Commercial aspects of virtual and augment reality

We have seen the evolution and spread of the futuristic looking technologies that keep amazing individuals everywhere, and on the top of the list are virtual and augmented realities.  We have seen many entertaining uses of these technologies, however, the real benefits lie in the commercial uses by different industries.

Virtual reality is where you get fully immersed into a virtual world through vision, auditory and touch senses, completely detached from the real world, while augmented reality is based on the real world but it adds more virtual details on the real surroundings.

When it comes to commercial uses, there are critical considerations that should be taken into account.  First is the expected costs and how complex it is to develop solutions in either the virtual or augment realities.  Virtual reality is considered much more complex as the developer should create the entire background from scratch using heavy graphics techniques along with all the auditory and touch senses, this requires hard-to-find technical skills and very long time to develop the final product.  Augment reality is much simpler as it relies on the existing surrounding, there is no need to build complex background.  Virtual reality requires special equipment that are very expensive and sometimes heavy and have odd-feeling to use, impacting the user’s experience.  Such equipment is a full blocking goggles that is when worn it completely blocks the real world, and then headphones that block all the sounds from the surrounding to protect the authenticity of the virtual world.  Those are usually combined into a virtual reality headset to provide the ultimate experience.  And there is the touching wand, a hand-held stylus device that provides the touching sensation for interaction in the virtual world.  On the other hand, the minimum requirement for augmented reality is a simple phone camera, which will display the real world and build on it additional virtual details, this is clearly demonstrated with the popular game Pokémon Go.  This can be enhanced with more comprehensive cameras that project the results on screens, or if someone can spare the money then wearable technologies like Google glasses can be used.

In terms of the commercial uses, the health sector has used virtual reality for treating people with different phobias, like fear of crowds, heights or flying where patients are first immersed in such environment to break them in.  And both virtual and augmented reality can help with phantom limb pain (a pain that comes from a limb that has been amputated and is no longer there), these technologies can trick the brain into believing the limb is still there and the pain will subside as a result.  And in surgeries, augmented reality can help with providing visual guidance of the location of different organs even if they are beneath other organs or even from the skin level or the location of specific tumours to be removed that can’t be seem with the naked eye, this has simplified surgeries and increased their success.

The car manufacturing industry has started using these new technologies as well, like designing cars in virtual reality before starting to physically manufacturing them to ensure ultimate driver’s comfort and safety, and there are plans to see how to use augmented reality in the wind-shields of cars to project critical information like upcoming blind turns or other features in poor visibility conditions.  This has already been used by aircraft manufacturers to display weather conditions on the wind-shields for the pilots to help them fly through storms and turbulence.

In the retail industry, make-up producers are offering mobile applications that enables potential customers to apply their make-up in a virtual way.  By using the phone camera and taking a picture of the face, the customer can apply their different products with different colors to decide what is suitable and matches their skin and other facial features.  Further, augmented reality has improved how to approach decor and how to furnish a house.  Retailers of furniture are offering applications to help customers imagine how the rooms will look like with new furniture and what to place where, you can change your entire decor with new furniture in a virtual setting before deciding what to buy, this will help to ensure that sizes fit and the living experience is simulated before anything is invested.

The potential other uses are limitless and the imagination can run wild, but the cost and complexity could be an issue and can cripple the progress.  Nonetheless, such unique skills and expensive equipment are becoming more popular and cheaper, and with time it will be affordable and available to everyone.