I asked ten people in my office what they thought ‘augmented reality’ was. The answers were very interesting. They included, ‘I don’t have a clue’; ‘using real items to interact with’; ‘a real life situation growing into something greater’; ‘a distorted reality’.
The truth of it is that you probably have seen, heard or even experienced augmented reality. Augmented reality is where you view the real world, through a device, which has super-imposed onto it data or images.
The sensational failure of this was Google Glass. Conversely, the sensational success is Pokémon Go.
Augmented reality has been around for a few years with mobile apps using phone cameras to help people navigate to a destination or pinpoint points of interest while looking at the real world in front of them, albeit via the phone screen.
Even cars have been using a form of augmented reality with head-up displays showing the driver key information such as speed and sat-nav directions.
But what all the fuss? OK so a game has increased Nintendo’s shares by billions but Google couldn’t make it work. Why do we want or need augmented reality?
Let’s take sport for a moment. You’re watching a game of football in a stadium and your season ticket seat is row ZZ. Wearing a visor or even through your smartphone phone, you can look at the pitch and see the name of the players hovering just over their head. You turn around behind you to see the closet toilets and burger stand.
Or you’re at the races and as the horses set off into the distance, you can see the name of your horse coming in last. What about you taking a tee shot on a golf course and your ball goes into the deep rough. You put on your visor and a big arrow directs you to where it landed.
Ok so these are ‘First World’ problems but what about an emergency situation. You’re in a crowded shopping centre and see someone fall to the ground suffering a seizure. You activate your ‘Find a Doctor’ app and you hold your phone up to the crowds in front of you through your camera. An arrow with a name points out a doctor about 50 metres away.
What about when you are driving through thick fog but through images on your windscreen you are alerted to other cars and pedestrians that you can’t even see approaching you.
While these might be random ideas the point I make is that the possibilities beyond social/gaming is actually endless.
Augmented reality is a going to explode in the coming years as businesses consider how to harness the technology.
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