| Virtual Reality |
October 24, 2019
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| When he found it, he wondered why he hadn't used it before. It was a build-up type cardboard viewer. It was in the bag along with his smartphone when he bought his smartphone. That was about three years ago. It had been on the shelf since then, and he just happened to notice it on that day. According to the instructions, he could build it up easily. It had two viewing parts that had lenses. There was a partition in the center, and there was a gap in the back for the cellphone to be placed at. He downloaded an app according to the instructions on his smartphone. He was thrilled to see something new with this free gift. Through the app which listed a list of videos, he could watch 360° movies with the cardboard viewer. He tried choosing one. It was named 'Journey To The Edge Of Space'. Soon, there appeared two square pictures of the video. They were identical, but a little bit different. He guessed that this would make the video 3D. He set the phone into the goggle shaped cardboard viewer  and looked in. Soon the video started. He was able to view the video as one image. He could see it was an open space in the suburbs. He soon remembered that it was 360°, so he stood up and looked around. He saw mountains in the distance. A female voice sounded, "Welcome to 'Journey To The Edge Of Space'..." She explained that they attached a camera to hang from a helium balloon as it would rise, and the viewer could see the view at each height. "Now this place is 800 ft in altitude, XX degrees in temperature..." He was able to see those transparent numbers underneath of the view. The woman's voice said, "Enjoy!" And the camera view started to rise. He looked down. People under him started to become small, and soon they looked like beans. The altitude soon became 900, 1000, ... He looked up, there was the balloon. He felt his mood go up. Soon the female voice said, "This is the altitude of the highest tower in the world ..." The balloon rose kind of fast. The view passed the clouds ... "This is the altitude of Mt. Everest, ... the air is thin ..." "This is an airplane's altitude ... its temperature is ... the air is thinner ..." He couldn't see anything below anymore, just thick clouds. As the altitude went up, the thicker the sky's blue and the brighter the sun became. She explained that at a certain altitude the camera broke, after that the balloon kept going. Eventually the balloon would burst because of the air pressure. She added that they had found the camera set later, it wasn't too far from the launch place. Maybe they had traced it using GPS. What an advanced world! At the end of the movie, he saw the edge of space. It was like a vague line between the earth and space. He looked down, the earth was very beautiful ... The second video that he watched was a scary one. The opening scene was inside of a house. Dark inside. A monologue started: he was a shy child and not good at playing with other kids, but he liked nature ... he started to climb mountains ... he started to rock climb ... The guy went out, the outside was a mountain area. He could see the young guy in his 20s, he was walking with a small knapsack on his back, he was wearing a red T-shirt and dark colored pants. He looked around, he could see a high mountain face in the distance. After getting to the mountain face, the guy started to climb it. It was a high cliff, hundreds of meters in height. He felt weird because this guy was climbing without any equipment, even ropes. He left the knapsack on the ground, wearing just a T-shirt, pants, and shoes. He only used his hands and legs to climb vertically hundreds meters of high. The guy became higher and higher. He could see the view from the guy's viewpoint or looking at him from the same height. They might have used a drone for this angle. It was scary to see below. When he reached the top of the cliff, he cheered for the guy's success, and wondered why humans do bold things like this. The third one was also shocking, but in another meaning. The voice explained that this mountain was Everest, the highest mountain in the world. He looked around and was surprised at the trash and garbage all around. It was like a dumping ground. He couldn't believe why climbers who seemed to love nature and enjoy climbing, threw away such waste on the ground. The voice explained that some groups were trekking up the mountain every day to clean it. He felt that the 360 degrees camera was very effective to make the viewer feel this was real. After watching the three movies, he thanked the advanced technology. Maybe soon a 5G world would appear, and he could see better quality screens. He looked forward to it and hoped that it would make the people's environmental concerns stronger. |
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*cardboard :段ボール
*according to :によれば
*partition :しきり
*identical :同一の
*altitude :標高
*transparent :透き通った
*vertically 垂直に
*dumping :投棄
*concern :関心