Will immersive technologies change our lives forever?

Imagine experiencing the thrill of driving a sports car while sitting on your couch, or conducting meetings with international clients like they are in your own living room. No, we’re not talking about video games or Zoom, but something much greater: immersive technologies.

Immersive technology creates experiences. It allows the user to engage in the experience via a digital/simulated environment. Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), and Virtual Reality (VR) are three types of immersive technologies.

AR adds digital elements to a live environment (e.g. Google glasses) and VR headsets offer a completely immersive experience that shuts down the physical world. MR (e.g. Microsoft's Hololens) combines AR and VR so you can interact with both the real and the digital world.

Humans love to transcend reality. Have you ever been to a theme park where the rides and rooms engage you with another reality? Such places immerse you in a fantasy world. But now the stakes are higher with immersive technologies.

Before COVID-19 struck the world, we never imagined being restricted to our homes. Working from home became a new norm after the pandemic. There was no other option so everyone adapted to it.

After a while, the prolonged Zoom calls created annoyance and exhaustion. The pandemic made many people think about the solution to future problems like restriction on movement and contact. What if we could use the digital world for a better experience?

Facebook’s rebranding to “Meta” is in line with its new venture, Metaverse. You will not just be looking at a digital screen but be engaged in a real word that happens to be virtual.

You will be able to attend school, hang out with friends, go to office meetings, give presentations or go to concerts, from anywhere. That might sound like the regular internet, but the combination of VR & AR means instead of just “going online” you will be in a virtual universe.

There are some issues with immersive technology like you might lose touch with the physical world. The Pokemon Go game which used AR to catch the pokemon created a controversy in 2014. Many were not able to differentiate between virtual and actual world leading to accidents.

Bottom line: Immersive technologies are evolving fast. Possible applications include medical-health care, sports, training, education, space missions, and of course entertainment. They are here to stay and will allow humans to experience what was previously impossible.