Some time ago I've wrote that I don't want to see augmented reality in sport. Today I've watched a very good TEDTalk of Chris Kluwe and I'm only more sure that augmented reality should stay out of this part of our lives.
Revolution is always welcomed
Let us start from the talk:
Augmented reality is a fantastic technology and we can be sure that it will change every part of our live wherein it will be available. Ideas presented by Chris are fascinating but are bad for sport. Of course - as he has mentioned - they can be very profit but they will kill the true spirit of it. If me move a big part of discipline to a computer that will display everything on a HUD than what will be left? The part of the sport, that we love most will be dead. The random element that sometimes occures in a blink of the eye is the true essence and we should not take it away.
Not every technogy should change everything, not every technology should be placed everywhere. If we will think only by prism of money, than sooner or later we'll get into a dead end
Recently I’m searching a lot for some kind of inspiration. I’ve came across interesting project from MIT – Smarted Object Augmented Reality User Interface. From my point of view this project is much more interesting than usefull.
What is it ?
Let us start from video:
As you can this is a kind of extending standard interfaces. My favorite example is the one with virtual keyboard for entering password. Smart way of locking your door. This project allows to make every item smarter than it is in everyday life.
Very useful…or maybe not
As I’ve mentioned, this type of interfaces are much more interesting than useful. For example you can achieve the same goal using standard mobile app and you won’t have to go near the device, you would be able to change the radio station siting on the second end of the room. I think this is more comfortable. But – yes, there is always a “but” – as a technology, as a proof of concept this is fascinating example of augmented reality.
From my point of view, nowadays we can divide augmented reality project in three different groups.
1. Totally waste of time. You won’t use it, you even don’t know what to think about them. You can find a lot of this in the internet.
2. Truly useful applications/projects. Something that has future, something you can call a meaningful usage of augmented reality. It is a bit harder to find but you can read about some of them even here
3. The “wow” projects. This is my favorite group. This projects shows the true potential of augmented reality. But I need to be honest with you, they are always a useful projects. But it is not about using them, this group is about inspiration, about showing possible paths. This is a very good example, in the movie below you can see another example of the “wow” project
So, is it bad that you probably never use this project in your home ? No, no, no, no…it is a fantastic project and I hope we will see more and more augmented reality projects like this.
