What form of alternate reality will revolutionize our lives? Virtual or augmented, which reality will prevail? This is undoubtedly one of the major questions of the next decade. In this time scale, we can distinguish two temporalities: on the one hand, the short-medium term will clearly be occupied by virtual reality (whose acronym is “VR“ for “Virtual Reality“ in English)with these famous helmets, still relatively thick and heavy, like the Meta Quest 2 – born from the takeover of Oculus in 2014 – available for almost two years at 349 euros.
Its role: to completely cut us off from the outside environment to replace it with the virtual worlds that are displayed inside, all in color, a sort of endless cartoon for adults.
The other reality will not be virtual but augmented. And here, we are talking about a medium or long term horizon. This augmented reality (whose acronym is “AR” for “Augmented Reality” in English) will offer an enriched version of our environment thanks to glasses that we hope will be thin and light, like prescription glasses: technologies that have still need about two years of development, at least.
And so, in summary, immediately or almost, advantage of virtual reality with a helmet. On the other hand, from 2024-2025, augmented reality with glasses should turn our lives upside down.
Between these two realities, virtual and augmented, there is a third: we speak of “mixed” reality. We will therefore superimpose virtual content on the real environment: for example, the hologram of your correspondent or his avatar integrated around the real meeting table in front of you or on your sofa. A dedicated helmet, presented blurred, last month, to maintain a bit of mystery, under the name of “Project Cambria“, should also be released by Meta before the end of this year.
“The critical point is to put people at the heart of these technologies. Stay tuned and you will see what we have to offer.”
Apple CEO Tim Cookat China Daily USA
For its part, Apple, which does not seem to be interested in virtual reality at all, is working hard on this augmented and mixed reality. Tim Cook, its CEO, explains that the critical point is to “putting people at the heart of these technologies“ in an interview conducted on June 14, 2022 and broadcast by China Daily USA. “Stay tuned”, he advises while a mixed reality headset has been presented to members of Apple’s board of directors in recent weeks.
However, this mixed reality headset would only be one step before “augmented” reality glasses from Apple, which are expected to be a revolution comparable to what was the iPod or the iPhone. One wonders, in reality, if the helmet will not be, above all, a tool for developers who will be used to create the content and the augmented reality that these glasses will display.
They do not yet have any official existence, but they are already nicknamed “Apple Glass” in a nod to Google’s “Googles Glass” in 2011. These glasses could replace our smartphones in less than 10 years. In short, virtual, augmented or mixed, reality today is first and foremost a question of timing.