Ever found yourself laughing as you watch a teenager navigate a virtual landscape, while simultaneously tripping over the dog in the living room? That's where Joe Haslam and I, Adam Richardson, begin our exploration into the captivating yet complex world of virtual and augmented reality. We share candid moments and dive into how these technologies are altering our daily routines, the educational landscape, and even the way we exercise. From the safety concerns that come with immersive gaming to the potential of virtual classrooms and fitness apps, we cover it all with a mix of humor and insight.
Imagine a world where your workout transcends the four walls of the gym, and language learning transports you to a bustling virtual marketplace. In this episode, Joe and I ponder the vast potential of VR and AR in revolutionizing the way we learn and interact. We take a practical turn too, discussing life hacks like the photographic contract for borrowed items—yes, you'll want to hear about this one. And we don't shy away from the importance of moderation in screen time, acknowledging the value of games that stimulate more than just our thumbs.
So, grab your headset (or maybe just your headphones for now) and join us for a journey that promises to be as educational as it is entertaining. We wrap up with a call to engage, laugh, and keep that spark of curiosity alive. Remember, life's too short not to chuckle at the thought of someone wearing a VR headset on a crowded bus. Tune in, learn something new, and don't forget to like and subscribe for more episodes that marry the lighter side of tech with its profound impact on our world.
Ever found yourself laughing as you watch a teenager navigate a virtual landscape, while simultaneously tripping over the dog in the living room? That's where Joe Haslam and I, Adam Richardson, begin our exploration into the captivating yet complex world of virtual and augmented reality. We share candid moments and dive into how these technologies are altering our daily routines, the educational landscape, and even the way we exercise. From the safety concerns that come with immersive gaming to the potential of virtual classrooms and fitness apps, we cover it all with a mix of humor and insight.
Imagine a world where your workout transcends the four walls of the gym, and language learning transports you to a bustling virtual marketplace. In this episode, Joe and I ponder the vast potential of VR and AR in revolutionizing the way we learn and interact. We take a practical turn too, discussing life hacks like the photographic contract for borrowed items—yes, you'll want to hear about this one. And we don't shy away from the importance of moderation in screen time, acknowledging the value of games that stimulate more than just our thumbs.
So, grab your headset (or maybe just your headphones for now) and join us for a journey that promises to be as educational as it is entertaining. We wrap up with a call to engage, laugh, and keep that spark of curiosity alive. Remember, life's too short not to chuckle at the thought of someone wearing a VR headset on a crowded bus. Tune in, learn something new, and don't forget to like and subscribe for more episodes that marry the lighter side of tech with its profound impact on our world.
Today on the Idiot's Guide we are talking about. Well, we have a duel to the death, the pros versus the cons. You could say. A little dose of reality about virtual and augmented reality. We'll give you the play-by-play of the goods, the bads and the uglies the goods, the bads and the uglies. And this week's Today Old Life Hack turns a mugshot into an amazing tool for household item retention. Tune in and find out. I'm your host, adam Richardson, aka the Profit Hacker, and I'm joined by the man in charge, mr Joe Haslam. Welcome to the Idiot's Guide.
Speaker 1:Well, if you've had any opportunity to enjoy any part of the podcast I mean past maybe two minutes of this podcast podcast then maybe, maybe you enjoy some of the content that we put out here. And, but one of the things that I want to ask you to do, don't forget to subscribe and join our awesome community. It's quick, it's easy and you'll never miss out on the latest videos. Hit that subscribe button now and let's grow together. I think you know the biggest thing for me that you know like to really kind of launch us into this discussion here.
Speaker 1:It has a lot to do with my frustration with a 15 year old that has a VR headset and the lack of chore accomplishments that happen around my house. Now, granted, I mean like it doesn't take a VR headset to make that absolutely the issue. It can be basically just existing at 15 years old. That makes that the issue. But, um, but I have this outlet to to vent my frustration at, and it has to do with the fact that I can say my son's name eight times and he's not hearing me. He doesn't even know I exist because he's got headphones on and he's in this virtual world like whether it's having conversations with friends or he's on an adventure with a battle ax, I don't know like. Help me.
Speaker 2:No, like, help me. Yeah, virtual. Well, first off, I have a problem with calling it virtual reality. You know it's not virtual reality. Okay, okay, virtual reality. Now it is virtual reality, but when you look at what virtual reality really meant, that's not what we use it for today. So, similar to I don't know how many episodes ago we talked about AI, it's not real artificial intelligence. We've just dumbed down the definition to match what we currently have and are calling it artificial intelligence. It's not. It's not. Same thing happened with virtual reality is we wanted this world of literal virtual reality, a real space, a real existence. That is all virtual.
Speaker 2:We all wanted to be Neo Right. You know, back in the 80s it was Tron. You know Tron In Tron it wasn't just you put on a headset, it wasn't even that. You were connected at the back of the neck like in, uh, matrix. Yeah, you were literally scanned into the computer and you existed in that world, yeah, and so that was virtual reality. That's what we've always been aiming for. Even Matrix has a form of virtual reality in that you don't exist outside of the Matrix. Your physical form does, but your brain, your existence, is in that virtual reality unless you can get out. And that's that is virtual reality.
