What is AR / VR?

Whats up everyone? I thought about just clarifying some of the differences between these types of technology. I've worked on many different projects that used aspects of these technologies.

AR stands for augmented reality. This is probably the most common and commercial now days. The most prominent examples would be Pokemon Go and Minecraft Earth. Phones and tablets have come far enough to showcase these technologies at a fantastic level. AR basically scans what is around you and finds planes, such as the ground. Once this is found, it can place virtual objects on these planes, such as a Pokemon Go Pokemon standing on the ground. Minecraft Earth has a cool feature where you dig into the ground. When viewed in AR it finds the actual ground, then places those blocks on the plane. From here, you can dig down and it creates holes. This makes a pretty cool effect.

VR stands for virtual reality. VR has become more commercially available and costly in the last 10 years. About 6 years ago I had a Oculus Rift Developers Kit 2 which costs me $600 originally. Since it was a devkit, it was not as good as the commercial Rift of today. It was literally still in its development and infancy stage. With VR, you put on equipment to create a virtual world around you. The Oculus Rift uses a headset, trackers, and motion controls to immerse the player. Newer equipment cost from $300 to $500 which is definitely a decrease in cost and increase in quality. Overall player tracking and positioning feels fantastic now compared to years ago, obviously.

There are obviously more points to each of these technologies, but that is mostly the overall idea of the two.