Imagine entirely virtual worlds, digital elements superimposed on our everyday reality, or even a mixture of the two. These are the countless and astonishing possibilities offered by a range of immersive and interactive technologies. Often confused, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) offer unique experiences. It seems, nonetheless, that the direction research is taking is toward Extended Reality (XR), where the boundaries between technologies are getting thinner and thinner! Let’s find out what the differences and potentials of each technology are and some practical examples of their application!

Virtual Reality (VR): total immersion in a digital world

VR allows us to have a fully immersive experience in a virtual environment. This is done by using special visors that block the view of the real world and audio headsets that isolate hearing. VR is mainly used for entertainment (video games, VR cinema), but it also has applications in areas such as education, medicine, and design.

The video game Beat Saber is one of the most popular examples of VR entertainment on social platforms: the player has to cut to the beat of music large cubes that are approaching toward their arms, in an unusually designed room far removed from our everyday lives.

Augmented Reality (AR): overlaying digital elements in the real world

AR enriches our perception of the real world by superimposing digital information on it. To enjoy this technology, one only needs to use a smartphone or a tablet with a camera. AR is used in various fields, including education, tourism, shopping, and industrial maintenance.
Pokémon GO has earned a good reputation as one of the most popular AR games ever! You can catch digital Pokémon hanging out around your city, right from the sidewalk under your old high school or from boats in a harbor!

Mixed Reality (MR): the intersection of VR and AR

MR combines technologies and designs traceable to both VR and AR, creating an environment in which virtual and real objects coexist and interact with each other. To enjoy this technology, special visors that combine real-world views with virtual images are required. MR has great potential to revolutionize several fields, such as surgery, education, and entertainment. Some of the most famous experiments include Microsoft HoloLens, an MR visor that enables interaction with 3D holograms in the real world.

Extended Reality (XR): the only possible reality?

XR is an umbrella term that encompasses all the just-deepened technologies that extend our perception of reality. Simply put, XR is the set of all immersive experiences we can have, whether they are fully virtual, fully real, or an unspecified combination of the two. While the present still allows us quite nimbly to separate the boundaries, it will soon be complex to notice the choices made by designers, making MR obsolete and limiting and opening the door to a more user-friendly use of the expression extended reality.

Immersive technologies such as VR, AR, and XR are opening up new possibilities in many areas, foreshadowing room for improvement in the quality of life by those who will be able to take advantage of them. CHRONES. researches, in the area of VR, simulations in virtual environments for corporate team building, staff upskilling, or HR recruitment, as well as the edutainment and cultural training sector!

Find out how committed we are to extending reality for a human-friendly future: see our VR game and our VR Interactive Experience!

Photo by Freepik, screenshots from SEPHIROT® THE VR GAME by CHRONES.