Speaker 1:So I think you know I mean, we aren't technologically advanced enough to to really get to that point in our life. We can do it in Hollywood all day long, but but you know that that fantasy is still just a fantasy. The closest to that alternative reality is by placing it on your face and and pretending that you're, you know, wandering around this landscape of whatever it is in a fairy tale.
Speaker 2:You know, so it's so there are two different forms of these reality adjusting devices. There's augmented reality, which you talked about, and virtual reality. They're both augmented reality. They're both augmenting the reality that you in, if you have your VR headset on, you have your little remotes, you have your headphones, your noise canceling headphones in, you can still touch something and realize you're not in this virtual world.
Speaker 1:But I'm going to push back a little bit about the augmented and augmented, because you're right in essence, but I learned that augmented is almost like if I were to change the word augmented for improved. That's probably a good definition for what augmented reality is, okay, but then at the same time I'd have to take the word reality away from virtual. Yeah, so because of the fact that virtual reality is, like you said, realistically, it should be a completely immersive world that you're downloaded into, right, okay, or that you're plugged into like the matrix and you die there, you die here, kind of a thing, so you can't respawn. But then you have this virtual world. That is not reality, it's still a virtual world. Then you have a little bit different, but virtual world doesn't really ring off, it doesn't really come out very, very clearly. You're like man marketing strategies suck.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's not even. I mean, it's more of just a cyber world. Yeah, You're in cyberspace and you are just interacting with it.
Speaker 1:I think one of the ways I would look at it is going back 20 years. World of Warcraft was huge. I mean it's still kind of huge, but most people that are just divorced and you know, because they were so immersed in that game that they lost everything. You know that's the only people I've ever met that still play World of.
Speaker 1:Warcraft, but you know they've made movies about it, so it's a big deal. I'm not going to knock it too much, but I think about that. I think about going on the adventures and you have like different games that have come out over the years that are real similar to that. They're very much about, you know, like I'm gonna go on this adventure, I'm gonna forage, I'm gonna pick up this up and it's on the heels of like zelda or um, uh, why can't I think of the other one, the fantasy one, final Fantasy, okay, okay. So those are kind of some really big generational ones. They've been all the way back since the beginning of Nintendo, but those are all sort of adventure journey games and what this did with a vr headset is, um, put you in, almost immersing you in the game, where you feel like you're actually in there.
Speaker 2:Okay, right and but, and so it's augmenting the cyber world it's enhancing, yeah, enhancing that, that situation so it's not augmenting our reality. It's augmenting the cyber world that you are involved in. It's like playing Pokemon Go you can turn on that little AR button and it uses your camera, and then you can look around. Where's the Pokemon?
Speaker 1:Yep, well, the same thing They've done museum exhibits where you can go over and scroll over an image of an animal and it will give you an entire. It could some of them, play videos, like you can literally do a whole lot in this interaction by just your camera on your phone. Or I think about like they've got new glasses that have come out like that are that are sunglasses that have augmented reality, so you're literally getting text messages and emails and communication and advertisements and everything in glasses and they're not virtual reality headsets, so you can still see everything's in front of you, but you now have as well an interactive landscape in front of you that's giving you more information.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were called Google Glasses 20 years ago.
Speaker 1:Well, now they're Ray-Ban, so there's a couple other ones out there. But but like that that kind of thinking was, you know, they think about it in the military. Okay, well, like, if I have it in the military, it can give me, you know, range of of target things. And you know, different, different been it's been in hollywood idea for a long time. So people with I'm gonna put these glasses on and they just look like normal glasses, you're like they still can't figure that tech out to be that small but whatever. But but they put the glasses on and all of a sudden they have like a whole read up on this target that they're going after and you're like, wow, that would be cool, we're really close, but we're not that close.
Speaker 1:So like that's, that's, that's like the truth behind augmented reality. And then you have augmented, augmented, you have the augmented cyber world. Yeah, augmented cyber world, that's a good one. So so we're going to change this guys. We're going to start a campaign and change it from vr, because it's not and so it's acw augmented cyber, you guys acw matters too, um and but.
Speaker 1:But I think you know like let's let's tackle a little bit about kind of the I guess pros and cons of these things.
Speaker 2:And this is why I wanted to start there and I think you bringing up the military and these augmented systems within the military is really important. When you are in a situation where you are either in a combat situation or you are on some kind of a mission, you have a single purpose in mind. That's great use for these augmented systems, because you only have a single purpose. But in the real world, we've got a lot of things that we need to focus on. That's why we have as many senses as we do. You know, if I'm walking around somewhere, I need to be able to feel what's there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just try the bird box challenge for one second. You're going to appreciate your site.
Speaker 2:I have no idea what that is.
Speaker 1:It was a Netflix crave for when bird box the movie or the video. They released a movie a while back where everyone like was infected if they, if they looked with their eyes at stuff and so everybody covered their eyes oh so they were all blind and trying to drive down the road blind and that's, that's effective.
