Yeah, you read that headline correctly. Palmer Luckey, who’s a leader in virtual reality and the founder of Oculus and even more known now as a part of Facebook’s Meta, has made a VR headset that will kill you. This video game will seriously kill the user if they die in the simulation, according to Vice.
Here’s how it works (if you’re interested)
Players put on a NeveGear virtual reality headset and open the new game called Sword Art Online, which is based on the Japanese anime and novel of the same name. The players must fight their way through a 100-floor dungeon to escape a mad scientist’s virtual world.
The device is connected to three explosive charge modules above the screen that are aimed at the players forehead. Should the player die in the game, the microwave emitter would go off, obliterating the human’s head.
Don’t worry, this headset isn’t for sale
Luckey, who also founded Anduril, a weapons and defense contractor that has won large contracts with the government, said the explosive charges on the headset are ones he usually uses in “different projects,” although he did not specify which ones. According to Luckey, the device’s creator “was able to hide from his employees, regulators, and contract manufacturing partners. I am a pretty smart guy, but I couldn’t come up with any way to make anything like this work, not without attaching the headset to gigantic pieces of equipment.”
“When an appropriate game-over screen is displayed, the charges fire, instantly destroying the brain of the user,” Luckey shared in his blog.
“At this point, it is just a piece of office art, a thought-provoking reminder of unexplored avenues in game design,” said Luckey. “It is also, as far as I know, the first non-fiction example of a VR device that can actually kill the user. It won’t be the last.”
The creator said he wants to keep playing around with the technology used in killer headsets, mentioning the idea of an anti-tampering one that wouldn’t be able to be removed or destroyed. There’s only one problem: testing it out would likely result in death.
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