[MUSIC] In this section of maximizing customer and client engagement through digital transformation, we will look at defining the key terms like AR, and VR, mixed reality and look at the devices customers and consumers are using today. You need to be familiar with the technical terms, the equipment and platforms, so you can incorporate them into your strategy development. By the end of this lesson, you should be able to explain VR, AR, and the mixed reality virtual reality continuum. You will be familiar with the key industry players and hardware, and how they can be used. Let's start with some key definitions and meet at the real reality, the real physical reality we are all in. That's the state of things as they actually exist. We experience it through our human senses and without any technology. On the other hand, we have the digital reality. It's completely artificially created sensory experiences for people, environments and objects, which can include sight, hearing, and audio but potentially, touch. Now having the real physical reality and the digital reality and bringing them together. The blending of those physical and digital world is called the mixed reality. This mixed reality, or sometimes referred to as hybrid reality, is the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualizations, where physical and digital objects coexist and interact in real time. Mixed reality is a type of hybrid system that involves both physical and virtual elements. Many experts describe mixed reality as the sliding scale between a fully physical environment with no virtual elements and a completely virtual environment. That sliding scale between virtual and real environment, Professor Milgram called it the Reality-Virtuality Continuum, where on one side we have the real environment. On the other side, we have a completely virtual environment, and really, where they mix, it moves from augmented reality through virtual reality. Let's look at AR, or the augmented reality, definition. Augmented reality allows you to interact with media placed within the real world. Within augmented reality, you have a view of the physical real world environment, whose elements are then augmented by computer-generated items. This could be data, graphics, videos, or sounds. The real world is not blocked out. Users can see and experience the real world as well as the virtual objects. The interaction with the virtual objects is real limited. Often, today smartphones and tablets can support augmented reality applications. The idea behind augmented reality is to create a mixed reality experience and environment that partially immerses the audience. The technology layers are computer generated imageries on top of the real world, blending virtual reality with the real world. By transporting virtual things into the real world, augmented reality seeks to create an interactive and enhanced real environment. On the other hand, we have virtual reality, or VR. Virtual reality allows you to interact with media in a 360-degree immersive environment usually using a headset. Virtual reality replicates an environment, real or imagined, and simulates a user's physical presence and environment to allow for user interaction and a sensory experience. It's really the most immersive experience we can offer today. The real world is completely blocked out, the user can only see the virtual world and the virtual objects. Devices ranges from the very least expensive Google car ports over the Samsung Gear Oculus Rift to the HTC Vive today. Virtual reality, VR, which can be referred to as an immersive multimedia or computer-simulated life, replicates an environment that simulates physical presence and places in the real world or imagined world and lets the user interact in that world. Key to remember for virtual reality, VR, the idea behind VR is to completely immerse audiences into a digital three-dimensional world. Users can explore and navigate through this environment, interacting and create their own personal experiences. The potential of VR is to reimage reality, to personalize it and to allow access to objects, places, and people that are out of reach in the real world. To create the VR virtual reality experience, 3 main components need to be in place. I already briefly mentioned the content distribution. People need a headset to actually immerse themselves into the virtual environment. The content then needs to be available on a platform to be distributed to them. And last but not least, or first, the content needs to be created. And there are different ways of creating three-dimensional degree content, we will talk about a little later. The market for VR and augmented reality is tremendous. Billions of dollars have been invested into VR and AR technology by companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Sony, HTC, and Samsung over the last years. Countless hours and private capital have been invested in startups and through enthusiasts who are building the experiences they would like to see. But also in academic, leading universities embrace in their research the potential of virtual reality and augmented reality.
