Page 31 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

work setting. This makes it possible, for example, to immediately assemble the entire work, even though the physical pieces are scattered, and place it in its original setting, or bring together other works of the author or of a theme similar to the one that is being visualized.
Taking this virtualization to the extreme, as the Smithsonian Museum did, settings that would be physically impossible to recreate, or would be inadvisable for reasons of preservation, allow the user to be immersed in an authentic journey through time.
Fig. 11. Smithsonian: Virtual tour of Western cultures
Marketing and advertising are other industries that clearly benefit from immersion. New prod- ucts can be tested through virtual reality, having a greater impact on the end user. Experiences can be simulated and the final product or service can be customized and adapted to the user’s preferences. As mentioned earlier regarding manufacturing processes, there is a clear trend of putting the consumer at the new center of these processes. This means at the design level the user can participate actively in the final configuration of the product or service, ensuring maximum personalization, while facilitating advertising that promotes the experience and attracts consumers to the product or service that they will subsequently help create.
Therefore, immersion will have an impact on how to create content for games, entertainment and arts, provided the creators dedicate the time and resources necessary to develop content for immersive technologies.
Expected Economic Impact. Current and Expected Turnover in this Technological Field
Immersive content has enormous potential
in very diverse sectors of modern economies. Although immersive technologies can still be considered to be in their infancy, think tanks are mapping uses for them ranging from the more conventional areas of application, such as video games and entertainment, to newer and more revolutionary concepts.
Immersive content has enormous potential in very diverse sectors of modern economies.
We have already witnessed an explosion of con- tent created by the user, with selfies as the most evident manifestation of this increasingly more entrenched trend. In the near future, however, people will do more than create digital content at an increasing rate: They will begin creating media passively.
Content production of this dimension requires new ways of analyzing and exploiting it for useful purposes, and immersive technologies (along with Big Data technology) are one of the main tools that will create value for the user.
A wide range of applications are foreseeable
but not yet on the market. For example, smart glasses could easily permit storage of each word read. This feature, in turn, would change the way users read texts. While reading, the images of people, objects and places could be associated with the text in the background and could
be called up with one touch at any time. This technology will also affect the way we write and produce the text. Media of the future will merge text and images in new and surprising ways.
For virtual reality to continue growing, prices must drop to a level that a broad consumer base can afford. As with all new technologies, prices start out high at the beginning of the lifecycle and ultimately drop.
AC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 2018
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Digital Trends in Culture