Augmented and Virtual Reality Devices (focusing on Augumented Reality devices first).
The reality that VR and AR present is extremely interesting to me. I have looked at and evaluated a number of the AR/VR headsets that are on the market today. One of the things that are very important is as you consider AR (which mixes reality with augmented virtual components, Pokemon Go, is an example) with Virtual Reality, a completely virtual environment. Each has an interesting place in the market and a very interesting story.
First off let’s consider the AR headset world. There are two products that I have used in the past two months in the AR space; the first is Astro Reality. Astro Reality has created AR tags (a tag in the AR world is how you interact with the AR content) in particular there are two shipping tags that I love. The first is a wonderful globe of the moon. When you launch their product, you can interact with the moon format he perspective of the human missions to the moon. It brings the more static reality of the moon. The other shipped AR tag is a footprint, Neil Armstrong to be exact, on the surface of the moon. The content you get once you point at the AR tags is well amazing. There is something about hearing Walter Cronkite again, as he did all those years ago (my father and I watched every minute of the lunar landing that we could together! It is one of my happiest childhood memories). This is one type of AR using a physical tag to generate AR content on your phone or tablet.
The other form of AR that I’ve looked at is the Hololens from Microsoft. Hololens lets me interact with some sources of information (by the way a Skype plugin for Hololens would make the product beyond killer). On conference calls, I can watch the screen, see what is being presented, but use hololens to look other or additional information. It is a human heads-up display such as what you have in a car.
Both of these products are incredibly interesting. Astro Reality begs the question, why not record the best museum Docents and use AR tags to let the best explain the display. The same for city tours and just about anything that requires explanation. Can you imagine a tour bus that instead of a person talking as you drive, literally, a screen pops up and if you are interested you point your phone and hear the content?
AR and VR devices continue to expand. Astro Reality has released two or three updates to their product since shipping. Microsoft has updated the Hololens OS at least twice that I was aware of. There may have been a couple I missed.
The images with this post are me wearing Hololens; I call it Holome!