Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/863766
46 cgw j u ly . a u g u s t 2 0 1 7 Alternate States The present reality of VR, AR, and MR By Rory Fellowes R pioneer Mark Bolas relayed this anecdote while we were discussing the development of virtual-reality and head-mounted display (HMD) technology. When he was a teen- ager, working in a photographer's studio, he would closet himself in the darkroom, with all lights off, in the pitch black, and then would wiggle the fingers on his visually invisible hand, but force his brain to imagine a hand anyway . This is the core of the spirit and vision of virtual-reality (VR) technology: the ambition to coerce the brain into believing it is seeing "real" worlds. Virtual reality, augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) are the latest innova- tions in the tsunami of disruptive technolo- gies that have surfaced during the last two or three decades as we have learned to live and work with computers. Most people will have heard about these developments and possibly tried one of the HMDs available now while sampling the growing list of apps that are used with them. But we are in the early years of consumer VR gear, so expect to hear and see more head-mounted displays in the future. In fact, the current versions are already being replaced, and one day, perhaps soon, those, too, will be overtaken by technologies that researchers have only just begun to imagine. These technologies will evolve from novelty to commonplace soon enough, just as the mobile phone did years ago. For now, they are a rarity, an indulgence for the enthusiasts. But, you can expect that within 20 years at most, the majority of people in advanced economies will use whatever HMDs have become by then – a device as light as a pair of wraparound Ray-Bans, may- be even just contact lenses, and capable of covering all one's computer and communi- cations needs. A one-stop telecom device people can carry in their pocket or wear over their eyes, or even plug directly into their brain, given time (research on this has already started). INNOVATION "The long nose of innovation." That is how Bill Buxton, a principal scientist at Microso Research, describes the way all so-called breakthroughs result from many small, incremental developments over long periods of time before they come to the attention of the wider world. In the case of virtual-reality technology and soware, that incremental process – from the earliest research and development of the dedicated hardware and soware – has been going on for more than 25 years at least. Currently, the quality of the computer graphics used with HMDs is not much better than the graphics imagery of late- 1990s video games. But this is merely the stage we're at, and it is rapidly improving all the time. How sophisticated those vir- tual environments may yet become, how "real" they may yet appear, and where they may take us as we become accustomed to them are questions already being dis- cussed. Some tweaks of hardware, some major upgrades in Internet delivery, and there is no intrinsic, technological limit to what becomes possible. Games, entertainment, new forms of narrative, virtual experiences, plus all the potential business uses are just now getting started. Over the next two or three V BUILDING CONVERSATION'S AR APP IS GEARED FOR THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY, TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION.