Virtual Reality has promised big since the ’80s, but it never quite delivered in the way many of us hoped it would. But now a new form of augmented reality called Mixed Reality hopes to up the game.
New Scientist reports that researchers from University College London have modified an Oculus Rift headset to combine real-time video of the physical world with augmented reality objects. While that might not sound radical, it could make a massive difference to the user, allowing them to see the augmented real world from their embodied perspective rather than via a flat 2D screen. It’s a subtle, but incredibly challenging, advance of the augmented reality technology we’ve seen on phones and the like.
It’s certainly promising, if the video above is anything to go by, and could add a huge dose of realism to online gameplay or teleconferencing. It’s not perfect, sure — its object-recognition software keeps track of the floor and walls but can’t locate people or objects in three dimensions yet — but, c’mon, baby steps. You can read more above the technology over on New Scientist. [New Scientist]