Speaker 1:So then it became like a tiktok craze to do the bird box challenge, which was drive down the road blind, which is, you know, like our, our, our world has the, the capacity of stupidity that I've never, I've never seen anywhere anything else, Like I mean, I haven't been anywhere else except for the world, but, uh, but, but just to think that, you know, when you think you've seen it all, and then all of a sudden they come out with something like this, where you're like I can't even say kids these days, that is just stupid.
Speaker 2:And there is a big difference between being stupid and being an idiot, and I am just going to make that very clear right now. That's true, we are idiots, we are not stupid.
Speaker 1:We are here to admit that we are flawed, stupid. We are here to admit that we are flawed and, in those flaws, trying to chew on all sorts of topics way over our pay grade and and and, and. I think our goal behind that is the fact that, you know, if we can add a little bit of perspective into what you have and maybe, you know, give you a bias perspective, I don't know, I don't care, but the point is, is that we'll chew on anything and uh and uh. Hopefully it's something that you can find enjoyable or find some tasty morsel from.
Speaker 2:So, but going back to this, it's, you know, when you've got that, we've got senses for a reason, when you've got a single mission in mind. When you've got a single mission in mind, yes, having that augmentation. So I think back to the horse and buggy. They have blinders for the horses, and so what that does is it helps to remove the distractions of what's going on around them, and so it helped them keep focus so that they only went in the direction that the person that was guiding them told them to go, and so, in that sense, that's great.
Speaker 2:But in the real world, when we put on these VR headsets, we are now removing all of our visual input. We put on our noise canceling headphones, we remove all of that auditory input, and if we've got those little uh remote controls in our hands now, we're severely limiting, because that's some of our most sensitive um, uh, physical, our physical, uh, touch sense is in our hands, and so we get rid of a lot of that. Now you can still reach around and feel things, but you have just lost three of your senses to the real world and you haven't physically entered this new world, which means you're still at risk, in this reality, of running into something of tripping over something. I mean, we laughed when people had their cell phones. When cell phones first became really big and popular, people were so focused on them they were falling into fountains, I mean, and that's when they could still see around them. They were just looking at their phone.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, you think about these VR headsets. You could be falling into fountains, you could be falling off cliffs, because you have actively removed all of these senses, and I think that's one of the biggest downsides to any of this virtual reality.
Speaker 1:One of the VR, like my son's VR headset, he can switch to augmented so he can see what's going on in the room. There's a camera on the outside. He can interact with it. It does basically augmented reality at that point because you can go on adventures in your own space and capture Pokemon, whatever it is. But I've learned to announce my presence because I've been hit by a battle ax. It's usually just a little sword or like a little his little hand thing but but like literally he's. He can't see anything. He's immersed in this game, in the middle of a battle and a zombie thing comes at him and he just goes swinging and I I've learned I just have to be like hey, I'm going by you, please don't run into me, you know. So in that sense, I like they're, you know, I've tried to be careful. I've also learned that there's a little like space, that you, that that's that, that they're in, basically. So the room you can orient the headset to be facing. You know, whatever face you, whatever you, whatever direction you're, you want to face in the game, versus where you're facing in the room. So you don't go swinging into a door or something like that.
Speaker 1:Um, once you, once you do that. You have this little ring around you in the, in the virtual side, in the virtual world. Well, if I come in from the outside world, the sensors on the outside of the headset will recognize that I've now stepped into that world. So he'll see a portion of me in the game. Like my leg shows up and then he knows like very thoroughly, I don't wait that long before I let him know I'm going to be in that presence because that's that's swinging range, like he can hit me really bad right there.
Speaker 1:So you know, like I try to make sure that I do that, but that's that's you. That's swinging range, like he can hit me really bad right there. So you know, like I, I try to make sure that I do that, but that's that's you're. You're absolutely right. You are taking away numerous senses that you know in the outside world leave you completely vulnerable to. You know, every once in a while you know I'll get him and I'll just tickle his rib or something, cause he can't, he can't, he doesn't even know it's coming you know just wham.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. And so you're. You're losing these senses, you lose this, and it's for a video game. Yeah, we are ready. As humans get very invested in video games and we can hyper-focus on those things. And so now we're in this virtual world where you're getting rid of these senses, but you still have the world around you. You are putting yourself even greater risk. Not only that, it's escapism. You know to think about it psychologically.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You are literally escaping the real world.
Speaker 1:I mean, in a nutshell, most video game players. I play video games and that's a big reason why I do is because it removes me from, you know, the things that I maybe have to do or just at the end of my day kind of unwinding sort of thing. Right, you know.
Speaker 2:But when you're playing those video games, you're still in the real world. Yes, you can still see what's going on.
Speaker 1:Yep, so you're escaping, but it's not the only way I'm allowed to do that is because I will pause my game. Even if I'm in like an online game, I'm like I don't care who. I turn all the chat off so I don't hear anybody and so they can get mad at me. They can call me whatever they want. They can call me whatever they want. They can tell me that my mom is something. I'm not going to hear. It, you know. And but I, I, I can respond to what's going on in my house my son three, four, five times calling him up for dinner last night and I'm like, why aren't you responding to me? And I go down and he's got his headset on and I'm like, oh, that's why.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that kind of escapism, that kind of you know, it puts you at physical harm. It puts you at psychological harm. I mean it's really potentially very harmful when you've got these virtual realities set up.
