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I just got back from ISTE 2017 in San Antonio Texas. Saw some really cool things with emergent technology that I'd like to report on. Specifically, I was excited about some of the augmented reality products that I see coming and becoming increasingly accessible for educational use.

First, I was impressed by what I saw with the Google Expeditions AR project. I spent some time with the Expeditions AR selfie sticks, playing with their AR experience. Here's a video of me going through a blood vessel you can see the red blood cells as we go right through it.

A pretty cool product. I'm really excited to see that Google Expeditions AR is taking the collaborative feature which we can use in Google Expeditions (VR) and bringing it into an augmented reality world. This will allowed for impressive shared-experiences within our classroom, keeping us mentally and physically present in the learning space. I'm not sure when the full rollout of this is going to happen but I know that the Google Expeditions AR folks are looking for pilot schools to test out the product and get it ready for a full-scale K-12 availability. If you are interested in being a pilot school fill out this form: https://goo.gl/N8EDii .

During my ), which allowed you to take elements from the periodic table of elements put them underneath your phone (for AR) and you could see how they looked and changed as they were combined with chemicals that they are compatible with. Unfortunately, Elements 4D is no longer under any future development by Daqri, as they are now focusing their research and development on producing augmented reality workshop at ISTE, I invited Jeremy from Merge Cube to bring in his product to give attendees some hands-on experience. The Merge Cube ( www.mergevr.com ) is a foam cube that reminds me a lot of what I saw with Elements 4D ( http://elements4d.daqri.com/ AR smart glasses.

Merge Cube is taking AR and bringing it into this digital and physical world through smartphones that we already have access to. This will allow students to handle the manipulative and turn it and shift it use it as a game piece, or game board, all viewable through mobile technology. MergeVR will be selling their own viewer but, I tried it out with my Viewmaster AR and found the clicker allowed me to click through the features just fine. I had a chance to take this home with me and give a try with my 7 and 10-year-old and they were pretty excited about how easy it worked and how they were able to immerse themselves in an AR World pretty quickly. Look for Merge Cube in stores soon!

At the Microsoft Partners Booth I worked a little bit with Martin from . I found Lifeliqe was really cool especially when you experience it through the Hololens. They've been investing a lot of time in developing for the hololens anticipating that this is part of the future for education. The Lifeliqe that has a free one month download of their features which are connected to various science textbooks as well as Next Gen Science learning standards. I recommend checking out Lifeliqe for their 1-month free trial and see if it's a good fit for you. There are over 1000 different three-dimensional models available through the Lifeliqe app in IOS and Android. Their models are changeable you can move them up and down increase their size you can even record screenshots. Additionally, in the app, you have the ability to view in a are so if you were looking at a Stegosaurus you could actually put it on a table or on your friends head and record the process and insert it into a project slide show. Lifeliqe's work with the hololens really looks like the way things are going, I had the opportunity to try it out a couple of times and found it is really cool to increase and decrease the size of a lunar eclipse as an example and walk through that lunar eclipse and get a real up close look at it. Additionally, what I wasn't really ready for was to try out Lifeliqe VR.

They've developed a several VR experiences for the HTC Vive these experiences are unbelievable I went for a tour of the International Space Station from space so I got to fly around the International Space Station and experienced their three-dimensional modeling.

I've seen video of people using HTC Vive and I've watched them play games and all that, but I never experienced it for myself. I'll tell you right now the videos that we see do not do it justice this is a really powerful product that brings us into a VR world. I have really been spending most of my time looking at and thinking about, AR but honestly the VR stuff is really, really incredible and it really gets me closer and closer to that Star Trek Holodeck that we're all waiting for.

I think both AR and VR have a powerful future. In particular, augmented reality has come a really far away and as we saw at ISTE through several vendors. It's really amazing what our students are going to very soon have access to. I don't pretend to have seen every augmented reality experience at ISTE, and I'm sure there are other ones that were pretty awesome. But the Tango-enabled Expeditions AR, Merge Cube, and Lifeliqe or the ones that really popped out to me that I got some Hands-On time with and wanted to share with you.

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Augmented Reality Insights from #ISTE2017 #edtech @MergeVR @GoogleForEdu @Lifeliqe

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I just got back from ISTE 2017 in San Antonio Texas. Saw some really cool things with emergent technology that I'd like to report on. Specifically, I was excited about some of the augmented reality products that I see coming and becoming increasingly accessible for educational use.

