Maybe if you are old enough – or young enough depending on how you look at it – you may remember the days sitting in a typing classroom as a kid, pecking away at the keyboard, trying to beat your last words-per-minute score. As new words popped up on the screen, you feverishly typed away, trying not to look at your hands. The fun lasted for about a few minutes before it just became a chore. This was not a game – it still felt like you were in school.
Now, one developer is giving us a taste of what the future of typing classes could look like with virtual reality and it doesn’t resemble a classroom at all.
The Japanese VR and AR developer who goes by the name of Hecomi shared the demo video above of his mixed reality-based interface dubbed “Visual IO.” Using an Oculus Rift DK2 headset paired with an Ovrvision Pro stereo camera attached to the front, the user is transported into a Tron-like environment where you can see your actual hands and a keyboard in front of you.
Just like the typing classes of our childhood, words pop up on the screen and you must then type them into the keyboard. But in Visual IO’s reimagined world, the words are floating towards you in a 3D virtual reality environment, flying faster and faster as you look at your virtual hands to type out the letters and destroy the words before its t0o late.
Typing class may never look the same now.
Although it is unclear from the video whether the keyboard physically exists with the user or is just depicted in VR, one thing is for sure, you won’t feel like you are in class mashing on these keys – virtual or not.
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The latest video from Hecomi comes at a time when HTC begins shipping developer kits for their latest version of the Vive pre, which ships with a built-in camera to help creators develop augmented reality experiences for the headset. Let’s hope Hecomi gets an HTC Vive pre so we can see more magic made.
Hecomi is no stranger to hacking VR and AR prototypes together, back in 2014 he shared with us Magic VR, a demo pairing Oculus Rift with Leap Motion motion controllers to give the user sorcerer like abilities by drawing shapes using just your fingers in VR. We can’t wait to see what he dreams or types up next!
Image Credit: Hecomi