Speaker 1:You heard it here, listener Do not play with your VR headset on a rooftop.
Speaker 2:I would say that's self-evident. But I guarantee you there is someone in the world who went up to their roof, played VR and fell off Knowing humans. I mean, it probably happened in Florida, the Bird Box.
Speaker 1:Challenge happened Exactly. I have no doubt there's a warning on the box, I'm sure, like do not play this in high places where you may fall off or stumble, I would imagine it has to.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean, and that's the thing you know. And now I don't want to completely denigrate virtual reality or augmented reality or, uh, what are we calling it? Augmented, the augmented cyber world?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You know there are a lot of potential positives, not just I mean we talked about. You know, when you've got the military and things like that that are very positive, you're like beat saber.
Speaker 1:That's like it's. It's been turned into a fitness craze, right? There's lots of fitness apps, lots of fitness apps. You can do workout routines that are just like watching the TV and doing workout, except now you've got a sweaty headband on, you know, over your eyes.
Speaker 2:Well, and in that you've got a single focus. It's going to end at a very specified amount of time. You're going to exercise for maybe 30 minutes an hour and then you're done. Yeah, and so it's that specified and that specified purpose that really makes it worthwhile. And one thing where I think something like this now, uh, our AI overlord Zuckerberg, uh, has tried to create these I can't remember what he was calling it Um, the metaverse, I think. Oh, yeah, it's still there.
Speaker 1:That's that's part of like that's. That's probably the one of the most affordable headsets that are out there.
Speaker 2:Well sets that are out there as well. Yeah, because it's crap in my opinion, um it's still six hundred dollars like but that, that whole metaverse that he created, where I mean they can't get the coding right, they can't get anything right. But imagine if you were to create now. We, we went through all the covid stuff where kids were learning virtually at home yes but we call it virtually. They were sitting in Zoom classes.
Speaker 1:Well, and they were. You're trying to do like Overlord Zuckerberg was, trying to create an environment that he could do that, a virtual classroom where you could learn in that setting. But you're like well, zoom beat you to it and all they used was screens and cameras.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean all you need is a camera. I mean he tried to you know over tech it. But imagine, you've got all these kids where they have a whiteboard in front of them. So imagine a classroom so a teacher has a single camera. Now this is straight up out of sci-fi. Okay, this is I remember as a kid. So I remember as a kid we had a tech thing at my elementary school, so this was like second grade I think, and they were showing us all this really cool futuristic stuff like video phones. Okay, I was a kid and that was futuristic tech to the future.
Speaker 1:When, back to the future, had the like video phone, whatever it was, where you could watch, you could have a conversation. And then there's a company that came out with it like b-link or something like that. That was essentially the same thing, like cisco created it for conferences. But yeah, like it's all that tech that we're like, wow, that's so advanced.
Speaker 2:And we're like, yeah, fiber optic cables, the wave of the future, fiber optics, and now it's everywhere. Yes, you know, um, but this was another thing. Is that kids? I? I remember oh, I can't remember what grade it was, it was somewhere between first and fourth grade Reading. So in California, part of elementary school I don't know if it's the same in Utah but you had to read every trimester. So we had trimesters, not semesters, in California. Every trimester you had to do, you had to read a story, and then so you'd read that story, you'd talk about it, learn about it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so I remember one of the stories was about a kid who got up and did his school studies virtually right. So I mean, this was the tech of the future, but we've never adapted it.
Speaker 2:Imagine so you've got a teacher, you've got the whiteboard there that shows. You know, you've just got all the kids up on the screen. They're all in their virtual headsets, so you don't actually see the kids, you just see their whiteboard. Okay, they've got their little handsets, which is exactly what you do in these VR games. Yep, they put on their little head things, uh, headphones, noise canceling headphones. I don't know why. I can never remember that word Um. But the teacher is teaching, has the camera on themselves and they say, okay, here's the math problem. I want Billy to answer this uh question. And so Billy's got his headset on, he goes to his whiteboard with, in this virtual world, all he's doing. He sees the camera, so he sees the teacher, he sees the classroom, he's got his whiteboard, he writes on his whiteboard and the teacher can see it, and then the teacher says, okay, yes, that's right, or the teacher can take over on their computer. Okay, this is what you did wrong and this is how's right. So now you've got that literal virtual environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you can have side conversations going on between you and another kid. Put a gaming environment in there where you're interacting with these other kids in a forest environment, or the teacher can choose what environment. Hey, today we're going out to the cliffs of Dover and so you're gonna see this environment. You don't have to code these me's I think that's what the we call them the me's for each person. You don't have to have these avatars or anything it's. These are the real people, the real kids that are in this environment, and you're directly connected through these VR headsets. That's a great use of VR, because it gets that single minded focus and then the teacher can control the attention spans of their students. And so throw in some music, throw in some waves crashing along the cliffs of Dover, you know, do whatever you want to make it fun and engaging. And now you've got kids who are going to school.
