We're still going to use computers and watch TV in virtual reality — here's what that will look like

HTC / Valve

Virtual reality holds enormous promise for changing the way we think about and interact with computers — and it's coming very soon.

The game changing technology will mesh with our real-life experiences. We'll play games inside it. Once we go in, we may never come out.

But before we get there, we're going to need ways to integrate our existing media and software into the virtual reality world.

The truth is that virtual reality is at a stage where the hardware has jumped so far ahead of the content that developers are scrambling for ways to make the staggeringly expensive technology useful for stuff we do today, like word processing, Netflixing, and chilling.

Major VR headsets cost as much as premium smartphones — and that's without the expensive graphics PC you'll need to power them. The HTC Vive will run about $800, and the Oculus Rift about $600. Playstation's VR headset should cost just a bit less. But to get people to buy these fancy face-screens, VR makers need quality content to draw them in.

Right now, there aren't too many options. A pretty large handful of virtual-reality native games are coming. But they hardly look like the crop we can expect when the field is more mature. So companies like Bigscreen have have turned to old-school 2D sources for content. They simulate your flat computer or television screen in the virtual world for your viewing pleasure.

It's a little unclear what the advantage of working on a flat Excel spreadsheet on a simulated screen-in-a-screen is, when you could just work on it on your real life screen. Some experts predict we'll eventually have virtual productivity software:

—Christopher Mims (@mims) March 14, 2016

But we're not there yet. So for now we're stuck watching normal Netflix, playing normal games, and doing normal work in the clunkier, lower-res world of VR.

Here are some examples.