Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality means unreal reality, an environment that is not real at all like we experience in our life, but is a simulation. A not so real replica of the life that we live in.

In other words it is also called as "Augmented Reality".

Digital information is displayed which can take the form of an image or a visual to the user. It is an artificial environment created with the use of real world as well as computer generated data.

An example is the trilogy movie "Matrix", where the actors enter the virtual reality environment called the Matrix and fight off the machines.

Some other instances are the video games, computer games, game consoles that we have played and spent time on over the years. Using the joystick our actions control the game as we play it and accordingly create a situation. And we do the same in our everyday life as well.

In most visuals related to Virtual Reality, we see people wearing huge dark glasses that seem to cover their entire head at a time and sometimes holding an object that they can control with their hands to glide away or perform some action.

The thing they wear on their heads is the headgear to watch the simulated visuals whereas the object in the hand can be a joystick, a gun in case of a shootout environment, a bionic gear for instance so that they can watch their hand movements on the screen being converted to the hand movements of an animated character.

The environment becomes a 3-dimensional environment that can also resemble an actual scene. The intention is to make the scene as real as possible so other objects like people, skies, vehicles, traffic, the nature etc. are added on purpose.

Such simulations are used in military training so as to hunt down an enemy bunker for training, in sports, as form of entertainment in parks and in medical research for the blind or for the brain infected who find it difficult to see actual life.

Sixth Sense at its best

Pranav Mistry has developed a mechanism named 'SixthSense' which may change the way we live our lives. 

This wearable system enables anybody to bring in digital information out into the real world and by using moving hand gestures to use that information. It brings the information out in the real world by removing it out of its limits (like computer screens, tablets etc) and we can make use of this information by using our hand 'gestures'. Nothing ever of this sort and this magnitude has been introduced in front of us. Which is why it seems so amazing.

Some of the things that you can do can be video gaming on the wall (quite literally), browsing on the web on a piece of paper and much much more. You can do just about anything that you can imagine. Such can be the magnitude of this invention.

Just to explain in short, the hardware consists of a camera that captures video stream data and reads markers that are placed on our fingertips. A projector displays visual information on any surface that you want to use as an interface. Our hand gestures and the objects that the camera records are interpreted by using computer based vision techniques.

When I first saw this video it was completely awe-inspiring, a jaw-dropping clip that was totally out of this world.

This mechanism is completely open-source.and the information on how to build this mechanism is given in complete detail on his website.

Below is a 2 part video series that explains how he went about conceiving the entire mechanism and put it into use. Here it is below,

Do Enjoyy .. Else you would miss it :)