Say hello to ARCore

Recently I wrote about the possible impact of ARKit on the augmented reality market. We didn’thave to wait long for the first effects, the ARCore.

What is ARCore ?

ARCore is a platform for building augmented reality applications on Android. That sounds like a very good slogan, so let us try a bit simpler.
ARCore is nothing more than a set of tools that handles the most complex operation for the programmer, it brings AR capabilities to a wide audience.
ARCore does not need any special equipment, it uses standard camera in your phone to bring AR to life. It focuses on three main elements:

1.       Motion tracking – phone can understand and track its position relative to the world

2.       Environment understanding – phone can detect the size and location of horizontal surfaces

3.       Light estimation – phone can estimate the environment current lightning conditions

All this combined, gives us a lot of new possibilities on Android phones.

Limitation

On current stage it is hard to talk about limitation. For sure the biggest problem is the small number of supported devices. At the moment of writing this article, only three phones are officially supported: Pixel, Pixel XL and Samsung Galaxy S8. Why S8+ or Note 8 are not supported ? Only Google knows. The amount of devices should increase with time as Google is talking with other producers. We will see.

In terms of software limitation as I wrote it is hard to say. Currently it is even hard to find any interesting NEW project based on ARCore beside those officially introduced along with the information about ARCore. For sure possibilities are big, but how big, where do they end, those are the big questions. Again, we need to wait to get the answer on that.

What next ?

What can we do ? We need to wait and observe. I`m guessing that in short time we will see a lot of interesting tests done by individual programmers and companies. Those ideas, concepts, prototypes will show us how far we can go with the current version, what we can build with ARCore, will it be a good and true answer to Apple ARKit. I hope so. At the moment we have those two players on the field but we can’t forget about Facebook and their plans to invest 3 billion dollars in the AR platform. And of course we have Microsoft with the HoloLens. For sure thanks to Google and Apple, augmented reality is getting wider audience, people see that this technology carries huge possibilities. This can bring the demand and every time when there is a demand someone need to satisfy it. For sure we are standing in front of huge milestone for the augmented reality.

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What we want from AR glasses ?

I’m wondering do we know what we want from glasses that will support augmented reality ? I’m wondering do we live in the world of sci-fi movies or maybe consumer do not need so abstract devices ? Maybe we can use something less elegant but without some flaws ? Let us think about it for a second

Comfort

First thing is comfort. They may not look as cool as we see in the movies but for sure they need to be comfortable. We need to remember that we are talking about device that we want to wear on our faces for couple hours a day. Such glasses can’t be heavy to avoid neck pain. They need to be easy to wear, stable during all every day activities, similar like standard glasses. Maybe some kind of belt over your head ? This would do the trick but I don’t think that it would be the best idea. Comfort is a very important element, easy to think, hard to achieve

Battery life

What is the biggest problem with modern devices from smartphone through smartwatch to your laptop ? Battery life. Wearables are special type of devices. We want to get from them a lot of cool features, a lot of helpers in every day life and we want to forget about that they have battery inside. I think that 12-16 hours on one battery cycle is an absolute must. Anything less than that will be just annoying for the user. Think about glasses that you need to charge 2 times a day. You will just stop using it beside some special occasions. Is it easy to achieve ? I’m afraid that no. Let us consider main reasons:

·       Not a lot of space. Yes, we are getting better and better in miniaturization but still comfortable glasses won’t have a lot of room to put the battery. The battery can’t be to big (weight) so there might be a problem with the capacity. Making it leaner and leaner also is not such a good idea (remember the case of Samsung Note 7 ? ) so this will be a major problem

·       A lot of operations related with generating AR images, calculating positions and so on are complicated from algorithmic point of view. It will use a lot of CPU power and it will have a big impact on the battery life. Every tick of the CPU is consuming power so the math here is easy 😉

Content

I’ve already mentioned in one of my previous articles that content is also a very important element. Maybe not on the start because augmented reality is a cool technology and a lot of people will just use it for some tests BUT if we are talking about regular consumer, than device that is just “cool” won’t make it. Content need to provided asap and it must be a high quality content. We love our smartphones and we are used to have everything there. Augmented reality and glasses is hard combo for standard consumer, it is easy to think about usage of this in industry, business or logistic, but how to use it on street ? This is a bit harder, and this must be solved before putting such glasses into the market

