Computer graphics and sound is improving every day, new projection technology has been announced and, most important, the cost is rapidly decreasing, making VR technology available to a much larger user base. Besides the technological aspects, user interface design is a major issue of VR research. The traditional user interface paradigms are not applicable, but new interface devices such as data gloves often need a lot of training and are not practical as a consequence. Speech and gesture driven interfaces will probably replace the traditional devices within the next years. Maybe somebody comes up with a completely different approach.
Collaborative environments are the future of virtual reality.
These are networked worlds where many users can meet, communicate and work on shared data. There are a few advanced research projects that build collaborative environments over the internet. Other projects rely on local high-speed networks. They try to replace traditional teleconferencing by integrating the other users directly into the scene. Last but not least, augmented reality must also be mentioned.