Speaker 2:I have like a theme song whenever I come in the classroom, like see, this is how it works is use this tech the way that it works the best, which is that single-minded focus. Get kids into school with a single-minded focus so that they are focusing on what's going on. Are they going to pay attention to the teacher 100 of the time?
Speaker 2:no not at all. I love watching. There's a YouTuber I love to watch. I can't remember his name. If I can find it, we'll maybe link it because I think he's an awesome educator. But he just has a camera set up in his classroom and so he teaches math and you can hear all the students in the background. They know they're being recorded, they know this teacher is recording this for YouTube and you still hear them in the background talking and every now and then he'll stop.
Speaker 2:Okay, guys, come on, pay attention, and it's just. It's great because that's how it would be in that virtual world. Yeah, they're going to be talking, they're going to be having those conversations, but you're still getting that social interaction with other kids your age in this environment. That is just a picture on your phone and you get that single-minded focus where they are totally in and even if they're not paying attention, they're still getting something out of that and they're having fun because they've got their own virtual reality headset. You know they're sitting by a campfire, whatever it is. Their teacher has that theme song. The theme song plays. You know. There's all these things that you can do to make it fun without having to really go all that extra.
Speaker 1:But I think you know, just just leaning, like giving the credit to the, the educational side, I don't think that they lean heavy at all on that. I think there's some things. But but yeah, you're right, I think that that would be a great use of it. Yeah, but you know, I mean in in the world of people and capitalists. You know that is the least money revenue producing lane to go down Like great If you want to learn that kind of stuff. But you know, without some governmental contract in order to sub, you know like something like that government subsidies, you don't. You're not going to benefit off of that in any great capacity to where it's worth your financial investment. So the only thing you can't you like the. The only reason why they do it the way that they do is because marketability makes that way more advantageous to try to have some kind of game, some kind of interaction that is to your leisure and pleasure.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of ways to make money off of this. Now, as it is, all the kids in our school district have Chromebooks. Yes, they get Chromebooks as part of it, the AR or VR headsets just a little bit more expensive, not that much more. Throw some advertisements in there. They're talking about putting advertisements on school buses. What's wrong with that? I?
Speaker 1:mean really we, we, we, but you're not putting advertisements in school buses, You're putting them on school buses. Well, yeah, and so everyone?
Speaker 2:sees it. But that's the first thing is everyone automatically thinks okay, oh, it's a school bus, it shouldn't have ad why?
Speaker 1:I don't. I like whatever's on the outside. As long as I see, it's a school bus, then we're good.
Speaker 2:But you know, we say, oh, that's so bad to advertise to kids. We do it all the time. That's how they sell sweet cereals. I mean kids shows on Saturday.
Speaker 2:Those are prime times for kids advertising and so they have like a little. So one thing on pokemon go is you have these little people can sponsor these little balloons. I don't even know what it is, I just know it's on there and it's something people advertise for some kind of event or something. When you're in these classrooms they get, you know, uh, they, if they pop enough balloons, then they get a new image. You know, a new. It's not just the cliffs of Dover, now they can be in central London. You know, I don't know why I'm so, uh, english focused today. Um, but uh, you've got. I heard very many references in the end like, well, central london, cliffs of dover oh, yeah, yeah, okay but I mean, these are just little things that then kids are seeing.
Speaker 2:You know a little pop-up for count chocula cereal. You know and's not. You can limit the type of advertising that's on there, but you've got the advertising and that supplements all of that cost and you can have kids do their entire essays. All I'm saying with this. So this is just one idea. I hadn't really thought about it before. But even though there are so many negative attributes to the virtual reality, you're looking at the physical harm, the psychological harm, turn it around, Use it for its best purpose, and when you're doing that, now you've got the positive. So you look at the internet. The internet is full of negative stuff. Full of negative stuff, but it's how we do a lot of our research.
Speaker 1:To be honest, the interface on the headset is a computer, it's a PC. So you can download, you go online, you sign on to Netflix, you can sign on to Netflix on a browser and get on and watch TV shows on there like you're watching it on a laptop. You know, you can check your emails, you can type that it has a virtual keyboard, that you can actually download an app and you can actually plug in an actual keyboard and use a keyboard to type on on these VR headsets.
Speaker 2:So, like there's a lot of options, it is literally a computer strapped to your face, like right, there's a lot of potential if, if it's to that level of of you know, I guess, computation, computerness, whatever you know and and I think the biggest problem that we, that we see reality, with augmented reality, with any of these things, whatever you want to call it is that we focus so much on the negative of it, which we talked about. That was the first part of our podcast. This is how bad it can be.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But turn that around. You can't always look at the negative. Look at what you can do to turn it positive.
Speaker 1:Well, the augmented reality, when you're talking about going through a museum with your friends and you just you know, like hey, even if you don't like it's a little kids museum or something like that and you have devices that they use inside the museum. When they hold it up to an image, it tells a story. And maybe it tells a story. You go with a group and everybody gets their own little tablet that's part of the museum and you hold it up and you, you know the camera's activated so they hold it up to the picture and then it tells you a story. It's like, activates the story and starts telling you videos and animations about what's going on.
