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The Convergence

Some days back I watched a scene from a movie called The Lawnmower and it made me realize that I’ve developed an interest in finding lessons and experiences from the movie world. The Lawnmower Man movie in 1992 introduced the concept of virtual reality to a wider audience back then. It was in part based on the founder of Virtual Reality Jaron Lanier and his early laboratory days. Jaron was played by Pierce Brosnan, a scientist who used virtual reality therapy on a mentally disabled patient.
Click on the below to watch the scene:
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So my mellow eureka moment, was that I belong to a generation that has witnessed the computer and computing power revolution, the advent of Windows, the dot-com bubble burst, the Apple storm, “search” becoming Google, the start of digital media and this new age of virtual and augmented realities, all the while still staying rooted in the conventional media of newspapers and televisions.
The tech and internet world has grown so much in the last 10 years that it’s impossible to add milestones anymore. There is a new generation ‘X’ called Millennials who won’t know the meaning of an analog TV set or a dial-up phone or life without a smartphone and then there is a generation I would term as hybrids, the ones who have known both the worlds of dot-com and non-dotcom.
The pace at which the internet world is moving forward might make Bolt look slow and the summit of that tipping point is what I term as “Convergence”- The meeting point where the cyber world meets and merges with our world. Machines are helping us to communicate better and at the same time communicate with us as well. Allowing us to understand this world better, our preferences, our likes, dislikes, and our way of life in general!
Consider our day-to-day activities like the shopping experience, we make a list every time we go to a nearby retail shop to go through that boring exercise of walking around aisles and checking item per item to fill our weekly inventory. We all have a pattern for everything which we don’t realize at times and this pattern is there for shopping as well; our needs, our necessities, and desires make up this pattern. So imagine there is an AI bot somewhere listening and watching what we shop for and how we shop, so the next time we want to shop, we do it virtually!
Using a wearable, we shop in the comfort of our home. Virtually, we pick our products, get an experience of what is new, what discounts/offers are there and all this by just using a smartphone and a VR headset.
Imaginary ideas but possible!
Life is changing around us and both AR and VR are changing it. AR is already being declared a game changer in the retail industry; it’s being used to create better shopping experiences and enhance consumer engagement.
Tomorrow, the banking industry will have virtual tellers and bankers interacting with and giving us a personalized download of their services through a wearable; available at our wish and command. For human welfare, VR is already being used to cure eyesight or overcome phobias like fear of heights or fear of flying.
Some articles worth reading:
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The human race is converging! There is no fear of a Terminator-styled Skynet attack but an acceptance. Scientists and technology geniuses are creating tools, software, and machines that are entering our world and changing the way we see and experience things. Recently I saw a video from TED from Alix Kipman (about the Halogens of Microsoft) Click here and it is beyond any doubt that they will, in the near future, hit the user-friendly parameters soon a housewife is going to use HoloLens to decorate her home or assemble a gas heater or even parents can educate children about the universe in a magical yet realistic way.
For the entertainment business, this is the golden age. Is there anything more exciting than experiencing an immersive game or a movie at our homes using VR? There is no other industry, which will benefit vastly from AR and VR. Content is being created for VR so that when it hits the mainstream, the Marvels and DCs of the world are ready.
Brands are not lagging, Unilever in a recent article shared that they are shooting content for VR as they believe it will soon enough be a medium to exploit to great advantage Click here . A mixed reality (MR) is also taking birth, sometimes referred to as hybrid reality. MR is the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualizations where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real-time.
Our world is merging into what we would term a virtual world, at least it looks like that and this gap will narrow down considerably with time.
I remember when my Dad first brought home a black and white TV set and we entered a new world of television, the so-called new content and entertainment then! We were amazed to experience it and that memory is still fresh, but now we live in a world of multi-screens from smart TVs, smartphones, and smart utilities. The idea of creating a wow experience is gone and now it is a “What Is Next” experience.
So the question is, what will come next?
How about a Johnny Dep transcendence kind of living, a parallel life? If I rephrase the words used by Elon Musk… - we will create our own simulations, live in a virtual world, and become immortal!
Thanks for reading!
You can reach me at abassmirza@gmail.com
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Shujat

My Quest with Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality

I consider myself an ardent enthusiast of AR and VR… Though from a technology perspective, I don’t know the code behind the game, but I have been preaching the concept in India and UAE for about 6 years now. Have worked with brands like Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, Agthia (a UAE-based FMCG major), Nike, and Bosch just to name a few in my scope of work, in various media houses. We created campaigns and customized AR applications for these brands with the help of my creative and tech teams. Have been in the media and advertising industry for almost 11 years now and released the potential of AR way back in 2009- 2010 to my clients and friends; that time the concept was still a lab experiment or considered some camera trick- which in fact it is, if we look from a layman’s perspective. The concept caught my eye from a Tom Cruise flick – Minority Report, where he uses his finger on a screen to play with images and videos- though not entirely AR and VR here, but we get the idea! Must say Hollywood movies have given this world some crazy concepts and now they are a reality. From graphical effects in movies to an application that finds its use in today’s age of hi-tech interfaces, it all has happened and will keep happening. Imaginative concepts wear the cloak of reality on them, a rule of life I say.
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When we pitched the idea to a client, they declined! Reason - one simply being that they couldn’t understand the concept and we couldn’t prove its vitality and usage. Second, was the fact that they couldn’t afford the platform as it involved substantial investment and time to build an AR activity, integrated into one of their campaigns. And now, AR/VR is on everybody’s brand campaign or at least they are discussing the concepts or applications of it in their so-called board meetings. Soon it is going to be the way people shop, interact, entertain, educate, socialize, and experience communication in its new avatar. Brands like Facebook, Microsoft, Intel, and Sony have been investing heavily in AR/VR which is positive for the industry, but to my dismay one goal in their agenda, which I think is to gain an edge over each other and pioneer the application. What the platforms really need is the right direction towards making it user-friendly. A consumer or a common man like me should be able to use these concepts to make their life easy. Make a weekend shopping fun allow parents to educate their children in exciting ways, or allow the maverick fans of Superman or Ironman to be there with them in a movie. You can think of an immersive movie experience through VR - imagine sitting in a theater and instead of wearing an annoying 3D glass, one wears a swanky VR headset to see him or herself standing with these iconic legendary characters and dodging their punches.
Right now, there is a mismatch between the concept level and the hardware that supports it. All the wearables like Google Glass or a VR headset are still clumsy to wear or use but soon there will be a day when it will become as easy as a single click effort. I believe companies like Blippar or Layar or the local UAE-based talented Pixelbug guys are more inclined towards that goal. There won’t be much delay when we will have an iPhone or Samsung phone with an in-built AR/VR functionality or a shopping experience that drives on an AR/VR platform. E.g. the refined case of project Tango from Google. Project Tango link:
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Just to make my post “number” friendly as we all like to see figures and read into percentages – Augmented/Virtual Reality is going to hit $150 billion disrupting mobiles by 2020 Article source: Click here.
  • So AR and VR are the force to reckon with and not to shy away from!
    Feel free to comment or share your experiences with me as it enriching.
    If you are interested in having an AR/VR conversation, get in touch!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Best!
  • So AR and VR are the force to reckon with and not to shy away from!
    Feel free to comment or share your experiences with me as it enriching.
    If you are interested in having an AR/VR conversation, get in touch!                     Best!