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Future Ready: VR, AR, and MR in the classroom beyond the novelty.
Classroom level application of VR, AR, and MR content is a form of job readiness. These emergent technologies are fun and exciting, they can be used to captivate students but what's the learning value beyond that? As educators we regularly asking ourselves what is the educational value, how will this help me achieve my content goals and prepare my students for the world that awaits them. Fair and valid concerns that I hope this blog post will address.

AR has been around since the early Nineties 1 but until recently it was slow to be adopted by the masses as a useful technology. One exception would be video games which have heads-up displays (HUDs) in car games, war games, in just about everything with a live score (constant feedback). These entertainment venues have now informed the real world, one example is John Madden Football being used by the NFL to create a better viewing experiences (augmented experience) for viewers. 3,4
1
We should define VR, AR, and MR, since the purpose of this blog is to explore career readiness I will use the definitions as explained by the AREA (Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance), the only global member-driven trade organization focusing on reducing barriers to, and accelerating the smooth introduction and widespread adoption of Augmented Reality by and for professionals.

Virtual Reality (VR) - technology that relies on software, hardware, and content but without the physical world and is 10 0% imaginary or "synthetic." 2

Augmented Reality (AR) - always involves adding digital information in a manner that's tightly synchronized with the physical world. Augmented Reality is the suite of enabling technologies and the resulting experience of a user when highly contextual digital information (in the form of text, images, graphics, animations, video, 3D models, sound or haptic stimuli) is presented in a manner that's synchronized in real time, and appears attached to physical world people, places or objects. 2

Mixed Reality (MR) - On one end is the physical world without any digital enhancements and, on the other, the purely digital world (Virtual Reality). Augmented Reality is a form of mixed reality that is closer to the physical world than the purely digital world. 2

At the AR in Action Summit (MIT Jan 17-18, 2017) vendors, academics, and industry professionals gathered to share AR experiences and develop a future for AR. AR's application across many different industries was prevalent.
Architecture
I learned about how architectural firms are regularly using AR and VR to illustrate designs and models for their clients. This powerful example shows AR and VR applied in the workplace, here is one example from Arrowstreet. 6

And another example from Balti Virtual ( http://baltivirtual.com/ ) showing their work with Baltimore's Port Covington project.

These examples allow architects and developers to have meaningful discussions with clients about the projects that they are working on. In both cases, these companies have found that AR/VR opens the door to discussions with clients that were previously much harder to attain and that lead to a higher quality end product. Visuals of doctors with an Oculus headset connected to a live camera reminded me of FPS gameplay.
Medicine
Medical practitioners shared examples of enhanced Spinal and Lung Surgery all aided by VR/AR/MR applications. Doctors reported more effective and efficient surgery aided by these technologies, leading to higher quality medical care.
Emergency Services
During the summit Fire Department Captain Kirk McKinzie gave a call for help to industry professionals to continue to develop AR hardware to support the rapid rescue of victims in emergency situations.
Consumer
Among the vendors were HoloTats & UA Play which offer an AR experience for consumers.
Workplace
PTC's Thingworx demonstrated how manufacturers and servicemen can repair and build products aided by AR visualizations of tasks and steps for a wide variety of projects.

Further, in the workplace it became clear that subject matter experts are now able to work at a distance and can guide lesser skilled/qualified people through complex tasks all through AR.
Summary
The emergent fields of VR, AR, and MR are rapidly expanding and are among the few technologies that we can most definitely target as relevant to our students' future workplace. Our students will be called upon to leverage this technology and to improve it in their future careers. Recent predictions state that by 2025 14 million workers will use AR in their workplace, up from 400,000 presently. 7

So what can we do in the classroom? We need to share our experiences with AR to better inform educational applications on their creation and development of student learning experiences. Current research states: "While AR technology has been improving, it can still be difficult for students to use; therefore, more studies related to the development and usability of AR applications are needed. Within this line, learners' opinions about usability and preferences must be examined in AR based learning environments." 8 These "studies" can include our classroom experiences as a form of action research to promote meaningful change in practice and use of innovative technology.
References

1. "Augmented Reality in Education" http://www.arined.org/?page_id=43 retrieved 1.25.17

2. " Augmented Reality Defined" http://thearea.org/augmented-reality-defined/ retrieved 1.25.17

3. Gordon, Bing "Gamers know AR" Lecture at AR in Action (MIT, 1.18.17) www.arinaction.com

4. Pierce, David " 25 years of Madden, the video game that changed football forever" (2014). http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/31/5365700/25-years-of-madden-the-game-that-changed-football-forever retrieved 1.25.17

5. "The AREA Faq" http://thearea.org/area/faq/ retrieved 1.25.17

6. Arrowstreet www.arrowstreet.com retrieved 1.25.17

7. Gownder, J.P. (2016) "How Enterprise Smart Glasses Will Drive Workforce Enablement - Forecast: US Enterprise Adoption And Usage Of Smart Glasses" published April 21, 2016.

