The Lynx VR headset could be the first set of AR and VR-capable goggles ever made
Virtual Reality hasn’t quite lived up to the hype. It’s still most likely the next big thing in gaming, but technical limitations have meant that it’s not exactly possible to have a Sword Art Online experience just yet. Rail shooters and interesting/artistic story adventures are currently the best games VR has available.
Some are saying that augmented reality might be a better path forward. Augmented reality (or AR) basically uses what’s in the real world already and puts virtual objects inside it. A great example is Pokémon GO which puts fake little monsters in the real world for you to catch.
So far, the two different realities are very far apart even though they do similar things. Now, however, a new French startup is looking to bring the two together in a single piece of hardware.
It’s called the Lynx VR headset, and according to CEO Stan Larroque, it will be the “the first standalone headset for #MixedReality (AR + VR).”
How this works is still a bit of a mystery, but we can take an educated guess. VR headsets are essentially tiny screens you wear over your eyes display what each eye would see individually if it were looking at a real object. This tricks the eye into seeing something in three dimensions. Augmented reality would want to do the same thing, but instead of displaying 3D objects in a virtual world, AR would display fake 3D objects in the real world.
Doing that likely involves some complicated cameras on the front of the headset that capture the world around the user. It will then pass that image through to each eye and superimpose fake objects to make it appear to the user that those objects are actually there.
We don’t know for sure how it’ll work, but we’ll find out when the Lynx VR debuts at the SPIE Photonics West conference in San Francisco on February 3rd. A live stream will also showcase the debut on the Lynx VR website.
Source: Twitter, RoadToVR.com
