself falling because of the wires which you couldn’t see in the virtual reality.

Talking about wires takes me to the experience of the Microsoft HoloLense. Compared to the HTC Vive it has no wires and is not only a virtual reality: it makes it possible to see the real room with virtual objects and videos. You need less equipment because headphones and scanner which scans the room are included in one small device. But the most disadvantage of the HoloLens was that I couldn’t move while watching a video. Of course, I could move in the real room but the device wasn’t tracking my position and transferring into the video. That means I carried the video in front of me while walking instead of walking “in” the video. Nevertheless, the resolution was good and almost every time sharp. Cortana couldn’t recognize my accent while saying “select” but I helped myself with using the gesture to select objects. I really liked the mixture of reality and augmented reality and the ability to see what’s going on. As I experienced the HTC Vive I couldn’t see what Prof. Pacheco is doing and I felt a little bit uncomfortable. With this device this wasn’t a problem. HoloLens is a perfect way to bring the method of storytelling to its very limit and even behind that.

Overall, I am more than glad to work with these emerging technologies and being able to experience the virtual and almost natural augmented reality. I can only recommend to try these devices when you have the chance to do it. I am sure that research is on an exciting journey into the future of storytelling with brand new technology and I am in!