Style

Last but no least….style. We are not talking here about glasses that will be used in some factory, we are talking about something that we want to wear on street, that we want to wear during our meetings with friends. Such glasses can’t look like some “geek” experiment, they need to be nice, they need to fit to our cloths, our style. Connecting style with hardware usability is a very big problem. Look at the laptops and smartphones. It took some time before those devices become usable and good looking and in this example we are talking about much bigger peace of hardware. Talking about good style for such glasses might sound a bit stupid but we want those glasses to be available for regular consumer, for every day usage. They just MUST look good

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Challenges facing augmented reality

Today let us discuss about challenges that augmented reality needs to face. We will focus on the most important, THE BIGGEST challenges.

Hardware

Currently this is THE BIGGEST challenge of all. We either use substitution in form of mobile devices either we need to use a very expensive prototypes like for example, HoloLens. Without good hardware in a reasonable price we can forget about next BIG REVOLUTION. There is no chance without those two things. We can start from good and expensive if we have perspective for lowering costs but currently we have nothing. What do we understand by “good hardware” ? Light, comfortable, good battery, efficient.

Content

Why mobile Windows or Firefox OS is dead ? Because there is not enough good content. People won’t use the device or system if there will be nothing to see on it, if the content that is provided is low quality. We are consumers, we live in world where there is an app for everything. The same rule concerns augmented reality. Without valuable content (app, projects) there will be no will for usage. Without that nobody except geeks will buy it. We need ideas and good execution of those ideas.

Usability

If you will spend a bit of time with google or on youtube you will find a lot of interesting concepts, experiments that look very cool. But most of them has the same problem, low usability. Problems with user interface. If it will not be comfortable for use, it won’t be used, simple as that. We still have small experience in such interfaces, we do not have developed proper and tested concepts of such interfaces. This path is in front of us and for sure we will make a lot of mistakes. We need to make them ASAP to find the proper methods to handle it.

Adaptation

It is not as easy as everybody thinks it is. We can’t just give a device to everybody and say “hey guys, use it!!”. Augmented reality is still something new for “normal” consumers. We need a proper combination of above elements and proper strategy to teach people how to use and what benefits it will bring to their life. We need to educate people and help them adapt augmented reality in everyday life.

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Quick thinking: augmented reality in schools

Recently my friend wrote to be and asked about augmented reality. I want to share with you some short, quick thoughts about augmented reality in schools.

“I’m looking for some cool usage of AR for kids about 12-years old. I’ve checked different projects on the internet but all of them seems like dreams. Am I looking wrong?” This simple question made me thinking about this problem, because this is a very big problem of augmented reality. He didn’t find anything because we are not using AR in our schools. Let us be honest, today`s children are much different than kids from 80`s and 90`s. They were/are growing up with smartphones and tablets in their hands and it looks like our schools are forgetting about that.

Why we are not using this fantastic technology to help our kids ? Don’t get me wrong, I love books, I really thing that we need to teach our kids to read them and to love them, they should never be forgotten but there are a lot of things that can be improved by augmented reality in terms of teaching. We can use the technology to show richer content, to provide better ways for understanding complicated issues.

I’m sure that augmented reality will arrive to schools sooner or later. I’m also sure that it will be rather later and I can’t understand that. There are no technological barriers. Spend just 5 minutes with google and you will find multiple projects of “augmented books” or “augmented sandboxes” and many more. But no body want to invest into that, no body want to provide it to wider audience. Why ? Because we are afraid ? Because we do not know how to use it ? Because it is an experiment ? Even if we will answer on all those questions “yes”, we need to try, we need to search. We need to remember that even the longest trip always begins from one small step.

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Why Augmented Reality needs Apple ?

Probably most of you will think that Apple is so great and fantastic that no one else can do something good for augmented reality. If you think that way, I have 3 words for you:
1. no
2. No
3. NO !

