True VR is not coming. Future world will be overturned by ER.

If you are in New York, I am in Beijing and have an appointment to meet at an address in the virtual world. After 5 minutes we crossed the earth, patted our shoulders and shook hands. Is this possible? Or, some morning soon, you can get up and do not even need to wash your clothes, wear comfortable slippers, and you can have a meeting with your colleagues without leaving home. Is this possible?

All this subversive vision of the future world may be realized by VR (Virtual Reality) and ER (Extended Reality).

On August 28th, in the course of understanding the 19th lecture in the future, Prof. Zhenmin Zheng, Director of the Human-Machine Connectivity Laboratory at Sun Yat-sen University, gave an imaginary path map from VR to ER, depicting the infinite possibilities of the future world.

Subversive technologies that completely change human life, from birth to ubiquity, often require time to test. From the birth of television to the flourishing television industry, humanity has spent 30 years; it has been 40 years since the emergence of mobile phones and mobile phones. So, from "VR year 1" in 2016, to everyone can have their own "Avatar", how many years?

Hot VR on the market is not really VR

Not long ago, Google chief Schmidt declared that “the Internet is about to disappear”. In the future, people will change from the communication of text images to the connection of objects and things, and the Internet will be replaced by the “Internet of Things”.

Zhenming Zhen proposed the concept of ER.

VR is a new method of human-computer interaction. It integrates computer science technology, computer simulation technology, sensor technology, display technology, and other scientific technologies to create a virtual information environment in a multidimensional information space, so that the experiencer ER; and ER is to integrate virtual reality with the Internet of Things, create an artificial environment, and achieve seamless integration.

Zhenzheng Ming explained that with the support of ER technology, people will use “people replace”, which is similar to Avatar in the movie “Avatar,” to achieve a seamless connection between virtual scenes and the real world—the world in science fiction seems to have been In the real world we open the door. In the new world in the future, people and many basic concepts that make up human life will be redefined.

The exploration of virtual reality began in the 1950s of the last century. If the exploration extended to the 1970s is called "VR 1.0", the second round of upsurge brought about by the "father of VR" Lanier in the 1990s is called "VR 2.0" and will begin in 2016. The "VR first year" is actually the third time in history.

Faced with today's hot "VR concept", Zhenming Zhen believes that many are not real VR technologies. It is not him alone who feels this way. At a high-level VR summit held earlier, many experts complained to him: Now all are called VR!

Zhenming Zhen directly gave three keywords of VR: 3D, interaction and immersion.

He emphasized that the first element of VR technology is 3D, which must be two-eye imaging. Human eyes are not the same as seeing the same thing on both sides. Only in this way can a 3D image be formed to have a sense of space. VR virtualizes the entire physical world. 3D is a key element. The second is to have interaction, to have motion capture, motion capture feedback to the computer, refresh the screen after calculations, so that the experience to see the same image as the real world. The third is to have a sense of immersion, not only to 360 degrees, but also to require vertical changes, people are moving, the scene is not moving, so that people can feel in the world, not just look.

Li Kay, a member of the American Academy of Engineering and a professor at Princeton University, believes that like many technologies, VR also wants to be used in large-scale applications in computer engineering or computer industry. However, before large-scale application, we still need to break through the hardware and software bottlenecks. When will this key point be inspired? Li Kai believes that it will take many years of technological accumulation.

The next generation immediately “collectively immigrates” into the virtual world

Not long ago, a child visited Prof. Zhenzheng’s laboratory. After he put on Professor He’s special helmet, he took off in less than 3 seconds. “Mum, what about people?” When he saw her mother here, he put on a helmet again. After a while, he took it off again. Cried. This time around him is a new person, and his mother is gone.

The world of the children is exchanged for. "The entire universe has been changed. Everything is different. This is the impact." Zhen Zhenming said.

What he does in his lab is a seamless system of experience between virtual and reality.

In the last century, Zhen-Ming Zeng wrote an English monograph “Between Nothing and Nothing: A Philosophical Exploration of Virtual Reality” during his teaching at the Philosophy Department of a university in the United States. He was considered by American critics as “possible to become both in virtual reality technology and philosophy. Milestones." This book discusses in depth the subversive impact of machines on the human lifestyle, and iterative predictions of virtual reality and the development of extended reality are confirmed.

What is true VR? For example, a professor sits beside him. He wants to look at the back of the professor's head and go around to look at it. Not only that, he pushed the professor, and the professor would fall; he called the professor and the professor responded. "This is called physical interaction. This is called real VR."

This virtual remote operation has already been realized in the medical field. According to Prof. Tong, through a surgical platform called the Da Vinci Surgical Robot System, doctors can perform operations on real patients with a master-slave robot at a distance or in close proximity.

Next, Zhai Zhenming envisages a scenario: If the washing machine at home is connected to the Internet of Things, then you can complete the operation on the phone at a distance. "All screens are gone: The phone screen is gone, the computer screen is gone. Will the washing machine behave like a menu? No. You're in front of a washing machine and you want to press the button."

"VR replaces all screens. All the places that are seen by the eyes go through VR helmets later, later called VR glasses, or they become contact lenses. People may use it as a part of their organs, not as a tool." Yan Zhenming said The interface of human life has all been changed.

Many children are playing a game called Minecraft - in a three-dimensional space, each player is free to create and destroy different kinds of squares. Children create their own world in games - houses, mountains, natural objects, and more.

Zhen-Ming Ming said that if the children again wear a "hybrid reality head-mounted display", they walk into the world they created. They are not building blocks, but are transforming things that are very visual. "Our next generation will immediately 'collective immigrants' enter the virtual world." Zhen Zhenming said, "If we parents do not go in, we must be dumped by them."

Being ideologically blind is a bigger challenge than technology

The Humboldt School of Law once specifically asked Miao Zhenming to give a lecture. After the new technology came out, the constitution was threatened, the basic concept had disappeared, the concept of the national border was to be rewritten, and the boundary between man and machine was ?

Geng Zhenming took the movie "Avatar" as an example. The hero of the hero Jack is on Pandora planet or Earth? Pandora is the body of Jack or his tool?

In fact, this is also a problem that many insightful people worry about: When people are immersed in the virtual environment, visual sensations replace the natural body, and the boundaries between people and machines become blurred, then in the end we will become attached tools or manipulators of the Internet of Things. The main body of networking?

Duan Yongchao, chief strategy officer of Caixin Media Group, shares the same concerns. What he is most worried about is the multiple personality that VR causes. He said that today in the physical world, whether we are social norms, moral education, or book knowledge, we are all shaping the so-called sound personality. However, once it comes to virtual reality, every living person may "have eight lives." His eight-digit life is continuous in the VR world and is alive. While you take care of them, you must also bear great pain. The time course of the eight lives is different from that of men and women. Each life is expected by you, and even one of your own small visions must be projected to the virtual. Space, which survives with the digital life of the virtual space, is also responsible for nourishing it, caring for it, and sympathizing with it. This kind of physical suffering is terrible.

Duan Yongchao believes that these knowledge structures after VR, such as sociology, ethics, media studies, political science, economics, and the foundations of learning, which we are familiar with, all waver, and this turmoil is not subtle but subversive. Type, collapse type.

Yan Zhenming believes that from VR to ER, it may take 1000 years to complete. In the future, before we enter our ordinary people's lives, we will need to create "ethical ethics," and formulate a framework of rules that meets human nature and allows everyone to experience life better, so that ordinary people will have more beautiful expectations in the future. .

Li Kai believes that don’t be stagnant because of fears that many areas will be subverted. “VR will benefit us in education, scientific research, and security. We must consider how to use this type of technology to advance humankind.”