Mixed Reality: A Breakthrough Innovation In The Digital Space

Mixed reality is a breakthrough innovation in the digital space. Its creative brilliance out lies the typical incremental ‘need for speed’ kind of innovation. Mixed reality (MR) marries the two ends of the immersive technology spectrum of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR).

Immersive technologies are like fairy tales, they create another world, a parallel universe for the user. This parallel universe can be a completely different reality, a virtual world created fully artificially or a digitally enhanced version of the user’s current reality. Either ways, this is one technology that is taking the world by storm, after all, aren’t all of us looking to better our reality for ourselves, with our own version or perspective?

The constant quest for ‘another’ reality is leading to some very creative applications of AR/VR/MR.

The internet is full of videos, articles and news on this subject. It’s the Mixed Reality wildlife conservation game by Internetofelephants.com that caught my attention and I just had to share their awesome idea with the world.

I am not a gamer, so its really a big deal for me to be writing about and proposing a game for the world to play! A couple of days ago, I installed their flagship AR mobile game, “wildeverse” from Google play store

(iOS version is also available on the App Store). My garden and home were transformed into an Indonesian Jungle, that I traversed with over 10,000 steps before I quit, tired!

I met Fio, Buka, Chilli and Aida and the people committed to caring for them. Fio, the Bornean Orangutan was foraging for his food on the AR treetops, overlaying the real-world trees, walls and pillars at home. He rustled the leaves as he walked around, picked the fruits, like Lunuk Buhis etc. chewed on them, left others around for me to find.

His lunch was different from his snack, the way he ate it was new to me. The immersive experience of the visit to a Jungle in Borneo while engaging with wildlife and its protectors sitting right here in Lucknow, India, was refreshing, tiring and just about what I needed for entertainment. Immersive, educative, entertaining and informative -Infotaining.

The Internet of Elephants (IoE) team believes that an effective way to attract, engage and activate potential difference makers to wildlife conservation is through gaming. Their mission is to create massive consumer engagement with wildlife conservation using technology, data and will of the few urban conservationists who envision a better wildlife conservation landscape, in the next 100 years.

A National Geographic education explorer classroom with Gautam Shah “wildeverse” team creator explains how geeks, data scientists, biologists and conservation partners collaborate in real world spaces to create these conservation games. Watch the “IoE field visit to the Congo - a video reportage” to see behind the scene team-work of this diverse talent. There is a plethora of AR, VR games available online, what sets this team apart is that the storyline of the game is based on real interaction of real animals living in the wild today!

The partners and IoE teams research the games cast and their behaviours in the natural environment, like how they play, eat, sleep and mate. What challenges they face to get enough food or to protect their families.

For example, Fio is a seven-year-old female Bornean orangutan who lives in Sebangau National Park,Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. She is extremely sociable and playful and even plays with Chilli the aggressive gibbon which is an unusual behaviour. While Chilli is a 10-year-old, white-bearded gibbon.

He is playful, loves to sing and explore his territory an attitude of wild abandon, getting lost in the process, like Fio, he lives in the Sebangau National Park, Indonesia.

Buka is an adult, 30-year-old western lowland gorilla. He is a successful father who keeps his group and territory small and safe, by keeping a safe distance from other silverbacks. He lives in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Sangha/Likouala, Republic of Congo. Then there is Aida the chimpanzee, at 15 ​years of age, she is a wanderer and mother of little Aida Laida. Like Buka, she lives in the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Republic of Congo.

Now, don’t you think this is a pretty cool way to learn and care about nature? Let’s get involved! “

-- Anuja Sharma/Lucknow

(The author is a digital consultant and can be reached at digitaljeevika@gmail.com.)