The Technology of the Future: AR/VR
The two buzzwords of recent times are Augmented reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). A lot of technological headway is being made to adopt this technology in multiple fields of business. As the name suggests Augmented reality ‘augments’ our visual experience or in other words adds a digital element to our reality while VR transposes us to a different world by building a virtual world through external gadgets. Mixed Reality is a hybrid of the 2, augmented reality and virtual reality.
Let’s deep dive into each of these topics more in-depth
Augmented Reality(AR)
Augmented reality has gained immense popularity with the launch of ‘Pokemon Go’ in 2016. The game made use of AR techniques to display a pokemon (cartoon/anime character) in the real world. Being the first of its kind, the game took the world by storm, the AR mode feature propagated widespread adoption by multiple users across the globe. Pokemon Go was most probably the first real touchpoint of AR had with the mass market. While most people would think that this technology was newly developed prior to the launch of pokemon, the truth is that AR has a long history.
The inception of AR dates back to 1968 when Harvard Professor, Ivan Sutherland created the first head-mounted display called the ‘The sword of Damocles” -The user experienced computer-generated graphics that enhanced their sensory perception of the world, but the term Augmented reality was coined in 1990. During the 1990s, the utility of augmented reality was tested in other industries like of US army, NASA, etc. In the late 2000’s the technology caught the eye of big tech giants like Google and Microsoft who release variants of AR-enabled wearable devices. Recent years have seen various other business verticals tapping into this nascent technology to gain a competitive edge like retail, AR in marketing, etc.
Google Glass
Google Glass was developed by X (formerly Google X) in a mission to deliver ubiquitous computing, or in simple terms: Equipping everyday objects with the computational capability to facilitate communication between any device. The device was said to perform multiple functionalities like — checking the time, get directions, translate languages, etc. The device can be fitted with a prescription too. While the product gained traction when it was released in 2012, it failed to make a mark for itself owing to its limited functionality, high prices, and battery dependencies.
Hololens
Microsoft in response to its competitor released its own AR-enabled wearable — Hololens. The product superimposed holograms over the user’s field of view and was positioned to address business customers. Similar to its counterpart, Hololens too did not make it big in the minds of its consumer’s, High pricing and limited utility for the general public trashed Microsoft’s plans of making breakthrough sales with the product
AR in Marketing
Marketing is the latest business vertical to adopt AR. Potential customers are looking to try the product before buying and AR has emerged as the technology to bridge this gap. Customers can now try on clothing items, makeup, etc without actually interacting with the physical product. On a similar theory, IKEA has released an AR-based mobile application to help consumers try their furniture out at home before buying them
Virtual Reality(VR)
VR has been around since the 1950s, Sensorama — a multimedia device was considered the first accepted invention in VR. Alongside AR, VR continued to grow to find its way first in pilot simulations for the US airforce in the 1960s, space travel simulation, and eventually in arcade gaming in 1991. Sega was one of the first companies to attempt to launch a consumer-facing VR headset in 1991. In 2010, a young entrepreneur Palmer Luckey developed the first prototype of Oculus Rift. Facebook was an early adopter of the technology and acquired the company Oculus VR to gain access to this nascent technology. Subsequent years witness the big players in the industry developing their own VR headsets, some of the well-known names are HTC — HTC Vive, Google — Google Cardboard, Amazon, Sony, etc.
Google Cardboard
In 2014, Google launched an affordable VR set launched for commercial use. The device was a simple cardboard viewer into which a smartphone was inserted. The product was a low-cost initiative to generate mass interest in VR technology. To use the cardboard device users were asked to run cardboard compatible mobile apps on their phone, place it in the cardboard box and view it through the lens. The device was a massive hit, 15 million viewer units were sold in 4 years.
Technology in AR/VR
AR at its core uses AR frameworks like ARKit, ARCore to implement computer vision algorithms to perform the tracking and mapping of the real world. Visual data is used along with an accelerometer and gyroscopes to build a map of the world and track movement within it. Many of these tasks are still done using traditional computer vision techniques that make no use of machine learning. However, AI models have gotten incredibly good at doing many of the things required to build immersive AR experiences. Deep neural networks can detect vertical and horizontal planes, estimate depth and segment images for realistic occlusion, and even infer 3D positions of objects in real-time. Because of these abilities, AI models are replacing some of the more traditional computer vision approaches underpinning AR experiences.
Future of AR/VR
Augmented Reality and Virtual reality are two of the most emerging trends in the tech world. Both technologies have caught the eyes of big giants who are investing heavily in them to produce breakthrough applications. Simultaneous localization and mapping seem to be the focus for the near future — the technology translates data from the real world (from sensors) into virtual ones and vice versa. Companies like Tesla are employing this technology for their auto-pilot and summon. AR/VR for healthcare purposes is also set to grow in the coming years, with medical institutes looking to introduce AR/VR to helps students and healthcare professionals learn through simulations. In 2020, Facebook announced they are working on AR glasses that can help deaf people hear.
With many educational institutions and big firms investing heavily in this technology, we can expect AR/VR to revolutionalize the outlook of our near future!
References:
Keerthika K
IIM Calcutta — 2019–2021
