Virtual And Augmented: Creating Our Own Reality (inF1003)

What do Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the pornography industry and family-entertainment venue Chuck E. Cheese have in common? All three are experimenting with virtual- or augmented-reality technology. With at least ten companies having already announced virtual- or augmented-reality platforms or headsets and with venture-capital firms having invested almost $800 million in virtual- and augmented-reality projects in 2014, the potential reality-changing technologies are getting a lot of attention. However, despite all the experiments, invested money and hype, there are still relatively few products available on the market. So it can be difficult to fully assess the potential impacts of these nascent technologies. Over the past few years, we have written about four dynamics which can provide some context to what may be expected from these potentially ground-breaking new technologies, which we explore here.