Why VR and AR would be the Next-Gen of Computing!

Getting more out of the mundane reality was always the thing that humans thought about for centuries. Dreams and Story-telling could have been the origins of VR back the day since the stone-age. Augmented Reality is not that new either if you think hard...Perhaps the very first instances AR could have been people seeing things after getting drunk or instances of the like...just kidding!


Well what im trying to say is that the idea of AR and VR is not really new 'new'. But it certainly is going to be the future of next generation computing. Computers have decent amount of power today to process visuals as real-time inputs, and this kind of power is cheap enough for us consumers, all thanks to the Moore's law......so far.

Google is already on the AR scene with the Tango, and they already had the Google CardBoard back in the day for VR. Its now called the Google DayDream. But lets see how different these two prospects really fare by function -

Google Tango-
For starters, its not an app. It more of a platform for Augmented Reality content for the future and now. Its a software stack that can be implemented by Android smartphone manufacturers. It works on 3 crucial elements -

- Depth Sensing : To measure the depth in the 3 dimensional world. This is mostly done with infrared emitters along with camera

- Area learning : This is done on software, it uses the sensor data to monitor things like the area boundary mapping, remembering edges of objects to define 3d boundaries between objects at depth, remembering the path along which the device might have once passed through, elevation mapping, and many more.

- Motion tracking: It enables a smartphone to know its position in a given area, and remember its path of excursion in three dimensions as well. This opens a fresh window to things like interactive games, where you make the elements in reality, an object that can be interacted with digitally.

Its not only fun and games, nano bio-tech and medical researchers are already using it to refer and teach human physiology in greater detail, and this is just scratching the surface on what the Tango AR can really acheive tommorow.

Basically, its machine learning put to extensive use, meaning we'd be using the world around us as the input to the computer in your hands, mostly without even you noticing it. Thats the beauty of it!

Virtual Reality -

As I said before, VR is not really that new..you can find traces of it starting from 1920's, although primitive to what we have today, but they captured the idea first-hand.

With Google's Daydream, its now the official platform for VR content on Android phones. The DayDream interface itself is pretty cool and even has its own Daydream Store included too.

Unlike AR, VR fully synthesizes a virtual world that is de-linked from reality, except for your sensory abilities. And its no wonder why multi-billion companies like Facebook invest in it with the Oculus Rift. You'd even see traces of future on facebook, with increasing content on 360 videos. Its a sign that socializing will be entirely on a virtual 360 level rather than just hitting the like button.

Although VR is ahead of VR in terms of technology, it too is limited by the technology of today. Ofcourse you have photorealistic games that immerse you in it with the Oculus and Vive headgears, but they arent yet practical with wires attached to it.

With VR and AR progressing separateley, you'd now prefer to have both of these on a single platform.... Well for this, ASUS has made the Zenfone AR. This brings the 2 prospects on the same platform.

For AR, the phone features hardwares like infrared sensor, fish eye camera, and motion sensing cameras. And for the VR the Zenfone AR has an excellent AMOLED display at a really sharp 2k display.


Also, with the amazing array of sensors, it also helps make the VR really much more accurate at sensing the world to tracks its position in the 3D world.

The content for Day Dream might just be catching up with some excellent games and virtual reality content, the platform is truly mobile, differing from its PC counterparts, which still is wired. The device has got enough power than the slower Lenovo Phab 2 Pro.


Device is yet arrive on the Indian shores. That said, its going to be a pretty interesting future with the AR and VR, especially on the Zenfone AR.

What do you guys think about AR and VR. Tell us about your current experiences with VR or AR.

These are really the future & btw, have you heard of the ASUS Mixed Reality Headset that Microsoft showcased today ?

Current experience with VR is incredible but pixels are still visible since it's a start i am amazed to think what will be in future, i haven't experienced AR yet so can't say but according to me soon it will be implemented in contact lens where only you can see and also can be shown to other with their lenses.

When you see something in AR, you see something virtual positioned in the real world. This means the display you are using is showing you the physical world around you with virtual things added in. This can be as simple as a map marker through the camera interface on a phone to show you what direction to head in, or a full headset that virtually adds videos or games to the real world. More complex AR systems allow you to treat the walls in your home as though they are apps on a computer screen, or send virtual robots to come shoot at you as you duck safely behind your couch. It's a blending — or augmenting — of the reality you already live in.

mail2ronit posted on 2017/5/31 17:44
These are really the future & btw, have you heard of the ASUS Mixed Reality Headset that Microsoft s ...

yes, they look pretty rad...