Augmented Reality, the reality.
Augmented Reality is this year’s Second Life with companies scrambling to invest in something they know next to nothing about, sold in the main by digital agencies with an interest in making a quick buck from the hype. The resulting executions are usually Flash apps which involve layering some 3D graphics over the image from the user’s webcam. Users are asked to print out a symbol and wave it around in front of their camera in order to make the 3D model rotate a bit. This is a short lived gimmick which in a year’s time is going to look every bit as embarrassing as your brand’s “presence” in Second Life. The very idea that every interaction I make with this type of media is preceeded by a trip to the printer is totally ludicrous.
True Augmented Reality involves layering location specific data over an image of the real world in order to “augment” the real world with additional information from the virtual world. The example I always use is Robocop. When Robocop looks at a human he sees a bunch of data overlaid on the image which helps him make a decision as to whether to smite their puny flesh and bone ass or mercifully allow them to live another day. We’re already augmenting our intelligence and memory with the web (how often do you look to Google for something that you can’t remember), and as technology advances maybe one day we’ll be able augment our brains directly without the need for keyboards and screens.
Layar, demonstrated in the video above, is a mobile app running on the Android platform which offers a glimpse of this future. The application uses the phone’s GPS to locate the user, and the built in compass to find out which direction they are pointing. It then overlays search results on the video image in real time, showing results related to the environment the camera is pointing at. Now this is all very exciting, but there’s a snag. The GPS technology currently used in smartphones is nowhere near accurate enough to make this remotely useful. Nine times out of ten the stuff you’re looking at, and the stuff your device thinks you’re looking at are going to be around 500 metres apart. The technology isn’t there yet - FACT. Until GPS technology in mobile devices becomes pin-point accurate, these apps will largley be a glimpse of what’s to come.
In a sense, the hype around Augmented Reality is justified. Sometime in the next 5-10 years this technology will change how we look at the world - but not yet, and when it does it won’t involve printing out a symbol and waving it in front of your webcam.
