Skip to main content

Stanford’s VR experience puts you in the shoes of one of California’s homeless

Becoming Homeless: A Human Experience Official Trailer

I’m homeless, on a bus from Palo Alto to San Jose, California. It’s late at night, and a man sitting a few rows behind me is staring in my direction. He’s creeping me out, and he’s moving gradually closer all the time. While this is going on, another person on the bus is trying to maneuver away my backpack with their foot. If I keep my eyes on my belongings, the man behind me moves closer. If I stare at him to scare him off, I risk losing my few possessions. What do I do?

Recommended Videos

This is one scene in a virtual reality experience created by members of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL). Called Becoming Homeless: A Human Experience, it’s intended to make you experience life through the eyes of one of the myriad homeless people who live in California. In the first scene, you have to sell off items in your apartment in a futile attempt to make rent after losing your job. In the next, you’re confronted by a cop after being discovered sleeping in your car. The third scene is the one described above, punctuated by spoken accounts of the struggles of homeless folks riding the bus in an effort to stay warm.

“We set out to create a VR experience that would examine whether it’s possible to use the technology to make you feel empathy for people that you perceive as being different from you,” Elise Ogle, project manager at VHIL, told Digital Trends.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Becoming Homeless has been the subject of a large-scale study carried out by Stanford, including more than 500 participants, which Ogle said is “unheard of for VR studies.”

“When you compare virtual reality to traditional media like TV and print, VR has a greater impact on people’s empathy,” she continued. “It can connect people to a particular environment more. It’s this kind of psychological presence, where you feel like you’re actually there. Real-life experiences can have a really big impact on people in terms of their attitude change.”

While there are potentially problematic elements to the overall concept (another homeless VR experience was roundly criticized last year), the idea that technology can be used to promote empathy is nonetheless a fascinating one. Will it solve the problem on its own? Absolutely not. Could it insensitively be used to create “poverty porn” in the form of a gamified system? Yes, it could. But, designed sensitively, we see no reason tools such as this can’t help raise awareness of particular issues.

Becoming Homeless was demonstrated over the weekend as part of the Global Education and Skills Conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It’s also available to download via Steam.

Luke Dormehl
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
The Meta Quest 2 VR headset is dominating Steam
Meta Quest 2 makes virtual reality affordable

Valve has finally updated the Steam Hardware & Software Survey, which details which components are most used by Steam players. The Meta Quest 2 (formerly Oculus) is by far the most popular VR headset, sitting at about 46% market share.

Interestingly, Valve's own Index VR headset is sitting in second place at around 14%. The Meta Rift S, HTC Vive, and other Windows mixed reality (XR) headsets from companies like HP and Dell round out most of the survey. It's not great news for HTC, whose Vive headset was among the most popular at one point.

Read more
You won’t be taking Microsoft’s HoloLens 3 into the metaverse
Microsoft HoloLens 2

As rival Apple is rumored to be eyeing an entrance into the metaverse, Microsoft, an early proponent of mixed and augmented reality applications, is criticized for its blurry vision behind the company's own HoloLens strategy. While HoloLens notched big early wins, including scoring a U.S. Department of Defense contract, subsequent delays, project cancellations, and high-profile executive departures may have resulted in the death of the HoloLens 3. Still, despite a scathing profile by Business Insider, it appears that Microsoft remains, at least publicly, committed to its HoloLens endeavors for now. The company has gone on record to refute the publication's reporting that HoloLens 3 has been killed.

There are a number of factors that may be causing Microsoft to pivot from its early bet on HoloLens, but the Microsoft profile cited internal divisions and the lack of a unified strategy among the top reasons for concern. As a result of the chaos, it appears that the largest collateral damage to Microsoft's infighting is the cancellation of its next-generation HoloLens 3 hardware.

Read more
Solving VR’s ‘infinite walking’ problem with moon boots
Ekto's motorized VR boots.

“It's about the continuity of the experience,” said Brad Factor. “It's about maintaining that immersion. It’s about ease of use and the learning curve: not needing to teach somebody how to use VR, but just being able to put on the headset and experience the virtual world naturally. That's a lot of what we're focusing on.”

Factor, the founder and CEO of a company called Ekto VR, has invented what is, in essence, a pair of chunky, cyberpunk-looking moonwalking boots for use in virtual reality environments. If Dorothy wore ruby slippers to travel in safety through the magical, technicolor land of Oz in The Wizard of Oz, then Factor’s invention is designed to allow similarly safe travel through VR.

Read more