Apple is a great company

No doubt that Apple is one of the biggest company in the world. They achieved so much, that it is hard to count the biggest achievements. They created fantastic products, but also - as every company - some of them were very bad. But the number one of all this, is the power of influence on the masses and this is the true reason why augmented reality needs Apple

Talk and talk and talk and...

Lately almost every day I see headline about how Tim Cook is talking about power of the augmented reality, how it is better than virtual reality, or how the augmented reality is the future and so on and so on. Unfortunately nothing is happening, no action taken. The action that we - all the fans of AR - need so much.

Some can say that we have Pokemon GO. Sure ! But as I wrote here, I don't think that friendly creatures will change anything. Augmented reality needs a true breakthrough. We need something, or maybe I should say someone, that will lead, that will show the way, that will inspire the masses. We need a true influencer.

Look at Google, Microsoft. We are talking here about largest companies in the world. They created Google glasses, HoloLens. Those are two fantastic products and nothing! People don't care about them. Of course I'm not talking here about geeks or AR enthusiasts but about masses that will by such products, people that don't care about low level technology. They want to see the effect.

"How does somebody know what they need if they haven't even seen it?"

Do you remember when Steve Jobs said that ? Those words are still very important. People don't know that they need augmented reality because most of the do not understand it. They can't even imagine how powerful tool it is and what they can achieve with that. So please Apple, please Mr. Cook, do something with this ! Prove the world that Apple is really the greatest company in the world. Stop playing with new colors of iPhone, stop destroying your devices by removing parts, stop making wires to Bluetooth headsets. Please, do the one thing that a long time ago was your trademark. Be innovative again, inspire people, lead them, show them the way, show them what they can achieve having such powerful tool like augmented reality ! Please !

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No body cares about augmented reality in Pokemon GO

Pokemon GO, Pokemon GO, Pokemon GO, Pokemon GO.....I feel exactly the same when I'm reading news related with augmented reality. Is it boring ? Yes, a bit, because I can't find any new interesting content. A lot of people thinks that this is a breakthrough for augmented reality, but it isn't and we need to remember about that.

NO BODY*, I repeat NO BODY cares about AR in Pokemon GO

By "no body" I refer to people that are not related with augmented reality. I think that 99% of them don't care about AR behind all of this. They are hyped because they can go and just catch some pokemons !! Big part of users turned of the AR mode in the game because it is easier to catch`em all. Of course there is always an interactive map based on Google maps that extends (augment) our world. Don't you think that this is just not enough to scream AUGMENTED REALTY FOR THE WIN ? When I think about AR I can see much more advanced examples in my head like: HoloLens, Daqri, hands free systems in logistic, Google glass. Running around with smartphone looking at virtual map is just not enough in my opinion. 

Someone will be interested

Of course there is a very small part of people whom will ask a question "what is augmented reality" and even some of them will like to search more information about it, maybe even they will read this post and maybe they will study AR in future like I do. That would be cool. Unfortunately Pokemon GO is not a game changer. There is a big chance that in near future there will be some new applications based on similar mechanic. Do you remember Ingress ? This game was way much more advanced from the gameplay point of view, it had same mechanic and it was not even near as popular as Pokemon GO. Here and there you can say that this is an augmented reality game but as I said...it is not about AR. This app is a social phenomenon and we will see a lot of papers describing it but unfortunately this is not an augmented reality revolution.  

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HoloLens - the true augmented reality milestone

Build 2016 is over. We have seen a true kickoff of HoloLens, now everybody can buy a developer edition to build and test own apps. Of course they need to have....3000 USD. That is a lot, but the cost is not the main topic on which I want to focus today. After the presentation we can read a lot of comments that say that this is still a clumsy technology, that this is not so exciting as everybody thinks. So what is all about ?

HoloLens is not a everyday technology

Let us start from this statement. HoloLens is not something you would call an everyday augmented reality headset. Of course, you can have at your home and play with it, you can take it to your work and use it for that. So there is a way to use it everyday in your life BUT you won't wear it during your trip to work, you won't go with it to the shop. To be honest, you won't wear it anywhere outside your home or office.

