However, at long last I believe I have seen something that could change the reading experience in what I think will be a profound way—and it is Virtual Reality—and it is going to be here in a mass market way in very short order, perhaps in a matter of months. If you have not already experienced Virtual Reality by using one of the Oculus Rift devices for instance then you are in for a transformative experience. This is not 3D. It is totally immersive. My son is involved in various projects, some of which take him to the sites of natural disasters to report on and to coordinate specific relief efforts. Days after the Nepal earthquake, his business partner was in Kathmandu with a Virtual Reality camera (basically seven Go Pro cameras attached to a ball at the end of a rod). The short film they created when edited, scored, and narrated has you, the viewer, standing on a pile of rubble watching people pulling rocks and steel from the wrecked buildings as they search for survivors. When you lift your head you see others higher up on the building. Turn your head to the side and there is a line of people waiting in line for food. Turn completely around and you are looking down another broken street, and then a camera on a drone takes you hurtling down that same street. At the end of the film there is a pitch to donate money for relief work. There is no doubt in my mind that bringing that kind of reality to the viewer is going to be a powerful incentive for people to get involved in what for them will no longer be just another disaster story at a bottom of a news page. How could it be? They were practically eye witnesses.
Right now the equipment to film, edit, and view Virtual Reality is expensive and rare. However, Google has just debuted Google Cardboard, an inexpensive device (about $10) that you can slip your phone into, and then connect with a brand new YouTube being developed just for Virtual Reality film. And Facebook’s Oculus Rift division will come out with new, cheaper, headgear early next year.
And so what does this have to do with children’s books? First, it is not the end of the traditional hardcover picture book. The book, a unique art form that generations of parents and their children have grown up with is not going away, and in fact should continue to thrive no matter what electronic wonders evolve.
But think of this: A nonfiction book about the Holocaust in which embedded in the text is a link to a YouTube site that can be accessed by scanning a link onto your phone. Then, after slipping on Google Cardboard and sliding in your phone, you find yourself transported to the Holocaust Museum or through the gates of Auschwitz. Or a picture book about lions that places you in the middle of a pride lounging about a water hole. Tour the International Space Station? Take a spacewalk? Visit Monet’s Garden? The possibilities for enhancing a book are endless.
Also endless is the headlong advance of technology. Google Cardboard, cutting edge today, could be old hat in a year, replaced by something being dreamed up in Silicon Valley even as you read this.
Our challenge as writers and artists is to use our creative minds to turn these new tools into compelling stories that will entertain and educate. The field of children’s books has always been highly competitive and the future will be no different. Those who succeed will be those who educate themselves, work hard at their craft and, in the end, settle for nothing but the very best. New technology will demand it, and children deserve it.
Want to learn more about Virtual Reality? Here are a few links that will get you started.
- Purchase Google Cardboard Viewer for your smartphone and find VR Apps: www.google.com/get/cardboard
- The Wall Street Journal on how Virtual Reality will change the news-a short video: Will Virtual Reality Change How We Consume News?
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Short Virtual Reality Videos to View with Google Cardboard: www.vrvideo.co
- All you want to know—and then some about Virtual Reality: www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/what-is-virtual-reality.html