I am creating some demos in virtual reality in a Web browser for a research project we are doing at our lab at NYU. Since I’m switching back and forth between different demos, I added some buttons to the browser page.
Before entering VR, you can click on a button to select which demos you want to turn on. This lets me, for example, share the demo with co-workers and just tell them “click on this button to see demo X”.
It occurs to me that this is relevant for the near future, when at some point we will all be able to wear those mixed reality glasses. When that happens, the physical reality around us will be able to support sharing all sorts of fantastical experiences that we can now only share within VR.
But if all those fantastical things were running at the same time it would be overwhelming. So maybe we will start to add buttons to our future reality.
When you click on a reality button, it will turn on or off a particular feature of shared reality for you and your friends. You will click on different buttons depending on what you are doing together — working, shopping, dining, or just hanging out.
After a while, we will most likely no longer even think of this as clicking on reality buttons. We will just call it reality.