First of all they are simply too big. Yes, the current version is much better than the prototype that was shown year ago, it is much easier to wear it, use it, adjust to the user, they are more comfortable but still they are just too big. It is hard to say that nobody will notice that you are wearing them.

Secondly we have the main problem of every mobile device, battery. According to Microsoft we`re talking here about 2-3 hours of constant work. It's not even a half of standard work day, that means you always need to be close of something that will be able to charge your HoloLens. Hard to say that this is a comfortable situation.

And last but not least...the cost. We can assume that user edition will be cheaper than current developer version but let us be real, there is no chance that the difference will be significant, and 3000 USD is a lot of money. There won't be many people that will be able to afford it just to wear it around and use it for Cortana`s reminders. 

It is not important !

Should we care about above problems ? No, not now. HoloLens is a big step forward for augmented reality. I think that it is even more than one step. It is a milestone. Microsoft made something fantastic for propagation AR. Thanks to that device we can get a bit closer to understanding of true potential of augmented reality in our lifes.

This device is something similar to first laptop, pda or tablet. It is something big, expensive, without well defined usage. It sounds horrible but it something fantastic. It allows to understand the technology, to experiment with it, to show something great, cool and fantastic to people, to move forward, to look further. HoloLens is like a key that will open augmented reality on masses. I can't tell will the device built by Microsoft will be the best one, but I know that this is the one of biggest and most important moment for augmented reality at our time. Now we need to wait for ideas, for prototypes and different approaches. This will show us in which way augmented reality will go in near future. 

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About augmented reality - new way

This time something new. I want to evolve with my blog. That is why this post is the first in new form...cast. My goal is to make it more interactive, more interesting, easier to get. I hope you all will like and I'm sorry for the sound problems, I will imporeve that next time.

Abstract

This presentation is about true basics of augmented reality. I'm talking about what it is, how it works, what are the main problems and challenges. To be honest this informations are preatty hard to find in a simple form so I hope it will be usefull for many in near future.

I'm also attaching presentation that I used. Just click here

You can watch my cast below or go directly to my channel on youtube. Subscribe and comment !!

Go directly to movie: click here

Go directly to my NEW youtube channel: click here

>> DOWNLOAD PRESENTATION <<

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Varia Vision - new possibilities

When I saw information about this project I truly had to take my jaw from the ground. This is the type of projects that - in my opinion - are the essence of the future augmented reality. Very strong every day usage, helps in popular activities, make them more safe.

About...

What is Varia Vision ? It is a device (augmented reality vision) that can be attached on our sunglasses. Its main goal is to make everything for us easier and safer. Varia Vision bring every important information on the line of our vision, thanks to that we have full access to every important information without the need of looking somewhere else (for example on our handlebar). This might not sound as something very big, but trust me, when you`re in heavy trafic or for the first time in a new place it may save your life or at least time.

A true milestone

Why am I so hyped with that ? Because this the type of projects that will help augmented reality evolve, and become something recognized by masses. This is a device for a true, everyday usage and if you think wider you`ll see that you don't need to be on your bike to use it. I think that it will be a very usefull tool in much more different situations.
The onI hope that in near future we`ll see much more devices like that, I truly do. Garmin showed us that augmetned reality is not only a industry type devices or laboratory experiments. A high five for Garmin !!

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Industry, business, transparency -future of true augmented reality

Augmented reality is still evolving. There are a lot of great ideas and projects that are getting real and true usage of this technology. But we need to remember that there is a lot of work in front of us. There are a lot of obstacles that we need to overcome. We also want to make augmented reality fully transparent, as a natural augmentation of our perception.

Transparency

Imagine situation where group of people is walking with a smartphone in front of their face. Moving around looking everywhere using camera in phone and screen of the phone. It doesn't sound convenient. Now let us take same group of people and change their smartphones to glasses on their faces. Normal glasses that look same like the ones on my nose. Suddenly the whole situations looks much more natural, you don't look on those people like on some weirdos. That is why transparency and comfort of usage are so important for the future of augmented reality.

