Mixed Reality: A Game Changer for Our Sedentary Society

When I was a kid, we used to play outside all the time. My parents had to drag me back inside even when it was getting dark. The truth is that back then, there wasn’t much to do inside, and all my friends were outside.

But that changed at some point when consoles started getting better. The Segas, the Nintendos, the Ataris… it was a different time. And while it was cool to play video games at times, it was still more fun to hang out with my friends.

Fast forward a few decades, and I find few kids playings outdoors. Often it’s stringent parents that restrict media time that force them outside. The internet offers too much variety! Movies, TV series, video games… You could choose to play or watch only the blockbusters, and skip all the mediocre material. But you’d soon notice that it would take you a full-time job to keep up with all the amazing releases.

Some blame escapism, some blame the addictive nature of media. Whatever the reason, we have generations that are entering adulthood today, that were born to be digital.

If you end up having an office job, you’ll find your life more and more tied to a chair. Some sit, some stand, but the chair is ever-present. Executive Designer Directorial Premium Deluxe Chairs. Chairs to last a lifetime!

And as your waistline is expanding, your back starts killing you slowly. And before soon, you get to wonder why you are inside at all, when the sun is shining outside. The proposed solution? Stretch more. Stand up every hour and walk around for 15min! There's an app for it (which you can snooze)! In a wicked twist of irony, it's the smokers that are the ones doing the standing up and walking around.

When the day is over, you get to sit down in your car, or some public transport, enjoying the joys of rush-hour.

Once you get home, you wrap up whatever chores you have to take care of, only to end up sitting yet again, staring at another screen.

As a society, we have engineered the perfect life. A life where you sit your body into antrophy and depression.

When the Occulus Rift came out in 2016, it was another cool Virtual Reality toy, though we had many similar VR technology in the 80s and 90s. No doubt, the superior graphics powered by Unreal Engine did a lot to promote the devices. But even today, the biggest problem that these games had since the 80s, has not been solved: Immersive Motion. There are other issues, like: cybersickness, user interface challenges and bumping into objects. All pale compared the lack of immersive motion. It is the one ruining the party for everyone.

You can play Witcher 3, and explore a vast landscape, but your body will feel disconnected from your visual experience. Neurallink or similar solutions may be tackling this in the future. Perhaps VR will find itself applied similar to how it was utilized in Star Trek, as aid for the visually impaired. For now, the technology won’t be going anywhere in the VR space until this is solved.

And yet, Apple Vision Pro has introduced the idea of Mixed Reality. At first I wondered why it wasn’t called Augmented Reality, as that is the term most gamers and science fiction fans recognize. The answer is: because they cheat! But in a good way!

Augmented reality, as we see it in Cyberpunk 2077, implies an overlay. A hologram that is projected onto your glasses. Of course in Cyberpunk 2077, the entire eye is replaced with a cybernetic augmentation. Since fear of mutilaton is still one of the top human fears, I doubt we’ll see that implemented any time soon.

But how does Apple Vision Pro cheat? It takes a bunch of cameras and points them at your eyes. It takes another bunch of cameras and points them at the room around you and your body, so it can see you move. You think you see someone’s eyes through the glasses, but no. That’s a digital display. The eyes are lying to you!

And yet, even as they cheat, this provides a gateway to a new solution. It may not be the augmented reality from video-games, but it might work as well as if it were. This solution solves the bumping into objects problem. But we still have a new problem: Battery Life. If you want to take this baby outdoors, you might need a stylish nuclear reactor on your back.

But let’s forget about that for now. I’m sure they’re working on a way to improve that. Let’s take a moment now to explore what new avenues this may open, and how this could fix the problem of the sedentary prison.

Game such as DotA or League of Legends may soon be played in the park, using Mixed Reality solutions. We could overlay the other players with characters of their choice and explore new ways to enjoy the games. The same applies to games such as Fortnite or Overwatch. While this may not sound like much for now, it could open up real-estate investment opportunities to build entertainment parks that emulate the game map. Bringing a whole new level of immersion to the games and create a new way to fill stadiums. This could be further expanded unto games such as Magic: The Gathering, or Hearthstone. Even games such as Warhammer or Dungeons & Dragons could enjoy a never-before seen level of immersion.

This could all synergize with the gamification of fitness. Why run on a treadmill watching infomercials, when you can run away from a horde of zombies?

But there’s opportunities outside gaming. The adult industry could tap into a new market. Overlay your partner with that attractive person you’ve been swooning over. They wouldn’t even need to know! This could reduce divorce rates, improve marital fidelity and improve mental health. Studies have shown that most mental health issues can be tracked to single parent homes. It could further reduce the amount of rape incidents, and improve safety for women.

In education, we could expect children to find themselves transported to a different time and different space. We could teach history through immersion and create vivid memories. Compare this to reading about a tropical island in a book, and being on a tropical island.

But Apple has aimed it’s gaze at the workplace. So we can expect to see companies using this technology there first. Construction, engineering, interior design, are only a few places where this technology will find itself.

IQ uses a component of spatial awareness for it’s assessment. Some people find it easier to imagine objects in 3D than others. With this solution, many people that used to struggle will find new ways to contribute. In a way, this technology will enable a new generation of geniuses to arise, which, in turn, might spawn a new golden age.

Regardless of the use, the modern workplace won’t need a standing desk, and it won’t have you slouching on your couch. It will have you move and shaping the world around you in a way that could only be described as magic.

In the coming years, we’ll see technology advancing even faster than ever before. As AI will allow us to create and shape the world around us, we will face a new challenge. That of imagining faster than we are creating.

Now, smash that subscribe button and join me! Expand your mind, broaden your horizons. Your voice matters in this grand journey!