Boredom time again, let's talk about applications and ideas for virtual reality/augmented reality. Just quickly, I have used my brother's Oculus Rift development kit(the first version that was sent out, not later models that were improved), I couldn't play it for long, definitely got motion sickness from it and saw the gridlines in my eyesight after taking off the device because you could see it up close on the screen. Don't know how different it would be with the consumer models coming out this year.
Virtual Reality:
Devices and possible advancement:
Augmented Reality:
Devices and possible advancement:
Footnotes at end of page.
Disclaimer: Any ideas are just hypothetical and don't take into account things that make device advancement impossible such as thermodynamics, etc.
Virtual Reality:Devices and possible advancement: As we know, the devices that we use for virtual reality are in the form of Head-mounted displays with speakers to view things in 3D. Apparently if I remember hearing this correctly, Google are moving from their Cardboard VR to having VR be accessible with a headset that doesn't require you to have it hook up to a PC to process the graphics required. That's one possible advancement with VR, if there was any possibility of going further, then let's say hypothetically if we could make VR possible by having the screen in the form of contact lenses, then you could close your eyes and wear a mask to block out light, or just wear something to block out light and not have to close your eyes. This would make it easier for having something lighter on your head, I never did play with the Oculus Rift for that long and the headset is not designed the same way as a helmet, so I don't know if current VR headsets would require you to lie back if you wanted to play for long periods of time to prevent neck strain from the weight of the device.
Games: I don't have any ideas for games. I mean sure, one quick idea since we're here on an Umihara Kawase fansite. If a First-Person View Umihara Kawase game in VR was made, it'd be pretty cool, it wouldn't have to be stuck on a 2D plane and instead could use 3D movement and then more people would say it's like being Spider-Man, although I wonder about how many people would get motion sickness when swinging around.
Actually I just remembered a couple. Although one would be counted as game/simulation, there was the game shown by Namco Bandai called "Summer Lesson" and it's a Japanese game so there is a character in it who speaks English but, VERY SLOWLY. (Uggh...) Anyway, it would be awesome to have a game where you could interact with multiple characters who speak different languages allowing you to learn and practise conversation skills (or written). Obviously the biggest hurdle to that is having really good AI and voice recognition. Although again, I imagine whoever could come up with this the fastest would make money and probably make other learning methods obsolete. (Exaggerated)
Then the other idea would be that Visual Novel games would be pretty cool in VR because they are usually set in First-person View so being able to interact in the game which could allow the story to have multiple paths from the actions that you can do in game rather than just reading an option and selecting it would be pretty awesome.
Simulations: This is where I think money would be made more easily in the beginning compared to Video Games, because of selling products to businesses rather than consumers. I think it would take more time before selling games to consumers becomes profitable when it is known that the consumer base is arbitrarily large.
So ideas for VR Simulations, basically anything that can be replicated in real life which can be sold off as something for training such as:
- Training as a Surgeon, practising surgery in VR.
- Military VR, pretty much covered in one of the themes in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
- The list goes on applying it to most occupations.
One other idea I had, which I wonder if someone would make money off of is related to one little problem I've had in life which is trying to look for work and unfortunately I will rarely ever find a job vacancy that doesn't ask for 6-24 months job-related experience as a requirement.
There are places for example that sell short courses on hospitality in the workplace, so aside from having to get certified for serving alcohol, working in places that have gambling, or handling food. They will have short courses that you could waste your money on to learn how to make coffee, or how to be a waiter etc, for one day. However, that will not get you work even though you get a certificate for it because the people that post job vacancies don't post that as a substitute for job-related experience.
So the idea is, you create a Training course, where you have your own VR-setup for numerous people, the course is let's say Bar-related. You would need to create or license a simulation of a Bar where many numerous things would have to be experienced such as working under pressure, learning how to make numerous cocktails, how to serve customers, bar maintenance, cash handling etc. It somehow has to be convincing enough to replicate real life that doing this course for say a month or more is credible enough to be able to get you a job because let's face it, there's no better alternatives for people with no experience, there's "work experience" where you could work at some place for free only if they provide it however it's for a short period of time and even that might not give you a job so we're back at square one.
Whether this is training or experience is one thing, whether it's taken seriously by job providers is another although again, there are simulation programs already for occupations such as pilots for passenger aircraft.
Let's say this is a failure, there is another option. You get an Engineering degree related to Mechatronics and AI. You create robots that would make the jobs you could never get obsolete and then the future to a Basic Income for everyone would occur much quicker. (Exaggerated idea, relax.)
Designs:I'd have no clue how useful it would be to design for example buildings in virtual reality to recreate in the real world. Possibly it can become more in-depth than that.
For example, an architect can design a building and AI would be needed to simulate the physics and engineering involved for the building. This can involve simulating the material design of the building to understand what materials are needed to build and maintain the building. Then physics simulations involving say earthquakes, fires, erosion to determine what damage could occur. (This is where Microsoft could make money using their cloud computing servers)
You get the idea.
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Augmented Reality:Devices and possible advancement: The tricky thing about Augmented Reality is that it is applying something virtual in the real world. We already have used it either through the Nintendo 3DS, or smartphone devices where there is an "app" that can translate signs that are of a foreign language into your language. Some cool ideas for applications of Augmented Reality I've seen are from Metal Gear Rising Revengeance where Raiden's visor can allow him to see information in his environment with the use of GPS which can tell him where there are people past his field of vision.
