Short answers, pulled from the story.
The earliest published use of the term "virtual reality" in English appears in the 1958 translation of Antonin Artaud's 1938 essay collection Le Théâtre et son double. Myron Krueger coined the related term "artificial reality" in the 1970s, and Jaron Lanier is credited with popularizing "virtual reality" in mainstream media through his work at VPL Research in the late 1980s.
Harvard Professor Ivan Sutherland, with help from students including Bob Sproull, created what is widely considered the first head-mounted display for immersive simulation in 1968. Called The Sword of Damocles, it was so heavy it had to be suspended from the ceiling. It displayed simple wire-frame rooms and was technically an augmented reality device due to optical passthrough.
Facebook purchased Oculus VR in 2014. The price was publicly stated at $2 billion but was later clarified to be closer to $3 billion.
Prolonged VR use can cause motion sickness, eyestrain, headaches, and discomfort. One in 4,000 people may experience seizures or blackouts even without a prior history of epilepsy. Women experience headset-induced cybersickness symptoms at a rate of around 77%, compared to around 33% for men. Children are advised against VR use because of the headsets' weight and because young children may have difficulty distinguishing virtual from physical environments.
VR is used in surgical training, rehabilitation, and mental health therapy. Programs like LapSim improve instrument handling and coordination, with measurable gains after four-week training sessions. Virtual reality exposure therapy treats PTSD and phobias, and seventeen randomized controlled trials have shown VR effective for cognitive deficits linked to neurological diagnoses.
VR systems continuously log physical movements, eye tracking, and responses to virtual stimuli. Eye-tracking data may indirectly reveal ethnicity, personality traits, fears, and health conditions. In 2024, University of Chicago researchers demonstrated an attack on Meta Quest that could capture login credentials and inject false data during online banking sessions conducted in VR.