Smile for the camera: Why live streaming is such big business

In 2017, the world at large learned about something known as bitcoin. Despite being used and traded since 2009 when Satoshi Nakamoto unleashed his innovation on the world, the general public only came to know about it in 2017. Why? The main reason the mainstream media went into a bitcoin frenzy was that the price of a single coin jumped from $1,000 to almost $20,000 over a 12-month period.

Since 2012 Lake Garda is my holiday destination of choice, a place that I find exhilarating, fascinating, refreshing and heart-warming. These feelings are aroused the moment I step off the plane at Verona Airport, as I become engrossed with an overwhelming feeling of serenity and stimulation. Poetic as it sounds it is hard, if not impossible, to be drawn into a magical, mystical and even spiritual frame of mind.

The Origin

Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novella, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde published in 1886, is the renowned story of Dr Henry Jekyll, socialite and experienced doctor, yet underneath his positive persona Dr Jekyll is fighting a psychological battle between the good and evil within himself and believes that medicine would be able to contain the malevolent aspect of his personality.

After an extremely long time in development, it finally looks like VR and AR are making their way into mainstream acceptance and use. Far from the primitive devices like Nintendo's earlier Virtual Boy, modern VR headsets come in full colour and operate in a way which is not guaranteed to set off migraines and eye strain. Despite the amount of technological progress these have made, they still remain in their mainstream infancy. This leads us to wonder – where are these technologies going, and what can we expect in terms of their integration with modern education and entertainment?