Of course, Google glass was going to be another Augmented Reality device unfortunately one of the known complaints are people's privacy due to how it can take photos/videos without you knowing. (Even though we went through this kind of phase already with smartphones)This kind of technology would probably make a return when instead of being a visor, it can be something in the form of contact lenses that you can put onto your eyes. (Sure, you can talk about the ethics about this if you want although that wasn't the point of this thread.)
Another device possible for Augmented Reality would be holographic devices and of course that holographic room people mention from Star Trek. (Because I've never seen it)
Games: It's difficult making games that aren't just a novelty because of AR. There are quite a few ideas that may have been made already such as pet simulators, Pokemon GO, that face blasters(?) game from the Nintendo 3DS... uhh I forget what else.
It's hard to come up with games for AR, because you'll have smartasses that say, "why can't you just play that on a regular screen?".
Although, there are some(?) advantages to AR that can't be done viewing on a regular TV screen.
So either viewing through a visor, Nintendo 3DS, smartphone or a holographic screen/projector. Let's just go with a holographic screen/projector because it can be viewed by anyone without needing a visual device, the games being played have a 3D viewing angle rather than 2D. This would allow you to determine the depth of something and you could just move your head to look around rather than pressing a button/stick to move the camera angle.
The best example of a game using a 3D viewing angle in a non-holographic, non-AR form is Super Mario 3D Land for Nintendo 3DS because the 3D Screen gives you depth to determine distance when you are jumping, one of the best stages that does this when where you fall down from the sky and there are enemies you can stomp on or coins to collect along the way but you can hardly make any errors because the 3D Screen allows you to perceive the distance.
So in relation to say a holographic screen/projector, 3D-platforming games which requires precision can take advantage of the 3D viewing angle.
Applications: One of the best ideas about AR is with the use of a visor, you could just look at something and get information about it. As mentioned before, there is a smartphone that can translate signs. Although one bad example I made to a person one time is I noticed a car registration plate, and said I could look at that car plate and find out who the owner of the vehicle is, (where the intent was finding information if you were involved in a hit and run however, it sounded bad like as if this is something that a stalker would use which if I remember correctly, this did occur on the news once in India I think where women would get harassed by men using an insurance service(?) where they would just look up a person's car registration plate on the internet and get personal information on the owner of the vehicle including their address and phone number I believe.) although again, this is nothing different to using the internet to find the information. It just involves looking at something which creates a different input method.
So once more, talking about the "good methods" of AR would be looking at buildings that could give you information about the building now, or the history of it. Eg. Empire State Buidling.
Then of course we have the more controversial version of AR which is like the x-ray vision of AR as seen in a game like Watchdogs which I never played but I heard the story was crap even though it could have told a good one with regards to the ethics involved.
The more controversial version of AR being that you could just look at a person and it would tell you personal information about them, for this to occur, you need that information from somewhere, so let's say that the government decided to stick all your personal information into one folder on a server, containing details pertaining to your occupation, medical records, gender, bank details etc. Say that someone hacked into that server and could then look at you with the help of biometrics which would then identify who you are and give out your personal information. This would lead to bad things obviously such as blackmail for one, or if say you were actually a transgendered person then you could be targeted by violent individuals.
(I think that was all I wanted to point out for any possible controversial methods. Moving on.)
Could devices using Augmented Reality help blind people see? If it can't give them vision, there are still things like GPS to help blind people locate places, if it's still not possible to give blind people vision, attaching a camera could help tell you in more detail what you are looking at in your direction by telling you. For example, you used GPS to locate a building but, how do you know the correct doorway? The doorway you are looking for could be on the side of the building, and the front entrance leads elsewhere so the camera could tell you (Aurally) what you are looking at in your direction.
Or maybe, a camera in combination with thin-layered gloves that help you identify things by telling you when you touch them such as a fork or buttons with no braille written on like on a microwave?
Maybe these are useless ideas in practice?
Designs:Aside from the holographic room from Star Trek, if you had at least a holographic screen/projector. (I could be sounding contradictory in that last sentence.) You could use it to design your living quarters. You could design your room to make it look futuristic, primitive(caveman?), fantasy-like? <-- (You could have a wizard that stares at you in the room all the time and you just ask it for the time or calendar, lol)
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That's enough from me, feel free to discuss. Although I imagine some of the more controversial things (which I was only pointing out) could lead to emotional outbursts especially if this was a larger forum, this is just a discussion and an emotional outburst in my opinion is the most irrational way of disagreeing with something. If something triggered you that badly, calm down for a moment and think about it. Use your brain and give reasons to something you disagree about instead of just replying "They should get rid of <insert thing here>!"
Edit: http://kawasefan.net/forum/index.php?topic=53.msg720#msg720 Reply #16 contains the ideas I've posted regarding Social Gaming Interaction.
Footnotes:Demonstration of Augmented Reality using a visor i.e. Microsoft Hololens at windows 10 event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3rNIxMlKmI (Try to ignore most of their blah blah blahing, it's just marketing fluff.)
Demonstration of Augmented Reality using a visor i.e. Microsoft Hololens at e3 2015 with minecraft:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgakdcEzVwgApparently you can make your own holographic projection with your smartphone and this is the kind of thing I was referring to when saying Holographic screens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YWTtCsvgvgHow could I forget? Holographic Japanese Idols:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhl5afLEKdoI could post videos of impressions of Virtual Reality headsets but that would be about it. Seems pointless posting any game footage of VR games when its not the same without having a VR headset.
Edit: Oh look at this, impeccable timing.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1187231 -->
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-17/vr-startup-mindmaze-raises-funds-at-1-1-billion-valuationThis shows exactly what I was pointing out that early on VR/AR would sell well to businesses before it becomes big as a consumer product.