Augmented reality and the future of virtual reality

Most everyone has heard of Pokémon GO now. If you haven't, well ... you walk around and capture funny little creatures by pointing your phone all over and throwing balls at them, and then you can battle other players using the creatures you've found. Augmented reality is the idea of placing a computer created world right over the top of the real world (in practice, you do this by looking through a screen or holding up your phone and letting GPS do its magic). The idea is to get kids out and running about, rather than sitting on the couch and turning into lumps of pudding.

Pokémon GO

The tricky part is that whenever you put anything in the way of what is happening, you generally ignore one or the other. Which is why kids have been walking into parked cars and basically going where they shouldn't--makes you want to yell out, "Hey! Look where you're going!" I imagine it won't be long before players figure out how to do both, but it'll remain a problem. [note: I shouldn't talk much, since I was well known for walking and reading a book at the same time. I don't remember walking into any fence posts though ... maybe I forgot.] Despite our denials, our brains are really only good at focusing on a single task at once--everything else is either a quick glance, or ignored (if you doubt it, try turning on two videos at the same time).

 

I've seen some amazing uses of virtual reality (like putting a calendar onto a wall, where it remains), or virtual animals that wander around. Business presentations could become interactive, and imagine training surgeons by doing virtual surgery without all the clunky mechanisms. Augmented reality has a wonderful opportunity, but the trouble will be from an idea known as "information overload." Fighter pilots have this issue constantly--too much complex information fast becomes impossible to comprehend, so it gets tuned out--and there's tons of work done just to simplify things. It's easy for designers to put in wiz-bang toys, but if it's too much we break down. A perfect example is in movies where they put huge displays on car windshields (can you imagine driving with all that in your direct line of sight? Impossible!).

 

- M