8. Akçay, M. and Akçay, G. (2017) Advantages and challenges associated with augmented reality for education: A systematic review of the literature. Published in Educational Research Review 20 (2017) 1-11.

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Future Ready: VR, AR, and MR in the classroom beyond the novelty

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Future Ready: VR, AR, and MR in the classroom beyond the novelty. Classroom level application of VR, AR, and MR content is a form of job readiness. These emergent technologies are fun and exciting, they can be used to captivate students but what's the learning value beyond that?

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You, brave hero, have been attacked by a Slime! You must defeat it... or flee from it.

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emerging technology | Piktochart Visual Editor

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Buncee - Innovation Station, AR/VR Emerging Tech

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New Piktochart | Piktochart Visual Editor

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A VR tool at Boston Children's Hospital will create an immersive and accessible patient education experience for patients and families.

Source: Thinkstock

- A new virtual reality tool at Boston Children's Hospital aims to take patient education into the future by delivering children and their parents an individualized and immersive patient experience.

In partnership with patient education technology company Klick Health, Boston Children's has created HealthVoyager, a VR tool that gives patients a 3D tour of a gastrointestinal test such as a colonoscopy or endoscopy. This allows patients to view their exact results and receive a hands-on experience to understand their current medical conditions.

Traditionally, patients and families receive paper patient education tools that are not necessarily customized to the patient's test outcomes.

Although providers have previously supplied patients and their families with the results in their EHRs, many of the images and other hands-on materials used to increase patient understanding have not been individualized to the patient's test results. These tools are also written in highly technical language and may not be easy for patients or their family members to understand on their own.

HealthVoyager allows patients to see exactly what their providers saw during their colonoscopy or endoscopy.

Following a procedure, clinicians can use the provider-facing component of HealthVoyager to create a digital replica of the patient's gastrointestinal tract. Using drag-and-drop functionality, clinicians can add polyps, ulcers, bleeding, and other issues to allow patients to visualize their own medical conditions.

After providers have created the 3D tour for patients, patients can scan a bar code that will allow them to access the tour on their own smartphones. Using VR clip-on glasses, Google Cardboard, or another VR headset, patients can view the tour. Patients also have the option of viewing a healthy gastrointestinal tract for comparison.

This enhanced view may be more palatable for patients and resonate with them more deeply than traditional patient education, said Michael Docktor, MD, a pediatric gastroenterologist and Clinical Director of Innovation at Boston Children's Innovation & Digital Health Accelerator.

"Putting myself in a nine-year-old's shoes, I can see HealthVoyager being a more fun and valuable way to learn about and share complicated information like endoscopic findings," Docktor, who co-developed the tool, said in a statement. "We hypothesize that the more children and their families can visualize and understand their disease, the more likely they may be to communicate when they have a particular symptom and adhere to their therapies."

HealthVoyager developers took a note from the Precision Medicine initiative, which aims to create individualized therapies for specific patient genetic codes. The VR tool can help create Precision Education, according to Boston Children's Chief Innovation Officer, John Brownstein, PhD.

"When you think about the care path of a patient journey, every aspect of that journey can be customized, including education," Brownstein explained. "To ensure the best possible patient experience, Precision Education needs to be part of the Precision Medicine conversation as we create the future of healthcare."

Other children's hospitals have been leveraging VR to help enhance the patient experience. At Nationwide Children's Hospital, VR serves as a welcomed distraction for patients who may undergo scary procedures and treatments.

At the hospital's hemophilia clinic, VR can help whisk patients to another world, one where they are not in the hospital and needle pricks might not hurt. This tool has helped patients receive the treatment they need and ease the emotional burden of the nurses and parents caring for them.

Although the tool at Nationwide Children's serves a different purpose than the VR technology at Boston Children's - one seeks to improve patient satisfaction while the other is an education tool - they both create individualized patient experiences.

