The COVID-19 pandemic, which has lasted for more than two years, has revolutionized the way people live, including the way they fall in love.
I believe that everyone agrees that being in love is a very beautiful experience. Even young people who have not yet started the love process have heard, seen, and felt the beauty of love through various ways, and are full of expectations.
But, "Can I still fall in love if I can't touch it?" "Can you fall in love in the world of the metacosm?" Is this the first time you've been asked this kind of question?
Many people are slow to find the right person in life, but they have met similar souls on the Internet, so they have opened a two-way love. But if today's poison strains continue to mutate, and lovers in foreign countries are full of tests even when they meet each other, how can we continue to have love, give love, and carry out love to the end?
I wanted to be inspired by a love story.
Nan Nan is in Shanghai, and met her Brazilian boyfriend Garcia through the Internet, and they are very enthusiastic about a multiplayer online VR game "Techno Shaman". The game has an immersive, nested worldview where players can travel through different planes by collecting items, performing rituals, or completing missions. Due to a flaw in a scene, Nan nan is unfortunately stuck in a dead loop, and she transforms into a rabbit that is constantly reborn, and is struck by lightning every time she jumps out of a tree hole, like Sisyphus or Prometheus. Garcia, a passing hunter, rescues her in a way that ordinary people can't imagine, and this redemption ignites the spark of their passionate interaction.
She loves Garcia and enjoys spending time with the two of them, whether it's performing tasks in VR games, going crazy at virtual concerts, or just chatting and having fun. She and Garcia, like Shanghai Xiaolongbao and Brazilian pancakes, look completely different, but they are all wrapped in a dough and stuffing, which is the basis of the tacit understanding between the two people. She could feel the heart on the other side of the globe beating for herself and sinking for herself.
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic around the world, the long-awaited meeting, hugging, and kissing of two people in love has been unable to materialize. Nan Nan even developed a sense of despair at the intimate contact she longed for deep down. But Garcia kept comforting her, encouraging her, and in a way taking her into a more wonderful, cool, passionate, vertiginous realm of happiness...
This is the experience and realm that XR technology brings to them.
Let me talk about three XR technologies that are hot right now: AR, VR, and MR.
AR (Augmented Reality) is augmented reality, the technology through the algorithm of text, 3D models, video and other virtual information superimposed into the real-world environment, users can use lenses and other media to "view" the world they are in, so as to have a "surreal" sensory experience.
VR (Virtual Reality) refers to virtual reality, where users are fully immersed in a virtual world created by a computer simulation system. The difference between the two is that what you see through VR is not affected by any visible object in the real world.
For example, Nan nan has never been to Brazil, but she can wear XR glasses in her own room, and be on Copacabana Beach, with blue waters, snow-white waves, soft sand, colorful parasols, colorful swimsuits, bustling figures... There was also Garcia, smiling, walking towards himself.
Ar technology is based on the real environment, which requires the use of cameras to shoot real-time pictures in real time, and then mix virtual objects and virtual content into it. For example, when Nannan actually arrives in Rio de Janeiro, she can ask the AR system what interesting places or attractions are around Garcia, and the AR system will animate the recommended destinations on the real street scenes in her vision.
In recent years, a more advanced technology has emerged– MR (Mixed Reality) or mixed reality. MR builds an information bridge of interactive feedback between the virtual world, the real world and the user by introducing real scene information in the virtual environment. The virtual scene it builds is not a simple superposition of virtual information, but requires understanding the scene and interacting with the real world.
Garcia was able to naturally appear in Nannan's kitchen, bedroom, bedside, pillow, murmuring with her, looking at her, hugging her, making her heart beat, shy, and blushing, which is the credit of MR technology.
All of this is achieved on the premise that MR can deeply understand solid objects in a real-world environment. Only when MR understands what kind of girl Nannan is, what kind of boyfriend Garcia is, what is in the bedroom, where the bed is located, and what the function of the pillow is, will he make her heart beat, shy, and blush.
Immersion is one of the important features of XR technology, and it is also the key to making people feel immersed, difficult to distinguish between "real" and "fake". To reach this level, technology must "fool" humanity's keenest sense– vision.
Our bodies can "feel" the breeze, hugs and caresses, warmth and cold, and pain. In a virtual scene, touch is also one of the most important experiences. Haptic gloves allow us to "touch and pick up" objects in virtual scenes, and somatosensory suits allow us to "feel" that we have been slapped, caressed, or cold and hot in our environment, and experience the breeze on the spinning bike, the scorching sun and the bumps in the road.
Somatosensory suits can simulate the movement of touch through motors or external bones, and can also stimulate nerve endings to cause muscle contractions, so that people can feel touch. When our body collides with an object in virtual space, pulses are sent to the appropriate area on the somatosensory suit to simulate the feeling of the collision. Somatosensory suits can also monitor people's physiological data and body posture in real time, and the wearer communicates commands through gestures.
At present, such technologies have been gradually realized in the early commercialization, and it is expected to reach maturity in the next 20 years or faster and be applied to more fields.
In addition, odor emitters and taste simulators will also be available, enabling XR technology to cover all six human senses (actually five, because we may not be able to simulate the sixth sense of human beings , ultra-sensory perception ESP).
Although in the story, this ability to understand the scene is beyond the scope of today's computer vision capabilities, AND technology research and development is still in its infancy, but we have seen that the pace of rapid development and unlimited potential of this technology can be achieved in the next 20 years, or faster.
Computer vision technology will be able to decompose the objects in the real scene one by one, help MR understand all the objects in the real environment, and then follow the laws of nature and add various virtual objects to the scene. Let the imaginary story depict the scene happen in our real world.
Maybe by then, contactless love was the beginning of every love story. People who are separated by thousands of mountains and rivers, thousands of miles away, are in love with each other, and are not eager to meet face to face every day. Although the epidemic is a pandemic that cannot be touched by people who love each other, contactless technical means can allow many Nannan and Garcia to choose their favorite scenes and favorite ways, and rejoice together all the time.
This is VR, AR, MR, this is the perfect fusion of the real world and the virtual world, is an experience that XR technology brings to human beings, and is also the basic concept of the metaverse that is familiar today.
The future, are you ready? Following the concept of the metaverse, XR technology can bring you a real experience, a love affair, an adventure...
Happy Valentine's Day! Bless lovers who will eventually become dependents, no matter where they are.