Sometime back in the late 1980s, the term virtual reality was thrown around as the next big thing. Almost 30 years later, it seems that it is still trying to live up to the hype. While virtual reality and augmented reality have started to make their mark in consumer and commercial markets, they still have a long way to go before they make the mark on the world that many people dreamed of all those years ago.
AR and VR are similar technologies in that they affect people’s perceptions of reality, but they also have some important differences.
AR (Augmented Reality) is a technology by which 3D graphics are placed overtop of images in the real world. It is a blending of the virtual world and the real world. Pokémon Go is a recent example of how this technology works.
VR (Virtual Reality) is a more immersive experience, one in which a user is placed in a 360° virtual world. In terms of technology, VR requires a virtual world that can trick the brain into thinking it is real. Experts in the field call this presence. A virtual world that does not have presence, not only does not look good but can also cause dizziness, disorientation, nausea, and headaches. There are many technical specifications that a system needs to have in order to have presence: a wide field of view, high resolution, global display, tracking, optics, and many others. In many ways, VR is a much more complicated system than AR.
Many companies have tried over the years to bring these technologies to consumers, but only recently has there been success with smartphones. Oculus created a VR headset which allows phones like Samsung Gear VR and gaming systems like HTC Vive to operate in a VR world. These systems are more restrictive in nature as Oculus Rift and HTC Vive need a connection to a powerful PC. Smartphone-based devices like Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR make it a bit difficult to move around.
AR had a quick moment in the market with Google Glass but really made its mark with Pokémon Go. AR is a much more mobile system. In fact, it requires users to interact with the real world in some way. The Microsoft HoloLens and the DAQRI Smart Helmet are really only useful when used in multiple locations in the real world. Even though Google Glass was not very successful, companies are still trying to make wearable AR technology a success, in the form of glasses and headphones.
By some estimates, AR/VR will be a $150 billion market by 2020, with VR only accounting for $30 billion of the total. Currently, there is still a pretty long way to go before those numbers become reality.
As research from TechProResearch shows, most organizations are aware of AR and VR, but the majority of them do not use either type of technology.
Image: TechProResearch
For companies not already using AR or VR, many are more likely to incorporate AR than VR in the coming years.
Image: TechProResearch
When many people think of AR and VR they think of gaming and entertainment, but both technologies are everywhere around us, in more industries than we probably realize.
In the future, there will be large investments in both VR and AR. But most experts agree that AR is the technology that will make the great impact. In the fields mentioned above, there is still a lot untapped potential in terms of the use of these technologies. Just in the skilled trades market alone, potential AR could reach a market value somewhere between $800 million and $2 billion by 2020.
Many researchers feel that, in the future, AR and VR will begin to blend more often. VR headsets will allow images of the real world to pass through for a variety of reasons. VR will also probably lose the connect it requires to a PC and become completely mobile. AR, on the other hand, will become more immersive has wearable technology gets more advanced and smaller.
While in the 1980s the future looked to be a virtual one, nowadays the future is more of an augmented one. There is still a long way to go, but it looks like one day it may be possible to live in a state of constant connection between the real world and a technologically created world.