Specs May Offer A New Reality For Games At Home
Pundits left the Electronic Entertainment Expo in LA, otherwise known as E3, with two words on their lips – Augmented Reality.
Known as AR for short, it adds computer generated objects to a real world view.
It differs from Virtual Reality (VR), which gives users an completely computer generated experience.
Both have been around since the 60s and been deployed widely, particularly by the military. AR has been used in head-up displays for planes and now cars, VR in simulators, particularly for aerospace.
But neither has yet entered the mass retail market. VR is almost there, with Facebook’s Oculus Rift and Sony’s PS4 VR headsets due to launch to the expectant masses next year.
However, AR stalled spectacularly with Google Glass.
Now, last week, Microsoft used E3 to demonstrate a prototype of HoloLens, its hi-tech specs product.
To avoid a reaction of ‘not another Glass,’ they were careful to distance it from their rival’s doomed device by concentrating on indoor applications, especially gaming, and by positioning AR as a variant of VR.
HoloLens caused a real stir with a demonstration that suggested our own living rooms could become the ‘sets’ for games in times to come.
With these specs, we could fight a miniature gun-toting holographic army, bursting through our walls and windows as we fire back to pick them off.
Obstacle run and racing circuit games could use our own carpets and furniture with images of game characters projected on to them.
Experts agreed that Microsoft has to solve issues with a limited field of vision, but think HoloLens will get there.
One said: “Augmented reality is now where virtual reality was four years ago.”
