- Samsung’s XR headset will help you meditate while giving blood
- Employees recently tried the demo, and it’ll be available at AWE
- Further expansions are already planned
There are plenty of things in life we know we should be doing but don’t for one reason or another — like eating more vegetables, exercising several times a week, giving our time to good causes, or reading a good book. But for one such activity, giving blood, Samsung and healthcare company Abbott have just showcased a way to make it a bit more bearable: immersive meditation.
To mark World Blood Donor Day, Samsung employees in South Korea had the opportunity to give blood while experiencing immersive meditation, and the company plans to expand the program globally, with events scheduled for the US and Malaysia.
One such activation is happening in just a few days. Attendees at Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California, next week (June 15 to 18) can take part in Samsung and Abbott’s four-day blood drive.
I’m currently taking part in a medical trial, and as part of it every couple of months I have to get a lot of blood taken. While I am now used to it, I always get stressed out in the moments before the needle goes in, and I can’t relax until I know it’s all over — so some kind of immersive XR experience would be a help.
It would certainly beat my current method of trying to distract myself by talking the nurse’s ear off.
Analysis/subhead section
We’ve seen XR used in similar ways before, for example, some flights now offer VR headset meditation to help calm nervous fliers, and schools have used VR to help bring education to life. These examples give some ideas for how XR can make other mundane parts of our lives a bit more fun.
Gamifying exercise to make it more exciting is a trend that’s always being chased, but too often it struggles to pull folks away from a more traditional routine. So instead, I’d like to see an XR glasses app that can work with any gym equipment.
Imagine having an XR coach there to talk you through a routine, with advice for each machine and stats about your last visit, like what weights you were lifting and pushing you to go a little harder if you can. Treadmill runs could come with immersive routes to jog through, or perhaps you could have a virtual you/rival joining you at each machine, giving you someone to compete against.
My next proposal: a reading companion. I know a few teachers, and many have said it’s harder than ever to get kids to read. If you do try to set a reading and then quiz the kids on what the book is about, they’ll just use AI to summarize the story for them.
So what if an XR glasses or headset app could leverage eye-tracking to follow along as you read to see that you’ve actually gone through a book properly. Parents and teachers can then know their kid has been reading and deserves some congratulations, and for the kid, the glasses could help with understanding or pronouncing words, perhaps provide some visual cues to what they’re reading, and help them find similar books once they’re finished.
I’m not envisioning anything supremely immersive, just a few bits to help readers of all ages engage with a story.
Or perhaps we could use XR to help make doing chores less of a, well, chore.
MR apps have been made to show us where we have and haven’t vacuumed, so something similar for dusting, cleaning the bathroom, and other tasks would be great at keeping my home spotless in every way.
I also love listening to music while I clean, so perhaps an XR app could turn my home into a rave that only plays while I’m tidying, helping me push through chores.
These are just a few fun possible examples, but they showcase some of the reasons and ways XR could be an awesome technology as it develops. We’ll just have to wait and see what Samsung, Google, Meta, Apple, and the rest have up their sleeves.
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hamish.hector@futurenet.com (Hamish Hector)
