The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) Startup Hub (MSH) in collaboration with Meta has launched an accelerator programme to support and accelerate XR technology startups across India.
Key points
- The MeitY Startup Hub, an initiative of MeitY, is a national platform focused on promoting technology innovation, start-ups, and the creation of intellectual properties.
- This initiative, XR Startup Program focuses on skilling and building technological capabilities for the metaverse, and will help shape the ecosystem for these emerging technologies, including Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) in the country.
- The Accelerator Program will support 40 early-stage start-ups working in XR technologies with a grant of Rs 20 lakhs each.
- Further, the Grand Challenge will encourage early-stage innovators in sectors like Education, Learning and Skills, Healthcare, Gaming and Entertainment, Agritech & Climate Action and Tourism & Sustainability.
What is Extended Reality (XR)?
- Extended Reality (XR) is an umbrella term encapsulating Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR), and everything in between.
There are many practical applications of XR.
- XR gives customers the ability to try before they buy. For example; a furniture company gives customers the ability to place furniture items into their home via their smartphone.
- Saving life: XR can provide training tools that are hyper-realistic that will help soldiers, healthcare professionals, pilots/astronauts, chemists, and more figure out solutions to problems or learn how to respond to dangerous circumstances without putting their lives or anyone else’s at risk.
- Remote work: Employees can connect to the home office or with professionals located around the world in a way that makes both sides feel like they are in the same room.
- In education, virtual field trips will broaden young horizons in new, exciting ways.
Augmented reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR)
- Augmented Reality (AR): Virtual information and objects are overlaid on the real world. This experience enhances the real world with digital details such as images, text, and animation. A person can access the experience through AR glasses or via screens, tablets, and smartphones. In AR, users are not isolated from the real world and can still interact and see what’s going on in front of them.
- Virtual Reality (VR): Users are fully immersed in a simulated digital environment. Individuals must put on a VR headset or head-mounted display to get a 360 -degree view of an artificial world that fools their brain into believing they are, e.g., walking on the moon, swimming under the ocean or stepped into whatever new world the VR developers created.
- Mixed Reality (MR): Digital and real-world objects co-exist and can interact with one another in real-time. This is sometimes referred to as hybrid reality. It requires an MR headset and a lot more processing power than VR or AR. Microsoft’s HoloLens is a great example of MR. This allows users to place digital objects into the room in which he is standing in and gives him the ability to spin it around or interact with the digital object in any way possible.
