What you describe, Variform, is called Augmented Reality. It's a tech that is currently being developed by Microsoft (see Hololens) but it's still somewhat in its infancy compared to VR.
They chose the Mixed Reality branding for their current Windows headsets partly as a marketing tactic to separate themselves from the other "mere" VR headsets, partly as future proofing - they plan to include future AR enabled headsets under the same brand. Basically in their language Mixed Reality means VR and AR together.
As for the dangers of VR, I think VR naturally discourages extremely long playsessions simply due to how physically (as well as psychologically) exhausting it tends to be. I can't personally play for much longer than 1 hour straight without taking breaks, it just isn't enjoyable after a certain point. I think in the long term VR actually promotes health, due to VR gamers sitting less and standing and moving around move.
Healthy is if gamers went outside for a run. I don't believe for a minute that just standing up and moving a half a yard in any direction will make much of a health difference.
But yes, AR is the 'official' name for projecting virtual things onto or into the real world. Then again, who makes these things 'official' anyway. In a sense it is the same thing as Mixed Reality as per M$'s marketing slogan. But they seem to be the ones actually going for that, though they hop on the VR bandwagon at the moment to not lag behind the rest.
I am not sure if it makes sense to do VR + AR = MR. They can call it what they like but its superfluous in different ways.
- Overlaying reality with AR
becomes a VR; it just consists of 2 types of elements and therefore it alters everything. It is synergistic. You cannot truly say anymore philosophically that there are 2 worlds that are merged.
- VR in essence is not different from a 2D screen. Both are easily separable from reality. But give it time and AR/MR might not be. You take a look at HOLO-ME and extrapolate the refinement of that sort of technology into the future and it will be possible to insert virtual people in your living room and do a sort of Turing test for avatars, have someone come in, use the headset, open a door and tell the person another friend was invited and they will never realize he isn't real.
- You could do the same with VR, like facebook wants, that people can meet in VR in Paris and sit on a terrace having a drink, but even though that other person you don't know who was just introduced to you might be a real person, removing the VR set immediately make sit clear none you experienced was real. Even if your real life friend living next door is real and shared your experience.
This is why VR is immersive and fun, but ultimately unsatisfying. A game like ED is fun and interesting and engaging etc. because it is offset against a background of reality. A game by default is areal experience based on unreal scenario's. If you could really board a starship ED would not be a game, it would be a sim in the way an architect bureau would use a 3D tool to project their design to make it visible.
A game therefore must necessarily be about things you normally cannot experience and that is possible by the background against which it is placed: reality.
That is why AR/MR is the future. It provides a useful overlay on reality and thus taking advantage of the strengths of both phenomenon. What is not real is enhanced because it is placed against a background of reality and in some sense it takes on real attributes. And reality is enhanced because virtual objects share normally inaccessible aspects for reality, with it. Escapism into VR is less satisfying that AR because you can never get so far into it as to lose yourself. AR/MR will provide more immersion because of the reality factor. In the same way a lie works better if it is based on a truth and believable. A lie where you tell your boss you were late because you just arrived from Alpha Centauri will not save your job.
Imagine that the sofa you have at home cannot enter into a virtual reality. Because reality doesn't allow that. Now you create internet and make a 3D model of the sofa. It can now enter into cyberspace and exist there as a separate entity. As you know, things you buy in game stores for games have a unique identity when they are assigned to your account. Your sofa is defined online by a tag. And with the unfortunate rise of the IOT ALL products will get a virtual counterpart, a digital shadow.
It would make no sense for a sofa to be in VR because if it is there, it
is already specifically coded into it. And yet that particular sofa can never have a counterpart in the real world. With AR a digital sofa can be projected in the real world and treated as part of the furniture because it looks nice and perhaps it can overlay and make a real sofa disappear.
The implication here is that VR is limited and AR is not. AR is a self-enhancing perceptional change as such. VR can only at its maximum copy the entire world given enough computing power.
Another disadvantage of VR is that you can take it with you. You can go have a drink in Paris from Kenia and from Iceland and it won't make a difference. But AR cannot be taken with you. When you use it it will necessarily be a mixture of Kenia or Icelandic reality with whatever assets you like to project. That makes it interesting and validates life. VR doesn't validate anything beyond its own perimeter and parameter.
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@ Piper: Sorry, it is not for everybody.
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