Speaker 1:And I mean you could talk about that in history, in art, in you know, the dinosaur museums, like natural history stuff, so like learning environment wise, I, I lean heavier on the augmented side because it's participatory as well. So when you're talking about like a vr headset or what, what do we call it? Augmented cyber world, ecw, um, an ecw headset augmented. Or ac, acw, acw, um, so an acw headset has um and nobody's gonna know like they're gonna be. Like what are you talking about?
Speaker 2:oh, we're also changing. Podcasts on youtube are no longer allowed to be called podcasts. They shouldn't be called podcasts to begin with. We are now calling them vodcasts.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what podcasts like podium cast, I think, is what it comes from Like you're doing a speech in front of a podium and that's what it comes from. Ipods oh really. Oh, that's lame. I got to get far away from that. That's disgusting, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's lame. I got to get far away from that. That's disgusting. Yeah, that's why I say we can't call them that anymore.
Speaker 1:So they are now vodcasts, but even then, you're still leaning in on that. These are vidcasts. I YouTube, I got a YouTube channel. That's what I tell people.
Speaker 2:This is a vidcast now and we have chats Anyway.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you were saying. I just think that augmented gives you an opportunity to have a lot more sharing environment with others. So one of the one of the like pros of it is, in an environment where you're both together, you can interact with augmented reality together. Even if two VR headsets are in the same space, you have to be linked into a network that eventually joins you back to that same room. Not necessarily because you're in the same room, you could be on the other side of earth and it's still, you know, like the same virtual space and so, like it, it limits the actual reality that you're standing in geographically. So I think in that sense you have, especially for a learning aspect of it, where you know you have peers that are learning together, that's a great opportunity for them in augmented reality to learn together and help each other with that. Virtual reality just kind of removes that, it isolates people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the problem with it it's so isolationist. If you use that virtual reality to expand your world, imagine, uh uh, foreign exchange students you could, or immersion programs in schools.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Instead of going through that and emerge immersion program or foreign exchange program, you literally use your headset to join a classroom in Japan.
Speaker 1:It would be crazy to be like a, like an instructor, like like speaking Spanish. Okay, and I'm a Spanish instructor for American students who speak English and they're learning Spanish, but it's an immersion program. All I do is I turn my headset camera on and I walk through the marketplace having a conversation. They don't see like the, the person, vendor or anything like that. They know that I'm going to be doing this, but it's just a complete conversation that all of these English speaking students are watching. This exchange happen like talking in, you know, a little bit slower so they can get that terminology back and forth, but that's leaps and bounds. Like there's services that try to do something like that, but they just have to mimic it. This is like, literally, I'm going to go down the street, walk down there with my headset and have a immersive conversation with somebody about produce, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, imagine the same scenario where you're walking through. Use the Google Translate feature. It will hear you as you're talking and immediately show you the translation in your own language. Yeah, as you're talking, and immediately show you the translation in your own language. Yeah, and so you're hearing the foreign language, but you're reading those the foreign language as well as your own language. Yeah, and that kind of immersion enhances learning. It builds the ability of the brain to comprehend multiple areas. That's what we should be using the VR headsets for. That's where it's going to be great. You think about, you know, talk about advertising again and paying for it, these vendors that you go to, I mean McDonald's paying to have people learn how to order McDonald's in Chinese and Japanese.
Speaker 1:I honestly want to go with my son to just do VR headset fails and have him just walk into a McDonald's and order food, like, yeah, I'll take the. Uh, like, sir, can you take that off? I can see, just fine, it's. Thank you, you know, like yeah, exactly. Don't discriminate. This is a medical device.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean that's. Those are the positives of the virtual reality, of the augmented cyber world, or just the augmented reality is. Use that to your advantage and make education more fun, make just your everyday activities more fun. We're just using it wrong and by using it wrong we're causing a lot of potential problems.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it's necessarily wrong, but narrow-mindedly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, I'll grant you that you know, because I don't want to. I don't want to lose the entertainment aspect of this, because you know we all want that. You know, let me use like less entertainment and just leisure, like whatever leisure you choose. If all want that, you know, let me use like less entertainment and just leisure, like whatever leisure you choose. If it's entertainment, if it's games, whatever, okay, I don't want to lose that in in the services that this would offer, but I don't.
Speaker 1:I think it's very narrow minded in in the vision of what it could do and how it could be a great impact going forward, and in in far better ways than what it could do and how it could be a great impact going forward, and in far better ways than what it's doing right now, than just be an expensive toy that you know, first world countries are the only ones who would ever even consider this as an option, right, you know. And even then the tech is not there enough to where, like my son has charging issues, like for the most part, he has to keep it plugged into the wall while he's playing. Why? Because the battery's dead in a millisecond. So I'm like, well, that sucks, like that. That means that, like you, this whole idea of being in a virtual world just limited you to five feet from the outlet. That's it, yeah. And if you want to get up and move around and do some beat saber, don't swing too fast, cause you'll yank that cord right out of the wall and boom, power down, and and so here.
