Digital trends-Augmented Reality(AR)

What is Augmented Reality (AR): Augmented Reality Defined, iPhone Augmented Reality Apps and Games and More

What is Augmented Reality?

In 1990, Boeing researcher Tom Caudell first coined the term “augmented reality” to describe a digital display used by aircraft electricians that blended virtual graphics onto a physical reality. As for the computer science world’s definition of augmented reality (AR) though, it’s more detailed, but essentially the same: Augmented reality is the interaction of superimposed graphics, audio and other senseenhancements over a real-world environment that’s displayed in real-time

Augmented Reality Past, Present and Future: How It Impacts Our Lives

Can’t stop hearing about it in the news, but wondering what makes “augmented reality” (AR) – the concept of overlaying computerized information, digital pop-up windows and/or virtual reality (VR) displays over real-world scenes and imagery – so exciting? Allow us to paint a picture. Imagine. You walk up to an airport terminal and breeze past the airline check-in. Afterwards, a wireless chip inyour smartphone uses biometrics to verify your identity at a checkpoint, then a green arrow pops up and shows you the best path to the gate. When you get there, a blue circle shows you where to sit and helps you avoid the most common congestion points. You wait about five minutes until a soft chime tells you to get in line. The total time between drop-off and take-off: Just 20 minutes.In this near-future scenario, just one of many possible applications for the technology, the concept of augmented reality makes air travel more bearable. More than just a series of visual cues, the technology can even combine auditory sensors and other stimuli to make high-tech data part of your everyday life. Like robotics, there’s a visceral and physical representation of the underlying artificial intelligence involved. And with real-world implications that range from expediting everyday business travel to fueling potential military research, facilitating heightened responses in emergency scenarios and powering the world’s most immersive video games, augmented reality will forever change how we think about data and how we process information.“Augmented reality will ultimately become a part of everyday life,” explains Sam Bergen, an associate art director for digital innovation at the ad agency Ogilvy and Mather. “Kids will use it in school as a learning tool – imagine Google Earth with AR- or AR-enabled text books. Shoppers will use it to see what products will look like in their home. Consumers will use it to visually determine how to set up a computer. Architects and city planners will even use it to see how new construction will look, feel, and affect the area they are developing.”
This year, apps such as Nearest Tube for iPhone (which displays real-time pop-ups alerting users to nearby train stations in London) and Tweetmondo for Android smartphones (which shows the status updates of nearby Twitter fans), offer an early glimpse at how the technology works. Even the unlikeliest candidates such as the US Postal Service, A&E Network, and GE are beginning to show how augmented reality could help us interact with and understand digital content in more interesting ways. Knowing this, it’s not too farfetched to wager that in the not-too-distant future, augmented reality could actually become as integral to our lives as cell phones and Web 2.0 sites in terms of how it enhances reality and integrates with our surroundings.Of course, there are dangers involved. Relying too much on augmented reality could mean more than just driving into a lake when you follow poor GPS directions. Instead, following the prompts of a software program designed to make your life easier could lead to life-threatening disaster and a newform of hacking and identity theft. Given the tools to make augmented reality part of our lives, there is a potential for sensory overload, and for others to manipulate the everyday real-world feedback we take for granted. Still, in the right conditions, the technology could make our lives less complex and far easier.Part science fiction, part a reaction to today’s increasingly overwhelming constant barrage of digital content, one thing is for certain, though: Augmented reality is an important step on the road to making technology more understandable and useful.

Interacting With Digital Objects

In many ways, AR is an attempt to meld digital content with physical objects. One of the best examples of this is the US Postal Service’s priority mail shipping simulator. At the site, you first see a digital representation of a shipping container. Then, you take the object you want to ship – say, a child’s toy – and hold it up to a webcam. The box overlays on the toy so you can see if the object will fit or if you need to use the next largest size. What’s amazing about this AR simulation, which went live this past summer, is that it offers immediate and clear benefits, helping demonstrate just one of the quickest upsides to be recognized by employing the technology.

Another example of augmented reality in motion: The A&E Television network created an augmented reality puzzle game to promote a magic show with Chris Angel. But as fun a concept as even these digital diversions seem, John Swords, who produced the AR portal, says the initial AR entertainment apps and games on the on iPhone and other smartphone platforms are just the beginning. Currently limited to simple overlays, the next phase of smartphone apps that employ augmented reality components will introduce actual interaction with digital objects.

“Most mobile apps, particularly on the iPhone where there is a software limitation, are using the GPS and compass to overlay data onto the video feed,” says Swords. “This will lead to the next point in the field’s evolution, which is to be able to directly manipulate objects in the video feed.”

Military AR Applications

Charles Gannon, a professor at Saint Bonaventure, a futurist, and a frequent military consultant for the Department of Homeland Security, says that augmented reality could become an important aid in combat as well. For example, an anti-terrorism team could use AR technology to show HUD pop-ups for dangerous toxins in the area that are not discernable with the naked eye, or to examine the sound of gunfire and identify which automatic weapon is being used and from what vantage point

“A SWAT team would have greater perception,” says Gannon. “AR would connect at an instinctual level, helping them determine whether to move in closer. It’s not just about more maps or more statistics,” which Gannon says can be a detriment in tense situations, rather, “it’s more about primal sensory data.” Equipped with AR technology in this scenario, police and military forces would have to think less about how to deploy or which tactics to use as augmented reality offers real-time, enhanced feedback on surroundings, allowing them to react faster to breaking development. For example: A moment’s glance could be enough to identify where a sound is coming from, with an overlay displayed on a visor helping identify the attackers making these noises’ possible locations or identifying assailants with color-coded warnings.

Gannon says another interesting use of AR has to do with representing physical objects that are not visible yet. For instance, in the airport terminal example cited above, this could consist of showing you a virtual picture of an airplane before it reaches the gate so you can see what type of aircraft it is and where you will be sitting. Often, we have a hard time understanding the absence of data, but augmented reality would readily fill in the gaps and help project future scenarios to give us a better understanding of developing variables and potential ways to react to them.

The Future of Augmented Reality

So where will all this innovation lead? Gannon says that in the next 10-20 years, augmented reality could become commonplace – but he also warns about the dangers of using AR technology just because it is available.

“Augmented reality is just another tool, and like all tools, we’ll need to match the problem with the right solution,” he says, giving the example of an incoming commuter flight and how he’d rather just get a text message and not have augmented reality even part of the equation.

In the end, experts agree on one thing, however. Augmented reality is certainly a major step toward the virtual world intersecting with the physical, enhancing our perception, and providing clues about underlying data that we would not normally understand. It’s up to tomorrow’s innovators, however, to make sense of the technology and find ways to really help make it compute

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