What is Extended Reality (XR)?
“Looking to the future, the next big step will be for the very concept of the ‘device’ to fade away” — Sundar Pichai
Technology is developing faster than we can imagine. The first programmable, electronic, digital computer ENIAC was announced to the public 75 years ago. It weighed approximately 30-ton, occupied 1800sq.ft, and consumed 150kW of electricity. How much would your mobile phone or laptop weigh? A Laptop weighs about 1–2kg and the mobile weighs around 150g. These latest gadgets give us more information in a single click, easy navigations, better networking, and so on.
Just imagine if you get an eyewear that gives you directions to navigate somewhere or a headset that takes you to another world just like a dream or a wearable that replaces the screens of your TV, computer, phone, watches, etc. Yes, it is possible with EXTENDED REALITY that creates a Technologically -Supplemented reality.
Extended Reality (XR)
Extended Reality (XR) is an umbrella term that describes all those technologies which merge the physical and virtual world. The major technologies include Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR). These technologies extend our reality, the real world we experience either by blending some virtual elements into it or by creating a fully immersive experience. It is rapidly making its way into different industries and supplementing human reality in unimaginable ways.
AUGMENTED REALITY (AR)
Augmented Reality is the most common and simplest XR technology in which some virtual information or objects like Computer-generated (CG) images, text, animation, etc. are added to the real world surrounding and can be accessed by an AR screen or a smartphone. Hence, Augmented Reality exists in every environment that has a camera to click the environment and a processor that can sense and simulate the virtual object.
Have you played Pokémon GO? It is a smartphone game in which we can virtually place characters in our real environment, this is done by AR. The Snapchat filters, L’Oréal Makeup App, Disney’s colouring book, Google pixel’s Star War, etc. are some of the examples using AR.
Augmented Reality is not limited to entertainment, it is extending its opportunities to retail, online shopping, modelling and manufacturing, medical training, virtual learning, and even in military and paramilitary applications like to train soldiers to develop new strategies, etc.
VIRTUAL REALITY(VR)
Virtual Reality takes users to a totally virtual world, a computer-generated simulation where they can interact with a 3-dimensional environment. We know that the brain controls everything that we do knowingly and unknowingly, it uses our sensory organs like eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin to feel and understand the surroundings and stimulates necessary actions to be taken in that situation. Here we are provided with a headset or a head-mounted device that gives a 360-degree view of the artificial surroundings, which fools our brain making it believe what it sees or feels in the virtual world is happening for real. This is achieved with the help of sensory additives like headphones, and haptic devices.
Watching a 3-D movie, playing Oculus by Facebook, using a VR headset to ski or take a roller coaster ride from home are the best examples of Virtual Reality. This technology was first adopted by the gaming and entertainment industry, but today, it is found to be useful in several industries like teaching, healthcare, construction, engineering, military, and many more.
MIXED REALITY (MR)
Mixed Reality is considered to be the newest and most complex facet of XR. As the name suggests it is a hybrid of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, that is both the physical world and the digital world are blended such that users can superimpose their interaction with the artificial components over the real world. In Augmented Reality, users have only limited interaction with artificial components and in Virtual Reality, they are taken to a completely artificial environment and hence Mixed Reality that brings both together will help humans in many ways.
The Microsoft HoloLens is an example of Mixed Reality which renders holograms that are viewed in holographic frames. They don’t block light from the surroundings and can be placed at a particular place or tagged with someone.
Extended Reality is a developing technology, hence will not be limited to these three technologies.
Today the most common application of extended reality is for fun and entertainment but it has vast opportunities like:
- Health Care: Train Surgeons and doctors by giving them interactive exposure to three-dimensional models for topics like anatomy, so they can map its layers and understand better.
- Education and Training: Students can interact, engage and manipulate virtual objects and learn concepts by doing. It can help in easy designing and modelling of a project and also get real-time simulations of various processes.
- Defence: Useful in military and paramilitary applications by providing exposure to better training and developing new strategies.
- Shopping: Users can visualize and interact virtually with the object they want to buy and understand it better before purchase, like what is happening with the Loreal Makeup App.
- Design: Designers can make their imagination applicable easily by making a demo in the real space and choosing the suitable one without wasting time and resources.
- Remote work: Workers can connect from home to their office or with professionals located around the world in a way that makes both sides feel like they are in the same room.
- And many more……
Like any developing technology, XR is also facing many challenges like cost of implementation, wearable devices that are comfortable, immersive and intelligent, technical and hardware issues related to display, motion tracking, power, connectivity etc. Each day takes us closer to XR by solving these issues.
XR is no more a realm of science fiction.