Speaker 2:If we want to go America centric and capitalistic and all this on, okay, I'm going to throw this out there. So any business people that are listening to us, you know, at any point in the future cause I know you're not listening right now at any point in the future, because I know you're not listening right now If you think about Americans, want everyone to speak American and America is the business language. Everything is America-centric, at least that's what Americans think. Is there anything else?
Speaker 1:Joe, what's that? Is there anything else Right, exactly yes, so imagine so you throw out there. Is there anything else? Joe, what's that? Is there anything else?
Speaker 2:Right, Exactly yes. So imagine being able to teach kids in China and Japan, in India, anywhere around the world. Send them to an American classroom yeah, Virtually yeah, and they learn. Send them to an American environment McDonald'sually yeah, and they learn. Send them to an American environment McDonald's. Come on, jump on this. Give them the opportunity to experience McDonald's in America and they'll want McDonald's in India. You know, this is the capitalistic view. By giving them don't give them a fantasy world. You think your McDonald's sucks.
Speaker 1:Look at that, no, no, just kidding.
Speaker 2:But that's the idea is. You know, you can capitalize on this and have positive results, but we're it's just, we're just looking at it so narrow-mindedly that it's just not reaching its full potential and in that environment it's causing more harm than good.
Speaker 1:I'm really thinking I'm going to do a pack of shorts of my son doing stupid things with his headset on, you know, and getting dual shot. So I got to get the view of what he sees and what everyone else sees. That way you get. You get the world Like you see, all of it at that point.
Speaker 2:Capitalizing on children.
Speaker 1:Son, all right. Well, I think we've really landed on kind of this good ground, I feel like, where there's some good concepts that we should definitely emphasize renaming for one thing, renaming for one thing, but, but also just just, you know, to to really focus on a lot broader perspective and utilization of the capabilities of this thing, and that way, you know, you have a greater impact and a greater footprint, and I think that you know, as a capitalist, you, you would benefit by leaning into some of these other lanes as well, because then you have more diversity about your, your product, you know, and so I don't know, I think that that's that's something worth considering, mr Marketer, that in the future.
Speaker 2:Listens to this one episode.
Speaker 1:But you know, I, I don't know, I, I, I think that at the end of the day, there's not really like a, like a, these aren't terrible. I know that there's been reports that if you want, if you do, you could have. Like I guess it impacts your vision. If you, if you wear a headset all the time, like it it does affect your vision. Like it does affect your vision, people get dizziness. Like it throws off their equilibrium because their environment in the headset is much larger than the space they're actually in and that can throw some people for a loop, similar to motion sickness. Absolutely what causes motion sickness? Yep, and so, like the idea of those, those are some negative things and negative reactions that some people have. And you know they definitely. They talk about kids at a certain age. You don't want them to be using any kind of VR because, one, the headsets are too big and two, they aren't. Uh, they're still in a developmental phase of their like, even their, their senses, so you don't want that to be too much exposure.
Speaker 1:Like I have a seven year old. She loves playing this I can't remember what they call it Like gorilla chase thing. It's really funny watching them because the gorilla in in the. I've never played it so I don't even know Like. All I know is I get to watch them play it with the VR headset and the gorillas run around by pushing their knuckles down.
Speaker 1:So you have to physically do this in the game. You have your little wands and you're doing this with the wands, so they're just like standing in space, going where are we going? Oh, over there, okay, all right, we're going to go over here, standing in space, going where are we going? Oh, over there, okay, all right, we're going to go over here, okay, all right. You know, and you're like one I'm tired from just doing that right there. But two, it's really funny because, like you go over there and they're like punch monkeys. So they're like they, just they, they punch everything. Like it's just an entertaining kids game that, um, that my daughter loves to play. Has she played it very much? No, probably 20 minutes total, since we've had a VR headset in the house like a year. So I think when they say that you need it, it it impacts developmentally is when you're talking. You know, this kid spends hours each day doing this. That's negative.
Speaker 2:It's the same thing that happens with video games though. Yes, you know, and now I will credit my parents. They let us play a lot of video games, but they never allowed like shoot them up or anything like that. The games had to be critical thinking games, so you had to think about the next step. You had to think what do I do next? You have to do things within the game to be able to critically think, to be able to learn, to develop and grow as the game goes on, and so those kinds of games great, but if you spend eight hours playing a video game, you're going to have the same problems. So it's not just a VR. The closeness is a VR problem, but I mean the way kids have their phones right up to the next to their eyes nowadays. It's the same thing.
Speaker 1:Well, my son, whenever he's been playing for a while, he'll take his headset off and he has these like red lines like goggle eyes just around, like like almost like a plunger stuck to his face. I'm like dude, you need to take a break. Man, like you've you got a face hickey from your, your VR goggles? Like stop this. So, but like it's it's.
