Excerpt taken from research document "360 video, Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality " made at 4D – Digital Media | Central Saint Martins | UAL
"It would be wasteful not to draw any conclusions and point out possible developments from this research. These risk being premature and hasty, and are most definitely influenced by my own personal believes, so I must emphasise its speculative nature.
1) Virtual Reality, by blocking the user from the context, can provide a locked space with an immense potential for abstraction. It may remain a powerful asset (and even increase its presence) in a wide spectrum of scientific fields to conduct experiments where the subject/user is in a controlled space.
2) Virtual Reality was here before Mixed Reality, but we must not forget that the first years of research were largely spent defining and establishing the development tools that allow interactive 3D experiences. This evolution will quickly translate to the Mixed Reality world.
3) Virtual Reality headsets have a richer development environment. They provide the consumer with bigger array of cheaper devices and have stroked the ever growing gaming community. That, I am afraid, will not entitle VR manufacturers a bigger share of the consumer market for a very long time.
4) MR, by superimposing holograms on ‘Conventional Reality’, is naturally inclined to take over many aspects of our daily routines. From work procedures to entertainment, it is hard to find a single aspect of our daily lives immune to it.
5) Mixed Reality biggest challenges are not only technological, but also legal ones as new ethical questions arise from every invention coming to light.
6) Mixed Reality will pervade our spaces, personal and public. By adding ‘internet-deep’ layers, social tools, granting us more data, immediately, it will tap into our deep emotional landscape. This will obfuscate some parts of our current ‘early millennium’ lives.
7) From a design point of view the biggest challenge for Mixed Reality developers seems to be finding meaningful applications without creating new problems nor worsening and engraving current ones."
2) Virtual Reality was here before Mixed Reality, but we must not forget that the first years of research were largely spent defining and establishing the development tools that allow interactive 3D experiences. This evolution will quickly translate to the Mixed Reality world.
3) Virtual Reality headsets have a richer development environment. They provide the consumer with bigger array of cheaper devices and have stroked the ever growing gaming community. That, I am afraid, will not entitle VR manufacturers a bigger share of the consumer market for a very long time.
4) MR, by superimposing holograms on ‘Conventional Reality’, is naturally inclined to take over many aspects of our daily routines. From work procedures to entertainment, it is hard to find a single aspect of our daily lives immune to it.
5) Mixed Reality biggest challenges are not only technological, but also legal ones as new ethical questions arise from every invention coming to light.
6) Mixed Reality will pervade our spaces, personal and public. By adding ‘internet-deep’ layers, social tools, granting us more data, immediately, it will tap into our deep emotional landscape. This will obfuscate some parts of our current ‘early millennium’ lives.
7) From a design point of view the biggest challenge for Mixed Reality developers seems to be finding meaningful applications without creating new problems nor worsening and engraving current ones."
