What is the Difference Between Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality?

Mark Zuckerberg announced the development of his ‘Metaverse’ based on virtual reality, but some confuse it with augmented reality. What is the difference between them?

Days ago, Mark Zuckerberg announced, along with the change of his company name, the development of his ‘Metaverse’, a virtual space designed to carry out all the tasks that are already being carried out remotely, that is, work meetings, classes, meetings, and more.

An image from 2016 became a trend on social networks during the last week of October due to the scene it represented: the owner of Meta walking in a room full of people with virtual reality headsets. Many were surprised, while other users showed their rejection and fear at the possibility that the photographic portrait becomes a reality with the ‘Metaverse’.

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The truth is that virtual reality, colloquially known as VR for its acronym in English, and augmented reality, abbreviated as AR, exist and are already used in a variety of areas for many years.

Zuckerberg’s ‘Metaverse’, on the one hand, appears to consist of elements of virtual reality, where you see yourself immersed in a completely’online’world through a device. Augmented reality, on the other hand, takes the physical world and adds virtual features to it.

An example of the application of  ‘virtual reality’ or VR are the helmets of the company Magic Leap, which manufactures them to be used by surgeons who are preparing to separate Siamese twins. “We’re in the early stages of the Metaverse in a way,” said Peggy Johnson, company president, during the annual Web Summit technology conference last Tuesday.

On the contrary, augmented reality is a modality that is very well known in the video game industry. For example, through games like Pokemon Go, which require you to use your camera to see the world around you, with some virtual elements added.

“With virtual reality, you put on a device and suddenly you’re in another world,” Johnson explained. “With augmented reality you put the device on and you are still in your world, but we augment it with digital content,” he said.