Your five best options for VR:

VR comes in a few different forms. There's the cheap headset that works with your phone and there's the much more expensive option that requires a powerful PC or gaming console and some space to move around. Whichever path you choose, here are your best options.

• Google Cardboard

  The easiest and cheapest way to try virtual reality, Google Cardboard is just a piece of folded cardboard with some cheap embedded lenses. When you stick your phone inside and press it up to your face, you can feel like you're in another world.

• Samsung Gear VR

  The best smartphone-based VR headset (for now), Samsung's Gear VR costs just $99 (£80, AU$159) -- assuming you already have a recent Samsung phone. It has more sophisticated sensors than Google Cardboard and is relatively comfortable to wear. Plus it's got a decent library of purpose-built apps and games.

• Oculus Rift

  The $599 Oculus Rift (£499, AU$649) is far more immersive than strapping a phone to your face. It tracks your head in all directions, so you can lean in and get right up close to virtual objects. The catch: It requires a powerful gaming PC to generate its graphics, along with a tether leading up to your head.

• HTC Vive

  The ultimate VR experience -- for now -- the $799 (£689) HTC Vive lets you reach out and grab objects in virtual reality, and even walk around a room. Again, you are tethered to a powerful gaming PC, plus you need to clear your living-room-furniture and plug in loads of cables to fulfil your holodeck dreams.

• Sony PlayStation VR

  The affordable alternative to an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, the $399 Sony PlayStation VR (£349, AU$550) will let you grab things in VR without requiring a pricy gaming PC as intermediary. Instead, it works with the PlayStation 4 console that you might already own. Just know you'll need to add controllers, and you shouldn't expect the graphics to be quite as good as those of the Oculus or Vive.

The differences between AR and VR

While both technologies involve simulated reality, AR and VR rely on different underlying components and generally serve different audiences.

• In virtual reality, the user almost always wears an eye-covering headset and headphones to completely replace the real world with the virtual one. The idea of VR is to eliminate the real world as much as possible and insulate the user from it. Once inside, the VR universe can be coded to provide just about anything, ranging from a lightsaber battle with Darth Vader to a realistic (yet wholly invented) recreation of earth. While VR has some business applications in product design, training, architecture and retail, today the majority of VR applications are built around entertainment, especially gaming.
• Augmented reality, on the other hand, integrates the simulated world with the real one. In most applications the user relies on a smartphone or tablet screen to accomplish this, aiming the phone’s camera at a point of interest, and generating a live-streaming video of that scene on the screen. The screen is then overlaid with helpful information, which includes implementations such as repair instructions, navigation information or diagnostic data. However, AR can also be used in entertainment applications. The mobile game Pokemon Go, in which players attempt to capture virtual creatures while moving around in the real world, is a classic example.

Challenges for AR and VR

AR and VR are still in their infancy, and they have a long timeline of development ahead of them before they become true mainstream technologies. Some of the most frequently cited technology and business challenges include:

Technology challenges:

• Limited mobile processing capability – Mobile handsets have limited processing power, but tethering a user to a desktop or server isn’t realistic. Either mobile processing power will have to expand, or the work will have to be offloaded to the cloud.
• Limited mobile bandwidth – While cloud-based processing offers a compelling potential solution to the mobile processing bottleneck, mobile phone bandwidth is still too slow in most places to offer the necessary real-time video processing. This will likely change as mobile bandwidth improves.
• Complex development – Designing an AR or VR application is costly and complicated. Development tools will need to become more user-friendly to make these technologies accessible to programmers.

Business challenges:

• VR hardware’s inconvenience – Putting on a virtual reality headset and clearing a room often detracts from the user experience. VR input devices, in the form of modified gaming controllers, can also often be unintuitive, with a steep learning curve.
• Building a business model – Outside of video gaming, many AR and VR applications remain in early stages of development with unproven viability in the business world.
• Security and privacy issues – The backlash over the original Google Glass proved that the mainstream remains sceptical about the proliferation of cameras and their privacy implications.

Mixed or Extended Reality

• Mixed reality (MR) or extended reality (XR) is a technology that combines elements of VR and AR to create a hybrid reality that blends the physical and digital worlds. MR or XR can offer a high level of integration and interaction, as well as a sense of convergence and transformation. MR or XR can be used for various purposes, such as collaboration, communication, design, and innovation.

• For example, users can use MR or XR to join a meeting remotely where they are all in a room together, use VR and AR tools to design and prototype products and services, or experience different scenarios and outcomes

• Mixed Reality (MR) is like blending the real world with the virtual world, creating a whole new kind of experience. It's like wearing special glasses that let you see and interact with digital objects as if they were part of your physical surroundings. Imagine sitting at your desk and having a virtual screen floating in front of you, or playing a game where characters appear to be right in your living room.

• In MR, virtual objects can interact with real objects, and vice versa, making it feel like the two worlds are seamlessly connected. It's like adding a layer of magic to the world around you, where anything is possible.

• MR isn't just for entertainment; it's also used in fields like architecture, engineering, and medicine to visualise complex data and solve problems in new ways. It's like having a superpower that lets you see the world in a whole new light, thanks to cutting-edge technology.

  Challenges of XR

  • Those developing XR technologies are battling with some of the challenges to mainstream adoption. First, XR technologies collect and process huge amounts of very detailed and personal data about what you do, what you look at, and even your emotions at any given time, which has to be protected.
  • In addition, the cost of implementing the technology needs to come down; otherwise, many companies will be unable to invest in it. It is essential that the wearable devices that allow a full XR experience are fashionable and comfortable as well as always connected, intelligent, and immersive.
  • There are significant technical and hardware issues to solve that include but are not limited to the display, power and thermal, motion tracking, connectivity and common illumination—where virtual objects in a real world are indistinguishable from real objects especially as lighting shifts.