For a long time, the overwhelming majority of consumers think that the application of VR and AR is too early, but the emergence of HTC Vive and Oculus Rift has refreshed people's understanding of VR. Pokemon Go gives consumers confidence in AR. On the other hand, although using mobile phones to play AR games is very novel, it also has its limitations.
Phone AR is just pseudo-AR
First of all, AR mobile games are not really AR. Prior to the release of Pokemon Mobile Games, domestic manufacturers launched a children's AR early education card and it has a similar AR experience. Its use is to download a specific app, use the app to scan the matching cards, and the card will display the animated holographic image of the card. In fact, the imaging principle of this AR is only to add a 3D animation image to the mobile phone shooting screen, and there is not too high technical content. It can be said that the content of fresh taro is much more than technology. Therefore, Pokemon strictly speaking can only be regarded as stubbornly stained with the AR side.
Second, it is inconvenient for mobile phones to play AR games. After Pokemon became popular, players were obsessed with the game and events such as falling bridges and car accidents occurred from time to time. Although the player can see the current road conditions through the camera of the mobile phone, the visual field is limited by the wide angle of the camera of the mobile phone. And Pokemon also introduced the Pokemon Go plus bracelet. If players hold the phone with both hands, they obviously cannot experience the plus function.
Play Pokemon will know that the game screen is not really immersive, nothing more than to add pocket monsters into the shooting image, 3D interaction, special effects, picture rendering and other aspects are still not enough. This has a lot to do with the AR display mode. The mobile phone screen itself is designed for two-dimensional images. Displaying a holographic image through a mobile phone is obviously a little useless.
Moreover, mobile phones are not the best AR carriers. People have always placed AR on smart glasses, but even Google Google Glass has failed. People do not expect too much of AR and smart glasses. Although Microsoft's HoloLens (MR) has now emerged and brought us unexpected surprises, the mysterious HoloLens is only for business and engineering developers. It is still a long time before it wants to spread. Therefore, smart glasses are in a stage where they are ready to go, to see who can seize the opportunity to trigger the industry's explosion. The mobile phone is only a slow strategy in the popularization of AR. We can use the video below to see how Pokemon Go can realize the imaging effects and game experience on the strongest carrier HoloLens.
Nintendo will launch smart glasses for Pokemon
So what is Pokemon's best game carrier? Nintendo CEO John Hanke gave the answer recently: Nintendo will bring a Pokemon exclusive smart contact lens to the majority of players in the future.
In addition to Nintendo, a company called Wirts (ヴェルテ) also announced that it will release "Pokemon GO" smart glasses. It is understood that the name of the glasses is ORA-2, and is now in the pre-order crowdfunding stage. The booking price is 122,800 yen, equivalent to 8,120 yuan. After September 1, the price of ORA-2 will rise to 142,800 yen, which is approximately RMB 9,443. The glasses equipped with Android AOSP4.4.2 system, the right side of the glasses equipped with a 500-megapixel camera, the screen display ratio of 16:9, the battery capacity of 1200mAh, a total weight of 90g, supports USB interface charging. At present, we do not know what parameter configuration Nintendo smart glasses will adopt, but we can get references from Google Glass and Wilt.
Smart glasses are the best destination for Pokemon/AR
Yes, we can guess that the development of AR technology is inseparable from the carrier of smart glasses. Because smart glasses are far better than mobile phones in terms of interaction, imaging, or display effects. Then, what kind of attitude will the future AR appear in front of us and affect our lives? What other features of Nintendo's smart glasses are worth our looking forward to? We believe there are the following points.
Smarter and simpler interaction. There is no doubt that sending commands through voice assistants will become the main interactive method of AR, and all major technology giants are committed to developing their own voice tools. Such as Amazon Echo, Microsoft Cortana, Apple Siri, Google Now... Specially equipped Echo, has received great attention in the field of smart home. We believe that the voice interaction function will be added to the smart glasses in the future. At that time, we can use the password to open Pokemon, set the game parameters, throw the ball, is not very cool? In addition, gesture recognition will also be AR , Another major interactive method of VR. We can see from the official promotion video of Nintendo Pokemon that the player is projecting the sprite ball with both hands, not just by sliding the screen to capture the sprite. Gesture recognition technology to a large extent make up for the drawbacks of voice interaction, Microsoft's RealSense technology is a good example.
More realistic holographic display effect. Currently, there are three main types of AR and VR: optical perspective, video perspective, and monitor-based. Among them, the video perspective augmented reality system is widely used in AR image display. And we know that the desire to display real-world and virtual images in a transparent prism is very demanding on the lenses. Taking HoloLens as an example, the lens is composed of a plurality of lens modules, and a virtual object is created through the stacked color lenses, so that a more realistic 3D three-dimensional figure can be formed. The Kinect somatosensory technology can also detect the surrounding objects, so as to accurately calculate the three-dimensional model of the object. AR glasses are obviously more advanced than mobile AR in terms of technology. Therefore, if you play Pokemon with smart glasses, the pet elf in the picture will not be in the form of a graphic. It will be a hologram monster in your field of vision. You can bypass him and surprise him at the rear. It must be very interesting.
Strong computing power means a richer functional experience. It is understood that for better AR experience, Google Glass only includes 14 items including MPL gyroscopes, acceleration sensors, magnetic sensors, and linear acceleration. And Google Glass lens gap is also equipped with a face sensor, responsible for recognizing blink orders. Imagine projecting a sprite ball with blinks, nods or speech, and the playability will certainly be greatly enhanced.
In general, smart glasses still have more features yet to be discovered. Sign detection, live weather broadcasts, video recordings, holograms, etc. are all something we can now achieve. However, due to the limited hardware technology, these experiences are still not perfect. We believe smart eyewear manufacturers inspired by Pokemon will bring us more surprises in the future.