Hospitals looking to use VR to improve the patient care encounter need to assess the individual needs of patients. VR may not be the answer to overcome all patient fears, for example. And providers using VR to support education need to bear in mind the notion of Precision Education and ensure they are using the technology to its fullest potential.

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How VR Can Boost Individualized Patient Education, Care Experience

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Source: Thinkstock - A new virtual reality tool at Boston Children's Hospital aims to take patient education into the future by delivering children and their parents an individualized and immersive patient experience. In partnership with patient education technology company Klick Health, Boston Children's has created HealthVoyager, a VR tool that gives patients a 3D tour of a gastrointestinal test such as a colonoscopy or endoscopy.

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SAN FRANCISCO - Machines are starting to learn tasks on their own. They are identifying faces, recognizing spoken words, reading medical scans and even carrying on their own conversations.

All this is done through so-called neural networks, which are complex computer algorithms that learn tasks by analyzing vast amounts of data. But these neural networks create a problem that scientists are trying to solve: It is not always easy to tell how the machines arrive at their conclusions.

On Tuesday, a team at Google took a small step toward addressing this issue with the unveiling of new research that offers the rough outlines of technology that shows how the machines are arriving at their decisions.

"Even seeing part of how a decision was made can give you a lot of insight into the possible ways it can fail," said Christopher Olah, a Google researcher.

A growing number of A.I. researchers are now developing ways to better understand neural networks. Jeff Clune, a professor at University of Wyoming who now works in the A.I. lab at the ride-hailing company Uber, called this "artificial neuroscience."

Understanding how these systems work will become more important as they make decisions now made by humans, like who gets a job and how a self-driving car responds to emergencies.

First proposed in the 1950s, neural networks are meant to mimic the web of neurons in the brain. But that is a rough analogy. These algorithms are really series of mathematical operations, and each operation represents a neuron. Google's new research aims to show - in a highly visual way - how these mathematical operations perform discrete tasks, like recognizing objects in photos.

Inside a neural network, each neuron works to identify a particular characteristic that might show up in a photo, like a line that curves from right to left at a certain angle or several lines that merge to form a larger shape. Google wants to provide tools that show what each neuron is trying to identify, which ones are successful and how their efforts combine to determine what is actually in the photo - perhaps a dog or a tuxedo or a bird.

The kind of technology Google is discussing could also help identify why a neural network is prone to mistakes and, in some cases, explain how it learned this behavior, Mr. Olah said. Other researchers, including Mr. Clune, believe they can also help minimize the threat of "adversarial examples" - where someone can potentially fool neural networks by, say, doctoring an image.

Researchers acknowledge that this work is still in its infancy. Jason Yosinski, who also works in Uber's A.I. lab, which grew out of the company's acquisition of a start-up called Geometric Intelligence, called Google's technology idea "state of art." But he warned it may never be entirely easy to understand the computer mind.

"To a certain extent, as these networks get more complicated, it is going to be fundamentally difficult to understand why they make decisions," he said. "It is kind of like trying to understand why humans make decisions."

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Google Researchers Are Learning How Machines Learn

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SAN FRANCISCO - Machines are starting to learn tasks on their own. They are identifying faces, recognizing spoken words, reading medical scans and even carrying on their own conversations. All this is done through so-called neural networks, which are complex computer algorithms that learn tasks by analyzing vast amounts of data.

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The 10 Best VR Apps for Classrooms Using Merge VR’s New Merge Cube - EdSurge News

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Recently, the world of virtual reality was shaken up when the popular Merge Cube by Merge VR dropped in price from $15 to just a dollar at many Walmart ...

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You need the Metaverse App to view this Augmented Reality Experience.

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Watch my amazing website created on emaze - The stunning web site builder.

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Schools should embrace artificial intelligence (AI) and could use "Alexa-style" machines in lessons to help shy children who do not want to put their hands up in class, a leading private school head said today.

Chris King, chairman of the HMC group of private schools, said in the future Alexa or Siri-type virtual assistants could help timid children become more confident in lessons.

Gifted children could also use the technology to learn independently from the rest of the class, he said.

At the launch of the HMC spring conference, Mr King said: "Children can be reluctant to put their hands up and answer questions in class, especially if they think they might be ridiculed. That won't come from a machine.

Intelligent AI: why London is the best place for AI tech

"Access to artificial intelligence might encourage the timid more reluctant learner to take more of a risk and develop more self-confidence in the learning process."

