AR vs. VR - Which Metaverse Will Change The World?
The Virtual Metaverse will be for gaming and entertainment experiences, while the Augmented Metaverse will be a lasting paradigm shift that will revolutionize the world.
Virtual reality is one of the most advanced technologies on the market today. It has incredible potential, but it's limited. As humans, we have a deep-seated aversion to being cut off from our surroundings, and we simply don't want to be isolated. This makes augmented reality more viable as it seamlessly integrates both virtual and real worlds.
The most polarizing word in technology is Metaverse. Mark Zuckerberg believes it will change society, while other tech moguls like Elon Musk disagree passionately. While Zuckerberg explains that the Metaverse will become a digital representation of the real world, with people interacting through digital avatars, Musk objects that it will be too distracting and doesn't "see someone strapping a frigging screen to their face all day."
In truth, they're both correct as the word Metaverse means different things to different people - confusing the market.
While the Metaverse is the future of technology and will transform society over the next decade, with the exception of hardcore gamers, most people probably won't be logging hours each day in using VR headsets, at least not any time soon. VR through the use of dedicated VR headsets will no doubt become increasingly popular for recreational use but will be restricted to limited durations and specific use cases.
The Augmented Metaverse is a virtual world layered over the real world and merged into a singular immersive and unified reality that will impact every person on the planet, transforming our society and how we interact with everything and everyone around us in our everyday lives.
It is crucial to understand that the most natural way for humans to perceive digital content is through a physical context. For example, when we see a building from far away, we can tell its shape, size, and purpose by observing only the structure's physical characteristics. It is possible to activate all of your senses with augmented reality, giving you a sense of presence in an imaginary world. The elements are perfectly registered to your surroundings, and you can experience them as if they are real. With AR, the technology doesn't need to be highly realistic. As long as it feels like the virtual elements are part of your ordinary world, and you can interact with them, there is a sense of presence. This is why augmented reality (AR) offers the most natural experience to the human perceptual system.
For VR applications, providing a unified sensory model of the world is much more challenging. The modern-day VR experience can be so hyper-realistic that users sometimes forget they are sitting or standing still while the virtual environment moves all around them. The problem with your body is that it doesn't know it's sitting or standing still while your brain thinks you are moving! Unless you use elaborate and impractical hardware, your body will sit or stand still, while most virtual experiences will involve motion. These two worlds present in your headset and your real-world surroundings must continually be reconciled. This creates a cognitive burden on your brain, forcing it to build and maintain two models of your world — one for the virtual world presented in your headset and one for your natural surroundings.
Augmented reality will be the primary interface for our Metaverse and not just for fun experiences like Pokémon Go. It will enable users to live in a more connected and immersive world. The current ecosystem of smartphones, tablets and laptops will no longer be necessary to access the layers of digital content present around us as AR view-through hardware such as lenses and glasses become more readily available. In this new augmented Metaverse, artists, designers, entertainers, and educators will be able to fill our world in previously unimaginable ways giving us entirely new perspectives layered over reality. It will transform how we see our world and interact with the digital things around us. We'll be able to alter our world. It will feel like a convincing and deeply immersive experience, as long as designers use perceptual design and think about what happens in our brains when we interact with digital objects and not just how they look on screen.
