By Trey Andrews

The virtual world came to life when students had a chance to experience a virtual reality demo provided by TCTV in the bistro on Jan. 19.

The demo allowed students to take a breather for a moment from the college world and introduce them to new types of media that is used in modern times for journalism and educational purposes.

As students tried out the demo, they also got some information from Michael Battisti, Media Specialist and Production Engineer at Thiel College. He stated, “A lot of uses of VR are still used in development, and it can be used for a lot of things such as travel, and war zones”.

Other things Virtual Reality is used for now-a-days are training in medicine as well as graphic design. All these new ways of seeing things from a different perspective are introducing new types of media. It is also giving people a sneak peek into the future by some of the new software that is being used in some of the equipment.

More and more news companies are turning too this VR tech, to give their viewers a better understanding of their content and to allow another investigate what news can be and turning into.

A big thing about VR is that is based more on the future of things than it is on present, real things, which people tend to be a little bias about. It also gives people more to think about when they experience something that is futuristic. So many things are yet to come for the new VR tech, and many are anxious to see what it has in store. Others are little skeptical about what is in store with the new tech.

Battisti also stated, “Another aspect of it is 360-video, which is used by big news programs such as CNN news, and you tend to see it used in bigger stories like warzones. When a shot is taken of a war zone by just one camera and its shooting straight on, so you see what the cameraman sees, where 360-video gives you a whole picture of what’s going on around as well. It kind of takes away the director’s vision, its unbiased, it shows everything.”

The 360 view is already being used by a lot of media sources now days, and it is even found on social media sites as well, so people already have a small experience of what 360-video is and what it provides for its viewers.

The ability to see more in news is what news companies are starting to realize will eventually attract more viewers and get them to tune into their segments. In a sense it also gives the viewers a sense that they can see more than what their eye tends to see.