The future of extended reality is bright. But listening to the media, you might not get that impression.
Stop thinking of cartoon torsos floating in a conference room and, instead, think of walking through a mall with holographic images popping up offering you 40% off deals.
The best part: If you’re not sure where to get started, there’s dedicated extended reality (xR) events connecting interested parties.
Shelby Skrhak is joined by
Eric Hembree, director of Advanced Computing for
Ingram Micro, to discuss:
- Understanding the umbrella term of extended reality
- Establishing an xR community
- Where technology is going in the next year
Understanding the umbrella term of extended reality
While many are familiar with virtual reality (VR), extended reality (xR) encapsulates all realities into one—currently separated into three categories: Virtual reality, augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR).
But how much do we really know about xR?
Eric explains, “We're all familiar with VR, oftentimes thinking of gaming as the primary use case. But there are also training programs and use in the commercial space. With augmented and mixed reality, people often mistake the two. Many people have already used augmented reality, they just don't know it yet; AR superimposes an image on a user's view, like a cell phone or a tablet.”
He continues, “The difference between AR and MR is that in MR, you can manipulate the 3D computer images with your hands.”
The potential applications for xR are near limitless. Eric shares the example of doctors who take scanned images and view them in real time—reducing errors and complications.
Establishing an xR community
For those new to the space, there’s fortunately many opportunities at conferences explaining current IoT and xR offerings. One such event was a dedicated xR event Eric hosted in Irvine, California.
“We had partners come in for a day and a half, interacting with live demos from several different headsets and software manufacturers. They also heard from industry experts on the current state of the xR market, and what trends they need to be aware of,” Eric says.
From this event, competitors learned how they could partner to take full advantage of the xR opportunities. Future events include the
Ingram Micro ONE IoT event in Orlando, Florida on November 7th.
Where technology is going in the next year
Eric is most excited about how the metaverse will grow over the next year, but emphasizes that, even now, general perception about current metaverse offerings may be misguided.
He explains, “People might think the metaverse is a bunch of cartoon torsos floating around a virtual conference room. And that's just such a narrow and skewed view of what it's actually going to be. To me, it's going to be a truly connected and interactive world, using both mixed and augmented reality.”
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