Mr King, head of Leicester Grammar School, chose the topic of this year's conference, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality in Education.

He said education must not be left behind on artificial intelligence, adding: "The commercial world has seen the opportunities of AI, and it is important education recognises the opportunities it can bring. There is huge potential."

He said: "I don't want to paint a picture of classrooms filled with pupils with their own Alexas but we could well see that kind of machine finding its way into classrooms and allowing differentiated learning. Nothing will replace the magic of a teacher, but the two are not mutually exclusive. It is not either or."

His school is already running a pilot scheme where a computer analyses test results and comes up with suggestions for what a child should learn next.

A poll of 500 sixth formers before the conference found more than 80 per cent think a human being is a better teacher than a robot could ever be.

Some students were worried that robots acting as teachers could be hacked and produce false information, or find out their personal details. Others feared a standardisation of education, reduction of creativity and boredom.

Mr King said: "It is gratifying pupils value the human relationship with their teachers and care is needed to make sure it is never compromised.

"However, much of the concern pupils are showing could be fear of the unknown. AI has huge possibilities for adding richness to pupils' experience, personalising their learning and freeing up teachers to do what really matters."

Today's conference comes after the education select committee launched an investigation into new technologies including artificial intelligence and robotics.

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Amazon Alexa in the classroom will be a good thing for shy children

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Schools should embrace artificial intelligence (AI) and could use "Alexa-style" machines in lessons to help shy children who do not want to put their hands up in class, a leading private school head said today. Chris King, chairman of the HMC group of private schools, said in the future Alexa or Siri-type virtual assistants could help timid children become more confident in lessons.

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Arizona State University will use Google's VR technology to offer the first completely online biology degree.

While many schools offer online courses and degrees, some fields have remained inaccessible because they require labs and hands-on training. Lab requirements force some students to commute and pay lab fees, Jennifer Holland, Program Manager for G Suite for Education and Daydream, said at I/O this week.

"This doesn't scale, but we know we have the technology to enable these experiences," she said.

To that end, Google partnered with Labster to create a virtual reality biology lab. Arizona State University will use it to offer the first online biology degree program.

The program consists of 30 labs simulating real outcomes and the equipment involved. Students move through the virtual space, conduct experiments, and see the outcomes. The included labs even transcend what is possible in the real world by including labs at the molecular level.

The virtual lab spaces are also always available, which can't be said of physical labs. "Students are able to have unlimited lab time, which many schools can't offer today" Holland pointed out.

Google announced the course alongside several other VR and AR improvements in education. In addition to its 800 virtual field trips in history, STEM, and art, Google is now bringing alternate reality-or AR-experiences to its Expeditions platform, including 100 AR objects when it launches at the end of the month.

With AR Expeditions, participants can interact with 3D objects as if they were physically in the space using Cardboard or Daydream viewers. The idea sprang from watching kids want to interact with what they saw on VR expeditions, Daydream and Education Product Manager Ben Schrom explained. Children exploring a VR coral reef wanted to interact with the sharks and coral, so "this is our answer for how you bring that shark into the classroom," joked Schrom.

AR objects can be freely placed in a space, or locked to QR code anchors printed on paper and placed in a shared space. The AR objects can be resized to be impressively huge or appropriately sized for the space students are using. Teachers can use a spotlight tool to highlight points of interest.

Google is also making it easier to create these virtual reality experiences with a new tool called TourCreator. Powered by Web XR, this web application lets users upload their own 360-degree content, or browse the reams of 360 views available from Google Street View, said Google's VR Product Manager Brit Mennuti.

TourCreator is available now, and will soon be updated to include voiceover narration and ambient music. Once complete, creators can publish their tours to Google's Poly platform, making them embeddable and shareable online. They can be viewed using a VR headset, or explored in two dimensions on a phone or web browser.

"We think this is the beginning of something big," said Holland. "What better way to use the power of VR."

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Studying Biology? Step Into Google's Virtual Lab

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Arizona State University will use Google's VR technology to offer the first completely online biology degree. While many schools offer online courses and degrees, some fields have remained inaccessible because they require labs and hands-on training. Lab requirements force some students to commute and pay lab fees, Jennifer Holland, Program Manager for G Suite for Education and Daydream, said at I/O this week.

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May 11, 2018

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Virtual reality (VR) employs computer-generated information like images and sounds to create an immersive, 3D digital simulated environment, whereas augmented reality (AR) uses digital information to enhance our experiences of reality.