We all know that this technology is nothing new, it is with us for quite some time now. But to be honest I think, that we still didn't find the proper and fully accepted way of using augmented reality. Firstly because it is still evolving. With that, new ideas are born and old concepts keep changing. It is good in wider perspective but for us here and now, not so much. Secondly we`re not sure how to treat it in every day life. Let me remind me the legal problems with Google Glass, when everyone was afraid that will be recorded by someone with out his knowledge and this was only tip of the iceberg. 

Industry - thank you !

Industry and business have a special place in my heart. Why ? Because all the problems that I've mentioned has no place there. This is a very good place for augmented reality evolution, a place where all legal problems are pushed aside. It is much easier to find a good usage for it and work on future device. You can find a quick example here. As always in this context, the main goal is to make people more productive. Is it bad ? No, because thanks to augmented reality the whole work can be easier and the effect can be better.  

This sector has a very interesting feature. People try to use things that were intended to do A, to make B. In most cases it is a major failure but from time to time something great is happening. Sometimes they are trying to gather some small existing blocks and build from them something bigger, you can call it a technological Lego :) It is a perfect environment for augmented reality (for virtual reality also !) for its evolution, for creating a new paths. Of course there will be more failures than successes but lets be honest, this is how great ideas are born. Under fire of criticism, but especially under fire of real and true usage.

I never was a fan of theoretical software that was created just because someone could if it had no meaningful usage. For me, we should always try to build something that has a purpose and we should check if we`re able to achieve our goal. Maybe it is impossible, maybe we need to change our methods, but we always should have a goal. I'm not sure abut the idea and concept of VW, I'm not sure that it will work, maybe it is just another experiment that will be forgotten in some time. But it still have a very good impact on augmented reality. If it will fail than we will know that we need to change something if we want to achieve similar goal, or we should change something in the result that we want to achieve. If it will work than we will know that we can make it better. Thanks to industry augmented reality can evolve and in some time come to us in much more transparent and usable way.

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Augmented reality and sport....no no no

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

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Augmented reality interface

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

• http://www.augmented-universe.com/2015/10/lyteshot-augmented-reality-gaming.html
• http://www.augmented-universe.com/2015/09/augmented-reality-in-business.html

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.

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LyteShot - augmented reality gaming platform

I've come across interesting project called LyteShot. It is a new gaming platform based on augmented reality. I often write about how AR or VR can change the entertainment area of our lives. This is very good example of it.

The basics

The whole concept is very simple. You use:

1. mobile app that is the game you're playing

2. a special device on you that register actions performed on you

3. a Lyter that allows to perform actions

4. you can also use special augmented reality glasses that are showing to you all informations that you need to have, for example other player stats or your helth

The data layer of app is held in the cloud, the devices are working using infrared. Everything is as simple as possible. This allows to move gaming from your room and pc or console to real world. 

Real world is always better

The concept of moving games to real world is one of my favourite in augmented reality gaming. Why ? Because real world is just better :) The same game, played in the sae place can always be a bit different. This is hard to reproduce in standard games. You can always have a bit more traffic on streets, their can be more people passing you, their can be some new obstacles. Every game can be a bit more different. Simillar philosophy is applied by Microsoft in their X-Ray project. This is the new path, new branch of this sector.

IoT as part of augmented reality

Wait, this looks familiar. Ohhhh I already wrote about that here :) This project is great example of using many different elements to extend our world and transform it to something bigger. Informations from cloud, from external devices, from mobile device, all this is combined to create extended, more flexible reality, to change our perception. And effects can be really fascinating. 

Funny thing is that projects like this are good for society. It creates new reason to move more, to get up from comfrotable chairs and increase our activities. Our current problem is that we don't move to much, most of us works 8 hourse in front of a monitor, this is not good for us. So I keep my fingers crossed for every project like this. 

I hope LyteShot will success and will be an inspiration for other, this sector has a great potential and I thing that it will become bigger and bigger during time. Especially that this platform allows external developers to create their own application and this can create a really big variation of games and health applications. Go go !

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Cancer glasses - virtual reality helps medicine !

