If the prototype can really do what it is intended, it would have a tremendous potential for applications in education, business and of course medicine.

Yet the project still has a long way to go. While systems to control what a person sees and hears are well-established, touch, smell and taste are much harder to control realistically. Such technical difficulties are among the principal factors why the working prototype is still at least 15 to 20 years away, the research team warned the New Scientist.

Speaking of their priorities, Professor David Howard of the University of York underlines: “We’re focusing on creating real virtuality rather than virtual reality. It’s increasingly recognised that the way forward is the production of highly realistic multi-sensory virtual environments which complement but don’t replace ‘reality’,” as quoted on the EPSRC website.