The history of VR

One of the first VR technologies was created in the late 1950s and was called the Sensorama. It used 3D images on film, plus fans, odor emitters and a vibration chair to stimulate a viewer's senses. When a person sat in the chair, placed their head inside the machine's hood and looked at an internal screen, a 3D movie would start, complete with sound, air flow, odors and vibrations. The Sensorama never caught on because making the 3D films was too expensive at the time. In this early VR technology, we can understand what virtual reality is and some of its characteristics.

Today, VR has matured considerably, with application in gaming, shopping, medicine and skills training.

The history of AR

The term augmented reality was coined at Boeing in 1990 by researcher Tom Caudell. Boeing used manual processes for the display of schematics for factory floor workers, until Caudell and an associate conceived a system using glasses that workers could wear which would project complex wiring diagrams onto reusable boards instead of having to manually place the diagrams on plywood boards. In effect, Caudell and his colleague had created a precursor to Google Glass, albeit in a simpler form.

VR and gaming

kevin-kelly-virtual-reality-engages-our-reptile-brain

VR works very well for gaming because it enhances various computer games by providing richer, simulated environments and realistic characters and scenarios. According to one estimate, the global VR market might hit the $27 billion mark by 2022. Another prediction pegged the VR gaming market at over $40 billion by 2024. (The overall gaming market is actually much larger than the VR portion, at well over $100 billion per year.)

AR and manufacturing

Flash forward from the 1990s, and these days Boeing does use smart glasses combined with software to better manage various forms of work during the assembly of its planes. For example, wiring production time was cut by about one-quarter using this method, which means planes can be constructed faster. Error rates have been reduced as well using the AR technology. Electrical system wiring and the installation of cabins are just two areas where the technology has been beneficial.

A factory worker builds agricultural machinery using Google Glass AR. (Photo: AGCO)
French aerospace company Airbus also employs smart glasses to reduce manufacturing time and errors. Lockheed Martin has been using this form of AR technology as well in the manufacturing of its F-35 fighter jets.

In fact, AR has been predicted to begin appearing in a number workplaces to increase productivity by improving how we interact with data.

Google Glass has been used by a solar power installation company to help workers in the field access important documents like design plans while working, instead of having to stop and use paper documents or laptop computers.

There are also other AR glasses being developed by other companies which are intended to be very lightweight and provide extra layers of information straight to human eyes in beneficial ways.

VR and shopping

If VR shopping sounds sort of weird or 'out there' it actually has already become somewhat mainstream. Wal-Mart, one of America's largest employers, has begun using it to train new employees, by simulating stressful scenarios. This allows trainees to prepare themselves when they experience real-world events like holiday rushes or cleaning up the mess in aisle 7.

The e-commerce giant Alibaba released VR shopping in China which allows millions of users to browse stores from home.

Alibaba's virtual shopping experience. (Image: Alibaba)

VR has been studied to see if it might help companies better understand how context influences consumer decision-making. For example, researchers provided adults with photographs of a beach and instructed them to imagine they were there and presented with beverage choices. Later they provided them with VR experiences of a beach and presented them with the same beverage choices. The VR experiences resulted in more consumer engagement and influenced their beverage choices more. So, VR might be used to create contextual shopping experiences which influence purchase decisions. (The ethics of this strategy are an issue that wasn't examined by the study.)

VR and medicine

VR has also been used for medical training, specifically for surgical simulations. By employing technology used for many years in flight simulations and applying it to neurology, 3D virtual brain surgeries can be performed. Medical students and doctors can practice hundreds of times or more using VR so they are well-prepared before operating on live humans. The images used in the system for training can be from former patients so they are as realistic and accurate as possible. Similar systems are also being evaluated for heart surgery and spinal surgery.

Screenshot from a VR medical training session. (Credit: Clyde DeSouza on YouTube)

Because VR is a digital, immersive environment it can be used in very creative ways to try to solve human problems, like soothing autistic children and helping them learn to better manage the visual and auditory stimuli they experience so they can regulate their emotions.

VR can potentially also be used to reduce the suffering of burn patients because distracting the human brain is a powerful way to relieve pain. Early research has indicated that the distraction resulting from the use of VR might be more effective than morphine for pain relief. Considering that tens of millions of people around the world suffer from chronic pain the potential of VR to reduce suffering is very intriguing.