Virtual reality is very usefull technology and when I read about projects like this, I like it more and more. Cancer glasses aren't yet official device that can't be use in medicine, but I really do hope it will become one.

What it is about ?

Cancer glasses is a device that allow surgeons to better see cancer cells during the operation. Why is it needed ? Because it is very hard to distinguish normal, healthy cells from the cancer one. 

How does it work ? Before the operation, a special dye is injected into patient. Surgeon wears special blind googles with two cameras, one normal and one workin with infrared. The infrared camera is able to see the cancer cells that are marked with dye. It is combined with the image from normal camera and displayed on screen inside the googles. That way, surgeon is able to see and recognize the sick cells.

This technology allows to increse the quality of the operation, it allows to cut out all of cancer cells that prevent recurrence of the illness. Isn't this a great usage of virtual reality?

Why I'm talking about this ?

It is important to spread informations about projects like this. It is fantastic when technology can help us and can make our life better and more safe. I hope that this project will pass all tests and receive every needed acceptance.

We need to talk about ideas like this, we need to think about what can we do better. Only people with passion, with calling can pull us forward. Thanks to people like this, we can see projects simillar to cancer glasses than literally can save someones life and every effort that will save even life of one person is worth it.

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Microsoft and HoloLens

As most of you already know, recently Microsoft announced that on start of 2016 there will be available a developer version of HoloLens. That is a good news because know we can be sure that this project won't be hidden in closet.

HoloLens - what is it ?

HoloLens is an example of special googles that changes our reality. It is a computer that brings high-definition holograms into our world. You can see them like they were real, you can fully interact with them. This is really a good job done by Microsoft. 

HoloLens is not a project related with our every day life, at least not now. This is not the kind of device that you'll wear on your way to work but there is a chance that in near future you will wear them to do your work. Even now, on this early stage, everyone can see how big potential is hidden in HoloLens. If you now, can design and build something in Minecraft - using HoloLens - why won't you be able to design a real building and decompose it ?

Project X-Ray

I was watching last Microsoft conference and when I saw project X-Ray I was stunned. This is really something that we can call "future". The way how HoloLens work with the envoirment is fantastic. I never saw anything simillar to that. Currently - in my opinion - Microsoft is years in front of the competition. If someone didn'nt watch please take a look below, you won't regret it.

First of all I really love the way how HoloLens understands your envoirment, that it can use it to select a path, to change the logic of movement. This is really something. This is the path that should be taken by the gaming business. The game is never boring because you can change it by changing elements in the room. This is example of true mixing realities. This is a step beyond standard augmented reality !

Wow, yeah, fantastic, awsome...is worth it ?

I know that there is a lot of "big" words, I know that this is just a prototype and it still can be a big fail but it is not all about HoloLens only. It is about a way, path that we can see. This is a promise of better future related with augmented reality.

I trully belive that HoloLens - or different project simillar to it - will be a device that will be as popular as a simple PC nowadays. I belive that this will be a next, big revolution related with technology of every human. This is sci-fi ovie in our home, in our hands. A wearable hologram - I love this term - it is really something !

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IoT as part of augmented reality

Augmented reality allows to extend our perception using external devices. We link this technology with elements like mobile phones, tablets, googles. But is this all ? Ain't there any other things that can extend our reality and perception ?

The next step

Can we think about internet of things as a next step of augmented reality ? I think that yes, it is a natural path of AR. IoT allows us to extend the synergy of us with envoirment. It allows us to see world in new and more interesting way. IoT as part of AR may be a variety for all of users and even a support for some of them. 

We should stop thinking in schematic and narrow way. Augmented reality creates many new paths, many new possibilities. It open doors for many new inventions than can make our life better. Let us get out of the pattern: camera, gps, display. Someone, sometime will add something like accelerometer or something like that. Look at most popular apps, over 90% of them are almoust the same, they use same idea, same pattern to achive different goals. This isn't anything bad. IT often is about reusing. But in my opinion, augmented reality is more then IT, it is a new way of life, new way of our evolution. We can't block potential of AR, we need to go further, and IoT can help with that.

