01 logo

Augmented and Virtual Reality: The Promise and Peril of Immersive Technologies

AR and VR are expected to grow into a $95 billion market by 2025.

By AbhinayPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
Like

Facebook purchased Oculus for $2 billion and Goldman Sachs predicts that AR/VR market will be around $95 billion by 2025. The demand for AR/VR devices is growing day by day. The industries where VR/AR will dominantly be used are live events, retail, video entertainment, and gaming. They also find applications in industries like education, healthcare, military, and more. Let’s look into some of the issues and concerns regarding these technologies.

How will VR/AR revolutionize content consumption?

Highly immersive – Compared to digital screens, AR/VR devices have an engaging UI/UX which is why they are highly immersive. 360 degree panoramic view can’t be enjoyed by digital screens, and the experience VR gives is very real. Try disturbing someone who is taking a VR tour of a forest. They will feel abruptly startled because they will be immersed in the VR forest world.

Decreased production costs – The time and iteration cost in product development can be significantly reduced using virtual prototyping which enhances the end product quality. Widespread use of this virtual prototyping will lead to the decreased cost of prototypes and greatly decrease the timeline from conceptual design to production and commercialization.

Low entry cost – Smaller firms can now produce high-grade content at a low cost. 360 imaging would take days together before but now it can be achieved in hours. Google cardboard is one of the classic examples of such low-cost VR devices.

Cognitive enhancement tool – Witnessing humanitarian crises through standard digital screens will not give an immersive experience. But through VR/AR, one can really experience the pain and develop kindness for such victims. This is just beside the point as VR/AR can be used in various learning experiences. Through VR/AR’s biosensors, a user could drive a car using only his brain.

Talent in AR/VR

There is a severe shortage of AR/VR professionals as confirmed by researchers in US. It is predicted by 200 Canadian companies that due to the lack of AR/VR professionals there would be the consolidation of companies in dealing with it. In order to counter this trend, one has to nurture local and regional talent. China is a great example in this regard where it is subsidizing companies up to $1.45 million to develop VR industry. Governments across the world should also fund this NGUI industry similar to what France is doing.

AR/VR content will be more personalized.

Most of you would have experienced that after browsing if you go to Gmail, Facebook and similar portals you would see the relevant ads which you were browsing on. The more time one spends on a device more data will be generated about the interactions which make product offerings more targeted. This trend will be hugely accelerated by AR/VR devices. Advertising is the most obvious application for this. Protection of privacy is the key to user retention as evident from the report by the World Economic Forum. It says that the prime reason why users from six countries stopped using a service is that they thought it violated their privacy needs.

Pointers for User-Centered Design

When developers are not conforming to the regulatory norms then it is the prerogative of the regulator to protect the users. It should be something along the lines of GDPR which has strict privacy regulations violating which will incur huge penalties.

VR applications store the personal data of the user like location, IP address and browser and device type through cookies. Communications across VR environments is stored and aggregated with third parties for marketing purposes. To give privacy to users EFF introduced a privacy badger which restricts the third party trackers and enables the users to customize their data.

Consumption can be managed in the form of stopping mechanisms. Usage warnings can be popped up to prevent overuse of some resource. There are ways where one can prevent the content types and time of the content delivery which parents in some parts of the world do to their kids.

Conclusion

The NGUI technologies will grow to gigantic proportions than common public’s expectations. VR will be bigger than the TV industry in 10 years. AR is greater than VR and will therefore be higher than the TV industry. Therefore, above concerns and issues need to be addressed to enable their growth to have a smooth transition. Governments, regulatory frameworks, tech organizations should join hands to further propel the growth of NGUI technologies. Education, healthcare, gaming, music will never be the same when these technologies are used optimally in the future.

Juego Studios is one of the best companies for AR/VR services. We have developed numerous applications for various clients all over the world. Our development of unique applications is what has kept our clients asking for more from us. Get in touch with us with your idea and we’ll see to it that its done.

vr
Like

About the Creator

Abhinay

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.