Gadgetory

the future of computing is not on a screen tech companies are working on having virtual images appear right in front of you sort of like Holograms think of it as computing in space and you control it with hand gestures or with your voice now this tech goes by a few names augmented reality or AR for short it's also called mixed reality the blending of real and virtual it's a world where anything can appear in the palm of your hand but you may need some headgear to make it happen what's it gonna take for this kind of mixed reality to be our everyday reality go let's start with the easy stuff augmented reality is pretty common in social media and mobile gaming we've all seen plenty of those silly selfie camera effects pokemon go had everyone catching cartoon critters around their neighborhoods you can even see what furniture looks like in your space before you buy it yeah let's put that right here mm-hmm looking good that's all a are and it doesn't always look perfect but phones are getting smarter with processing these effects soon you will see multiplayer AR games in an early demo we tried with Apple we can hold up an iPad to play a slingshot game that looks like it's sitting on the table even though nothing is really there but yes yes I know this is all still on a screen so when will we get games floating in front of our eyes that's a bigger leap so to speak a startup called magic leap is now selling a headset that can make it happen there's also a headset from Microsoft called hololens which has been out for longer both are a bit pricey that's because they're not really meant for average consumers these companies are hoping developers will tinker with the tech to come up with cool apps they each have similar effects but hardware is a bit different with magiclip one you wear goggles with special tech in the lens and it's tethered to a little computer pack that sort of looks like a CD walkman clipped to your waist the goggles do not work with glasses so folks who wear glasses need to use contacts or order special prescription lenses that's not the case with hololens it works with glasses and look ma no computer pack no cords the hololens headset is Wireless and it fits like a crown with a transparent screen hovering over your eyes both make it seem like computer images are floating in front of you and the images look a little transparent but they can stick to one place so you can move around the object you may see these companies share example footage where it looks like an entire room has been transformed around you and you're now living in this amazing virtual hybrid world but that's not quite the case when you put on these headsets your field of view is limited the computer effects don't show up in your peripheral vision now you can only see the Holograms straight ahead of you it's sort of like looking through a window frame into a holographic world where you have to turn your head around to see it all this hololens example footage conveys that idea more clearly hololens has some educational and business application demos you can get an anatomy lesson by seeing body parts up close from any angle see a building model come to life by putting yourself inside of it learn to make a repair by jumping on a live call and getting guidance on steps to take with real-time animations some programmers have even tinkered with life-sized video games like this Super Mario concept we tried out last year careful of the goombas with hololens there are also little cartoon characters that can fly around you or you could just make one fall off your table poor little guy these headsets have sensors that map out the room to detect walls and objects making it appear that the virtual things are walking on and around your furniture and you can control it with hand gestures or voice commands developers have shared similar effects for magic leap in this case a little rock man is throwing boulders your way that you have to block and dodge and a cartoon car could zip around the walls of a room the tech is still in the early stages and it's pretty cool that we're living in a world where all this is possible but you are not going to want to spend two or three grand to see little special effects on a head computer until there are more applications so is there anything more reasonable that will show up on this planet anytime soon well here's something for just $200 Lenovo's Star Wars Jedi challenges it's the home budget version of the experience the headset is powered by your smartphone and sensors on the ground and in a lightsaber prop will measure your whereabouts in the Jedi training simulator go figure it's the toy world that's bringing this experience home in a more affordable way Hasbro has an man masks called hero vision it's powered by a smart phone inside the visor and it scans icons on a glove to create an Avengers training battle game it's under 50 bucks there are other tech companies exploring the space so we may see things advance pretty quickly there is another company called leap motion it tracks hand gestures with AR it has this open-source build-it-yourself headset called project Northstar you can see how advanced the software gets even when a hand gets in the middle of it and the company also posted a video showing virtual ping-pong and how quickly it can keep up but it's still a bulky headset we reported that Apple is also working on its own headset but what form that will take or if it'll even come is unknown for it to be the future of computing it needs to be super light to pop on and carry with you anywhere could it be as light as a pair of glasses like we see in the spy movie Kingsman where Holograms appear through a normal-looking pair of specs well maybe it's not total science fiction giants like Google Samsung and Sony have been playing with the idea of smart contact lenses and they have a few projects in the works but until the tech gets a whole lot lighter and much cheaper we will just have to stick with a are on the device we already own the phone hey guys thanks for watching so would you wear an AR headset for work or for play let us know in the comments what you think and you know I don't really want to poop who the idea but honestly I think it's gonna take some really great games for this to make a splash be sure to like and subscribed and click the little bell icon so you never miss a future bridge it breaks it down on these world-changing issues oh yeah that is looking good