Why AR, not VR, will be the heart of the metaverse
This article was contributed by Louis Rosenberg, CEO and chief scientist at Unanimous AI
My first experience in a virtual world was in 1991 as a PhD student working in a virtual reality lab at NASA. I was using a variety of early VR systems to model interocular distance (i.e. the distance between your eyes) and optimize depth perception in software. Despite being a true believer in the potential of virtual reality, I found the experience somewhat miserable. Not because of the low fidelity, as I knew that would steadily improve, but because it felt confining and claustrophobic to have a scuba mask strapped to my face for any extended period.
This sent me down a path to develop the Virtual Fixtures system for the U.S. Air Force, a platform that enabled users to manually interact with virtual objects that were accurately integrated into their perception of a real environment. This was before phrases like “augmented reality” or “mixed reality” had been coined. But even in those early days, watching users enthusiastically experience the prototype system, I was convinced the future of computing would be a seamless merger of real and virtual content displayed all around us.