Reality is changing, we are now on the cusp of realising what was once a science fiction fantasy. Both Oculus and HTC have release dates only months away for their next generation Virtual Reality headsets.

But even with all the hype around Virtual Reality (VR) we may still need to wait for the next “alternative” reality platform before we can truly enjoy our real Sci Fi experience.

In this blog I will look at how the dream of Virtual Reality of today may quickly shift into the demand for Augmented Reality (AR) of tomorrow.

VR is king – for the moment and just to demonstrate how much of a gap there is between VR and AR I used Google Trends to plot some data points based on search history over the last 10+ years. As you can see VR is a growing hot topic and has been since late 2014 whereas as AI is on a rather slow and steady decline.

As a student I studied Virtual Reality, I even remember doing a 15 minute presentation using an overhead projector, and this was in the first “boom” of VR. The previous VR bubble burst in a very similar way that Artificial Intelligence did (as discussed in my previous post) when the technology could not keep up with the vision.

One argument that the above Google Trend data may be wrong could be down to a common misunderstanding that Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality is the same thing.

And herein lies one of the problem’s for Augmented Reality.

I spent 5 minutes trying to explain to my Wife the difference between AR and VR using words something like this (taken from the respective Wiki’s)

Augmented reality (AR) is a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics etc.. Virtual reality or virtual realities (VR), which can be referred to as immersive multimedia or computer-simulated reality, replicates an environment that simulates a physical presence in places in the real world or an imagined world, allowing the user to interact in that world. Virtual realities artificially create sensory experiences, which can include sight, touch, hearing, and smell.

After 5 minutes of blank looks I decided to use my iPad and an application called MSQRD to provide an Augmented Reality overlay onto my face. This is a clever bit of technology that maps and tracks your face before overlaying a 3d replacement.

In some ways it’s hard to believe that most smartphones have the technology to let us consume both VR and AR without even trying. With Google Cardboard it’s just as easy to turn your phone into a high def VR experience and there are plenty of free apps to have a play with. One of my favorites is the Just Cause 3 Wingsuit.

So the difference between augmenting a reality and creating reality is quite easy to see, even if it’s tricky for some people to grasp when explained. I think this also starts to expose the problem we have had with AR.

The Virtual Reality demo above (and most of the others around today) makes use of the same games engine for both the non VR game and the VR version. This means it’s fairly straightforward to use existing tools to create a Virtual Reality experience. We are all used to seeing computer games so it quite easy to understand the VR use case i.e. Make games better.

Augmented Reality presents a totally different set of challenges at a software level. These challenges don’t have the benefit of 20+ years development like we have had in the 3d games industry.

The other challenge is lack of imagination or awareness of what AR can do. When I speak to people they “get” Virtual Reality as the next step in consumer escapism. But when I ask them how Augmented Reality would be used in their daily lives they struggle with the concept.

Interestingly a quick look at some analyst views shows that the expectation is that AR revenue will leap above VR in the coming 4 years. One of the drivers for this is the wide reach that AR has vs VR. As we can see in the chart below, Virtual Reality is predominantly focused around entertainment whereas Augmented Reality has a much broader reach dipping into many market segments.

The recent announcement and demonstrations from Meta at the TED conference give some great examples of how we will be able to interact with a Augmented Reality overlay. Yes we have seen examples from Microsoft with HoloLens but this demo was very cool as it shows a real life everyday example. In the example your computer replaced with a full virtual HUD which is being presented via the headset. The ability to fire up your “computer” wherever and whenever you want is quite a powerful capability. Customising, adding or removing monitors (or other peripherals) becomes a software interaction rather than a costly transaction.

So 2016 will kick start the next generation of Virtual Entertainment with Samsung, Facebook, HTC and Sony all releasing consumer VR headsets.

So in the coming months we will enter this new Virtual Reality era, however around the corner is an even more exciting and game changing world of Augmented Reality that will have a much broader impact to our Entertainment, Work, and Social lives.