Researchers at Duke University tested VR physiotherapy on paraplegics. By simulating moving through a stadium using a soccer player avatar the research subjects activated parts of their brains and trained them. As a result, they regained some movement in their real limbs.

Because of VR's ability to simulate environments, the technology has also demonstrated some promise for helping individuals with PTSD recover. One form of PTSD therapy involves exposing the patient to sensory information that was present during the initial trauma. These sensory experiences-including some scenes depicting conflict-can be re-created using VR so the patient can experience them in small 'doses' virtually and begin to acclimate to them.

AR and medicine

Researchers and clinicians are exploring how AR might be used to improve surgical outcomes, reduce the invasiveness of procedures and decrease surgery times. Another potential application is the use of supplemental visual information right next to, or above a surgical site. This visual layer could display information such as the patient's vital signs or data about the particular patient's condition or anatomy. With essential information displayed right next to the site where the surgeon is working there would be no need to look away to computer monitors several feet or more away.

Concept illustration of AR transparent display telementoring approach: overall view of system at trainee surgeon site (left), and trainee view (right). (Credit: Daniel Anderson et al.)

While operating room conditions are often the best for many procedures there are still some which are performed elsewhere, such as in a patient's room. In these scenarios, the same high level of support is unavailable, but using AR could improve the surgical process by consolidating

information from various patient monitors into one view. Furthermore, some patient monitoring and data display systems are completely separate from one another. Integrating them could free up much-needed physical space in patient rooms, streamlining the environment to be less consumed by electrical cords and blinking monitors and more conducive to rest and healing.

VR and education

VR has been used for educational purposes like Google Expedition which allows users to have immersive 3D experiences of historical or cultural significance. Over one million students have taken these virtual field trips.

jeremy-bailenson-how-virtual-reality-can-make-every-kid-a-scientist

A Stanford University Business Innovation certificate program is partially delivered using VR, and VR chat has been used at the University of British Columbia to deliver lectures. Some colleges and universities have used VR to create online campus tours. The implications for enhancing remote or long-distance learning are enormous.

At a more granular level, there has been a surge in the number of educational apps and some of them have proven to be very popular with students in classrooms and free-range curious folks. is a VR app for your phone that, when combined with hardware-like the inexpensive $15 Google Cardboard viewer-lets you wander our solar system in detail, see real-time views, and get up close to 88 constellations. Google's Tilt Brush is another incredible app that lets you paint in 3D space using VR. Ever wondered what it's like to step inside an artwork? Watch this Tilt Brush demo video to give you an idea of how this app can blow your creativity up.

AR in education

AR apps have already been used in educational settings for a variety of enhancements, like turning physical textbooks into pop-up books by adding 3D graphics to them, or allowing students to receive information when they point a tablet at particular objects.

Flash cards are a very old learning aid, but AR apps have been created that add 3D digital images to them . A flash card depicts, say, a 2D animal and the AR app inserts 3D digital images that correspond to it. The 3D digital images can move and they are linked to audio files which play the animal's vocalizations. The AR sensory overlays add extra visual and sound information for learners which helps them identify and recall the animal content. The AR content also includes the digital representation of the foods in the animal diets which enhances the learning experience.

AR apps

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Within the AR world, there are scores of apps and software programs. The AR game Pokémon Go is probably the one we have all heard of, but there are many, many more and new ones are being created continually. Google Sky Map is an Android AR app that turns your phone into a planetarium. Just point it up and Sky Map will reveal the location of stars, planets, beautiful nebulae and other celestial bodies. For iOS users, Monster Park brings the world of dinosaurs to life, crashing around very close to you. You can also dissect frogs on Froggipedia, which saves frogs lives and is a gift to squeamish high school students everywhere.

The variety of AR apps on offer is already enormous, so start Googling for your interests or head to YouTube for visual demonstrations that can give you a taste of what augmented reality could look like for you.

What's in store for the future?

A market research report published in 2017 predicted that the size of the AR market could reach $133 billion by 2021, which trumps VR's market size.

VR and AR both have benefits and each is suitable for different purposes. One thing they have in common is anticipated growth-it is expected that they will continue to develop extensively and increasingly be adopted to solve various problems in business, healthcare, education and workplaces. And also let us have a whole lot of fun.

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Virtual reality (VR) employs computer-generated information like images and sounds to create an immersive, 3D digital simulated environment, whereas augmented reality (AR) uses digital information to enhance our experiences of reality. One of the first VR technologies was created in the late 1950s and was called the Sensorama.