simulatorsickness
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Six Flags' new VR roller coaster is both breathtaking and broken
Imagine screaming through deep space, swerving through the wreckage of exploding starships in a high-octane scene plucked straight out of a science fiction movie. Suddenly the universe stops, frozen in time as your body continues to hurl through the void at high speed. Your stomach churns at the realization that it's moving but, somehow, the world around you isn't. That's what happened to me this weekend on Six Flags' Galactic Attack -- a virtual reality roller coaster, available at Six Flags' two California parks, that broke halfway through my ride. Twice.
Putting a virtual nose on video games could reduce simulator sickness
Virtual reality can be nauseating. It tricks a part of the brain into believing the body is moving, when it's not. A disconnect between the systems (somatosensory and vestibular, to be precise) can make some people want to throw up. But an ongoing study at Purdue College of Technology suggests that a virtual nose could reduce simulator sickness in video games. When your movement isn't anticipated by the body's perceptual system, it triggers motion sickness. That explains why it's usually a passenger who gets sick in a moving car and not the person driving the car.
