Reading this article right now, you’re most likely accessing it through a physical device, like a computer or smartphone. You might be using a computer mouse to scroll, or your finger to slide across a glass screen. Those devices allow you to access the digital world, which opens up to a plethora of applications that store your information.

But what if you could mix the digital and physical world together?

Enter: Mixed Reality.

Mixed Reality is a part of the XR (extended reality) field, which includes augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality. Mixed reality directly allows digital elements to interact with the environment around you. This is different from AR or VR, where augmented reality is a digital overlay, and virtual reality is a fully immersive experience.

Throughout the 1800’s and 1900’s, theories and concepts made by scientists were outlined. The concept of 3-D images and stereoscopic displays (making 3-D images with the illusion of depth) were first created, and are still used in VR applications today for the feeling of immersion.

The first significant progress made in AR and VR was in the 1980’s where VPL Research Inc. began selling VR goggles and gloves. A broadcast used AR overlays to show the yellow yard lines on TV for an NFL game. In 1994, the term Mixed Reality was coined from a research paper that explored the idea of a virtuality continuum (more on that in the next section). With the introduction of these new inventions, thus began the drive to advance XR.

Currently, extended reality is becoming widely used in a variety of fields. According to a 2021 survey, 71% of companies want to increase their use of extended reality technologies. This means that there’s a huge opportunity for expanding the industry and creating novel advancements for the coming decades. But, what is mixed reality really made of?

As said in the previous section, mixed reality began with a paper that explored the idea of a virtuality continuum, or mixed reality spectrum. Mixed reality is a blending of the physical and virtual worlds. On one end of the spectrum, we have human reality; anything in real life such as your home, the food you eat, or the books you read exist on this side of the spectrum. On the other side, we have the virtual world; this article you’re reading right now, the game you play with your friends, that Google Doc you have pulled up on your device. Within that spectrum, three main powers influence this technology: us (humans), computers, and the environment.

Inputs such as a person’s body position, object recognition, and boundaries can help technology get a sense of what’s happening, and how to perceive it in the digital world.

Emerging technologies such as mixed reality are like blocks of swiss cheese; they have problems. Mixed reality has holes that must be solved in order to bring it fully into fruition. One such issue is human perception.

We are by far the most advanced organisms on Earth. Our brains are able to perceive and differentiate a multitude of things, and it’s hard to trick. In order to mix the physical world and virtual world together, our brains need to be able to see them as one entity. This can prove difficult when our brains can see through nearly every trap it gets put through.

In order for mixed reality to be a technology that is widely used, we must find a viable solution that will allow us to trick our brains into believing that this new version of reality is, in fact, real.

For mixed reality, the future is bright. Mixed reality may be used as a modality for athletic or military training, medical procedures, and more. This technology will revolutionize the way we see and interact with the world, and better integrate us with technology.

Mixed Reality: Re-engineering Your Perception of the World was originally published in AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.