Speaker 1:I think we've we've discussed kind of the, the educational side of it, some of the negative things, but I don't think it's necessarily like this beat down, drag out on either end of this augmented or virtual Um, but but I think right now, nothing beats reality, um, and and I would probably just kind of go in the sense of saying, if I, if I, were to be in more favor of something, it would probably lean more the augmented side because it complements our current state and then, you know, grow and develop those other aspects of it to where, yes, if you know, you and I agree that augmented just covers both of them. But the idea of idea of the, the augmented, by definition, currently um in our society is just an improvement upon our current state and that that's, that's a plus. I call that a win. So you know, I'm in favor of that. If I was to have those two duke it out, because one augmented reality, I could get my son to empty a dishwasher without yelling his name 14 times. You know.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But virtual reality has a way of also giving you that. I'm sure that there's options to disappear into a solitude you know, into this landscape paradise for relaxation purposes, like enter a yoga program and just sit and relax and you're sitting in a busy downtown New York dingy apartment with cockroaches all over the place, but not really so yeah, you've entered a cyber world of that.
Speaker 2:It's augmenting that cyber world by removing some of the senses that you have in the real world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that that can that we've discussed has its advantages within moderation. One of the things, though, that probably I don't know. Like, let's say, for example, your friend wants to come over and borrow your headset and you're like man, that's, I paid a lot for that meta thing. You know, like it's expensive, like I don't want you to borrow that. How about? How about you just borrow this video game from my PS4 console? You're like I have PS5, ps4, I'm not going to miss it. But then you go to sell your PS4 and you're like what did I do with those games? What PS4? And you're like what did I do with those games? What happened? What did I do with my whole console? Who did I loan that out to? How do you solve this?
Speaker 2:great mystery of the items that you have loaned out to your friends. Do you know how? No, because I'd love to know, because I've got a bunch of old games that I know I've gotten rid of that are probably worth a lot of money now.
Speaker 1:Well, I can't help you with what is already gone. Yeah, what I can help you do is what is not gone yet can now be retained.
Speaker 2:Oh, All right. As you have probably heard from the last few podcasts, I'm always dubious of these life hacks. As you have probably heard from the last few podcasts.
Speaker 1:I'm always dubious of these life hacks. Take a picture of your friend or foe whatever you want to call them holding up the item in which they are borrowing. That way you have a legally photographed contract of them borrowing that item that way. When in the future you need to pursue that, item.
Speaker 2:you know exactly who to call. I mean, I'll grant you. Yeah, I guess that works. I mean one, one record book, if it's a movie.
Speaker 1:If it's a uh, your favorite mixing bowl, whatever, like you know how many times you come over. You're like can I borrow your bread maker?
Speaker 2:I don't. I don't think anybody does that Well, maybe in the South Um, but I mean one. One thing that a lot of um people do recommend you do is uh, for insurance purposes, go through your house and video record your house.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Uh, that way, if there's a fire or something happens, you've got video evidence that you have these things and you aren't going to remember what they are, and so you can go through that with the adjuster and go through everything that is on that video.
Speaker 1:I mean, but if you have really good insurance, you're like that Rolex. I couldn't even find it. I don't know where it went.
Speaker 2:I took this video like two months ago, and I only bought that like a month ago. So yeah, it wasn't in the video, but no, so I can. It seems a little awkward. Okay, here's my game or my book, but let me take a picture of you first, because I don't trust you to actually return it. So I'm making sure I have video evidence that you're the one that took it.
Speaker 1:I think of like friends that I've borrowed stuff from that. I still have of their stuff, you know, and stuff that I'm trying to remember what I did with it, like where'd it go? Who did I give this? Who borrowed this? Like I remember having it at one point, but now I have no idea where it's gone, you know. So, like, in that sense, I don't think you want to be like an like like some, some really strict individual about it, but you're not going to be a Sheldon about it, not going to be a Sheldon. But I think if it's really really good stuff, you know, like if it's something your favorite movie you know and somebody's like oh, I'm going to borrow this VHS, you know like VHS Kids these days don't even know how to spell VHS.
Speaker 2:So you know, like Growing up my sister didn't know how to spell CD the source of every one of my blonde jokes ever.
Speaker 1:So I I think that you know there are good circumstances I think about, like I leave a Tupperware at somebody's house from a party because it still has something in it, I'd be like, hey, hold that up real quick. You know, click, I want that back. I got, I got evidence it's a your house.
Speaker 2:Oh, that just seems awkward to me. I mean it works, but I don't know if I'm not going to get invited to parties anymore, exactly. Well, I guess in that case you know you're not going to have to bring stuff over, you're not going to ever lose your Tupperware again, you're never going to have a social life, but you won't lose anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, is it stingy if you take a picture of your friend who's borrowing something from you so that you can get it back one day? I don't. I think it's on the line. You know.
Speaker 2:It depends on what it is you know All righty, then, okay, I'll grant you a little bit of that life hack.
Speaker 1:All right, that's good. Hey guys, if you enjoy what we talk about here, like and subscribe, leave a comment or two. We'd like to hear from our listener if this stuff is valuable and helpful to you and that helps us get in front of other viewers, uh, other people who, who want to see this, and so, uh, yeah, please hit that subscribe button, hit that like button, hit that bell Cause then it'll it'll remind you whenever we have a new episode out. But we've reached the end of our show and thank you for listening, thank you for watching. Life's too short, so keep laughing and learning and remember idiots have way more fun. Check your shoes.