Future business based on Virtual and Augmented Reality
What if you could do a virtual tour of a hotel room before deciding to stay there or if you could check out the placement of your furniture without having to actually move it bet that sounds really convenient doesn't it
Well you can actually do a lot of these things already and that's all thanks to virtual and augmented reality technologies
As these technologies have become more affordable and widespread over the years we see more companies starting to adopt them for some really interesting projects
Today we wanted to take a look at some of the cool things that are being done with ar and vr and where they could be headed in the future
VR and AR defined while a lot of you are probably familiar with both ar and vr it's good practice to just clear it up at the start
Virtual reality uses computer technology to create a simulated environment and then places a user inside this virtual world so instead of navigating the web or playing a game through screens
For example you're now right inside the digital world vr mixes several types of sensory inputs to create a more immersive experience such as touch vision hearing and in some cases even smell
Well the tech has already produced some exciting results it's still growing the more the technology evolves the more sophisticated vr will become by contrast augmented reality uses technology to enhance the real physical world
It does this by introducing digital visual elements sounds and other types of stimuli through tech it uses sensors math and camera data to extrapolate the position of a virtual object in the real world
AR allows you to see and hear things in the real world that you otherwise couldn't through phones for example one common application nowadays is retailers letting people see how products would look in their homes
It's kind of like seeing holograms but only through a camera one of the most famous examples of ar used in gaming is the massively popular pokemon go remember the launch of that everyone was going crazy trying to catch critters traveling all over their cities it added an entirely new dimension of interaction to an already established property
So where one takes you into a virtual world with entirely fabricated environments the other one enhances your physical space with digital information or to simplify it one puts real people into virtual spaces and the other one puts digital things into real spaces
Okay now let's take a look at how both are being used now and their potential future uses across many different industries starting with vr virtual reality in business vr in the military both the UK and the US have adopted VR for training simulations
Because it allows them to simulate a wide range of scenarios that they would normally have trouble replicating they use it for fight simulations battles and even medic training among other things
It's being used to train military personnel in softer skills too like communicating with civilians in other countries or the international military and a more modern and novel approach to vr in the military is its use to treat ptsd through what is known as virtual reality exposure therapy or vret the wide range of options that vr provides the military and its comparatively lower cost to the real training situations has made its adoption very effective vr in sports just like vr is being used to train soldiers
It's transforming the sports industry as well there's the obvious case of being able to see the sporting event from the comfort of your home as if you were in a stadium some companies though like first vision have taken it a step further and allowed people to see games from the perspective of sports players now that's unique
If maybe a little confusing but there's more to do in the sports space or at least that's the bet that vr startup striver labs is making using firms to study and examine the techniques and strategies of a team is an old trick but what about visualizing these games like if you were there these unique perspectives are what striver is trying to create through vr training videos for sports players
VR for mental health we mentioned earlier how vr was being used to treat ptsd for members of the military well a similar approach can be taken for other types of mental health conditions and trauma vr can provide patients with a safe space for them to process and confront their anxieties and phobias
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