Is MR the next stop for VR?

By putting on a pair of glasses, you can interact with two-dimensional characters in real scenes, or play CS on your desk. This is not science fiction, nor is it a Magic Leap promotional video, but rather smart hardware based on AR (augmented reality) and MR (mediated reality) technologies that Shenzhen Yitong Technology is developing.

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With the participation of Baofeng, LeTV and Tencent, competition in the VR (virtual reality) industry has become increasingly fierce.

According to the theory of Steve Mann, the "father of smart hardware", the future development trend of smart hardware will gradually transition from VR to AR and MR, and MR technology can better play the role of AR. Liang Jianhong, CEO of Yitong Technology, which is engaged in the development of MR smart hardware, told the reporter of "*** Financial Daily" that MR hardware will have more industry applications in 2016, but it will take some time to deliver it to consumers.

Mediating the concept of reality?

With the rapid popularization of smart hardware since 2015, the public is no longer unfamiliar with Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, but is relatively less familiar with MR.

The MR mentioned here is not the "Mixed Reality" referred to by Magic Leap, but the mediated reality proposed by Steve Mann, a professor at the University of Toronto, the "father of smart hardware", with the full name of Mediated Reality.

In the 1970s and 1980s, in order to enhance simple self-vision and enable the eyes to "see" the surrounding environment in any situation, Steve Mann designed wearable smart hardware, which was regarded as a preliminary exploration of MR technology.

VR is a pure virtual digital image, while AR is a virtual digital image plus naked eye reality, and MR is a digital reality plus a virtual digital image. Conceptually, MR is closer to AR, both are half real and half virtual images, but traditional AR technology uses the optical principle of prisms to refract real images, the viewing angle is not as wide as VR, and the clarity is also affected.

MR technology combines the advantages of VR and AR, and can better reflect AR technology. At the same time, the wide viewing angle of VR by Yitong Technology is combined with MR equipment to make up for the insufficient viewing angle of AR.

While studying at the University of Toronto, Yitong Technology CTO Ai Tao was attracted by this technology when he came into contact with it. He decided to switch from his major in semi-custom chips to this subject and helped Steve to chip the MR algorithm.

Ai Tao told reporters that AR and VR technologies are both subsets of MR. "A pair of MR glasses can do the things of AR and VR, AR glasses can do the things of VR, and VR is VR. For example, when I look at the computer, it brings my perception into a strange virtual environment. This is VR. AR superimposes digital information into life, just like putting a number here. This number represents its serial number in the database. Through this number, you can see the information displayed in the database." Ai Tao explained.

According to Steve Mann's theory, smart hardware will gradually transition from AR technology to MR technology. "The difference between MR and AR is that MR uses a camera to let you see the reality that the naked eye cannot see, while AR only superimposes the virtual environment without paying attention to the reality itself," said Ai Tao.

Simply put, MR technology uses cameras with different exposure levels to restore scenes that the human eye cannot see in specific environments. For example, when directly illuminated by car lights, it is often difficult for the human eye to see the license plate number or the road conditions on the opposite side. However, by using MR technology to take photos with different exposure levels and synthesize them, this problem can be easily solved.

After leaving school, Ai Tao and Liang Jianhong founded Yitong Technology, and Steve Mann and his team served as technical consultants for the company. Based on this technology, Yitong Technology completed its first demo glasses.

Commercialization still needs time

Since MR technology is too advanced and the VR market has not yet fully formed, can MR smart hardware be created and how can it be put into commercial use?

In the office of Yitong Technology, Liang Jianhong demonstrated the MR glasses. He has a clear plan for the steps to put the glasses into commercial use: first open up the market from industrial applications, and then enter the consumer market as MR technology is further understood by the market.

In his opinion, the marketing industry has greater opportunities and prospects, which will help build brand publicity. "This product may be a little early as a tool. At the beginning, it was mainly an entertainment device. You can play a small game when you wear it. It is more suitable for interactive advertising marketing. We will first cooperate with some advertisers to promote it offline." Liang Jianhong said.

Although the team plans to achieve mass production and shipment in June and July this year, there are still many technical difficulties in delivering MR glasses to individual consumers, which require product updates and iterations to solve.

"If these glasses were presented to consumers now, no one would buy them. It's just like the first generation of iPhones. Looking back now, people would definitely think that they are not easy to use and can only be used to make phone calls. But this is a necessary stage in product development." Liang Jianhong is very clear about this.

Yitong Technology was established less than a year ago and has already received 100% angel financing from Lebo Capital and PreAngel. At the same time, the Shenzhen engineering team has 14 senior hardware engineers from Huawei, Lenovo and HiSilicon. The core technology of Yitong MR glasses has also applied for several patent inventions.

Currently, Yi Tong has become a project in the China Pilot Project held by the US crowdfunding website for the Chinese region, and plans to launch crowdfunding.

"This will help us accumulate a group of original loyal fans, which will play a big role in improving our products," Ai Tao told reporters.

Although smart hardware based on AR and MR technologies has not yet been released, judging from the situation with VR, the market has a high degree of acceptance of virtual hardware.

A research institute estimates that by 2020, the annual sales volume of global head-mounted virtual reality devices will reach about 40 million units, with a market size of about 40 billion yuan. Together with content services and enterprise-level applications, the market capacity will exceed 100 billion yuan. Today, first-tier technology companies such as Tencent, LeTV, and Baofeng Video have also joined the research and development of VR devices, which will inevitably promote the faster transition of VR to AR and MR technologies.

Last October, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz said at the WSJD show that the device will soon be available for shipment. This may be a signal that AR and MR will have more consumer-oriented results in the future.