[Archer1]

Being a long time SR fan, I get what virtual reality is, what it looks like, and how one interacts with it.  AR is another thing entirely, especially given that the 4th edition rules state that what you can do with one can be done with the other.  I don't have Unwired yet, so if the answer is there, please point me in that direction.

My initial idea of what AR was like was that, say you come to a door that needs opening.  In an AR state, you'd see the IC (say in the form of a gremlin) that's watching over the maglock as a VR-like entity, but superimposed into your vision as if it were right there.  From there, you'd throw your programs at it, that in turn would look like their VR counterparts.  And so on.  But then, if what you can do in VR you can do in AR, then in my interpretation I don't see how that would work with a remote/not having a real-world component right there in front of you type of node or what have you.

In the rulebook's fiction, it seems more like what you're hacking just has a data window superimposed over it in your vision and you, more or less, manually hack it from there.  If you are trying to penetrate a node that doesn't have a real-world counterpart, are you just basically hacking it via another data window?

I'm trying to visualize this myself and am coming up short here.  Any help is appreciated! 

[FastJack]

That's the way I see it. In AR, you're doing everything through data windows (or someone else's data windows, you naughty little hacker ). By going into VR, you're "expanding the windows" to your entire field of vision (kinda like going from 2D to 3D-IMAX-Dome Screen with Smell-o-vision).

[Valashar]

The cover of Unwired has a good shot of a hacker's personal AR view. It's got the exploit he's trying to run on the maglock, the tacnet feed showing his team and the shooters after them, and even shows that he's out of ammo in his Predator.

Another good visual is the way that the members of Section 9 communicate in the series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Much of the inter-squad chatter happens over AR windows in their field of view.

[KarmaInferno]

It's a matter of levels of immersion.

In AR, you have visual data laid over your field of vision, but you don't "feel" it. It's like a glass window in front of your face with the stuff projected on it.

In VR, the data is directly experienced by your brain. You experience the incoming data as a new sense, like sight or touch or taste. Hot Sim VR takes it a step further, imparting emotive data and greater levels of stimulation.


-k

[CanRay]

AR lets you see the Herbal Viagra Spam messages.  VR lets you EXPERIENCE it! 

[Mystic]

AR lets you see the Herbal Viagra Spam messages.  VR lets you EXPERIENCE it! 

Hope your spam filter is on and REEALLY good. Heck of a glitch though or a bad way to ruin a run.

I've been kind of wondering about this as well. So in a virtural nutshell: AR would be like in the GITS, and VR would be the good old fasioned "decking" of the past?

[CanRay]

I've been kind of wondering about this as well. So in a virtural nutshell: AR would be like in the GITS, and VR would be the good old fasioned "decking" of the past?

Pretty much, yeah.  Complete with Ragdolling while in VR!

[Mystic]

Figured as much, glad I'm right because that's how I explained it to people!

 

[Irian]

I think "hacking" in AR is simply done by using AR instead of a screen. So you get the data about the node you're hacking in a virtual display in front of your eyes, for example (of course, normally there could be much more displays, for example one for every program you've analyzed, one for the view of the node, another one for the status of your own programs, etc.etc.). In VR, you would actuall BE in the node you're hacking, floating around in it.

AR = Augmented Reality. Of course you could try projecting a virtual image of the node you're hacking over the reality, but that would be confusing at best - and breaking your leg by falling over the chair while fighting IC isn't a really good story to tell your street doc :-)

[The_Gun_Nut]

Hilarious, though.

[CanRay]

"Excuse me, Sir, but me and the rest of the Doc Wagon paramedics and guards are just going to be outside laughing our hoops off...  Er, I mean having a smoke.  Yeah, 'cause Hospitals are non-smoking zones, that's it..."