AR + IoT = More informations

In time when almoust everything can be connected to the internet, amount of informations that we can gain about the user is getting huge. We also have much more methods of receiving this informations. We can understand how user is thinking, what he likes to do, what are his habits. We can now describe person in digital way. Why this is important ? Because it changes everything !

Look at Google, look at Facebook, this are companies that created their power by getting and using enormous ammount of informations.

External devices set in home, in your workplace can gain this informations for you that will allow to extend your reality, that will allow to help in every day tasks. It can create a totally new branch of business.

Augmented reality is something more than technology. It is a way of thinking, a goal that should be step on our path. It is a philosophy of thinking about new things.

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Voice assistants as every day augmented reality

Recently I'm heavily testing and using different types of voice assistants like Google now, Cortana, Siri, S-voice. Everything I can, I try to test. During this time I can see how good example of daily augmented reality they are. But hey, this is nothing new. When I think about this technology and future of it I'm getting happy like a child, thanks to this voice assistants.




Time when device understands you. Are we there yet ?

I think we're pretty close but not yet on the finish line. Sure, we can give some less and more complex commands to our device, and we can get a good result but still this is not something what I would call "understanding". Currently our voice assistants allow us to interact with the device in much more comfortable way. Especially when you`re in the car or even while walking. At the moment most of reminders, meetings, messages etc. I'm doing using this kind of software and it works fine. I must say I'm missing a good glass in front of my eye to see more information. I would prefer to read SMS myself than to hear it…maybe it will change. I would like to see some basic information, navigation etc. This is what I want. Google glass was to much disturbing in my opinion, it was cause mostly by it construction. I hope that next generation will be better.

Time when device understands you. Are we there yet ?

This is hard question to answer. Is it safer ? Not everybody will agree with that, there are even voices that glasses with augmented reality are much more dangerous during driving car than mobile phone. Is this true ? I'm not sure, I think it is much more about the user. Should some functionalities be blocked during driving ? This may be a good idea.
So safety is not a good argument. Is it convenience ? It looks like this but currently if you have different accent than native than you can have a lot of problems using it. For example Cortana has a lot of problems with understanding me when I tell her to ignore something. Strange, so simple word, so many problems. Often you can have a lot of problems with voice control and you need to use the device in old school way. Probably it will change in future. So this is not the best argument.
It is cool. Oh yes, always :) Funny thing that IT is one of not many branches were argument like "this will be awesome even if it won't be useful" is more than enough to make a good project.

Voice assistant is cool but not so useful

I think currently voice assistants are more cool than useful. It look good on paper, it looks good on presentation, their are good marketing material and good start for future but currently - unfortunately - their not so useful. We have still some technological problems that are stoping this projects a bit. I hope that it will go further and further. I like very much vision from movie "Her" (I've already mentioned about it in one of previous posts), where people can fully interact with their computers simply by voice. Not only simple commands, but full interaction. I think that we're going this way and sooner or later we'll get there. Is it good ? Time will show

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Augmented reality in business

Business, nothing new. We are all connected with this word in some way. What can change in future ? What we can get from implementing augmented reality in business ? Is this only a new fancy "gadget" or maybe it will give something valuable that allow to improve sale and/or product itself ?

Augmented reality = new possibilities

Augmented reality can offer a lot more than only couple of cool visual effect on screen of your smartphone. Why I'm talking about smartphone ? Because - at least for now - augmented reality possibilities will be limited to mobile devices in business (don't worry there will be a exception). Glass type project are still in minority, they need still a lot of work before we see them in on our faces. But that isn't a problem. You can already see people in stores taking pictures of floor panels to rethink everything in home. But what to do to make it better ?

So what new possibilities we can get from augmented reality ? Lets talk about couple of them.

Furniture shops

Did you ever tried to furnish a room ? Do you know how many questions you need to answer if you want to do it properly ? Do you know how many doubts you have when you want to pick something ? How it will look like when I put it near this closet ?

Project like this are the answer:

This is a great usage of augmented reality with mapping over a known picture. You can simply put magazine when you want to put new furniture and check how it will look like. Very handy and useful.

Important thing is that you need an object to map the virtual element. It allows you to move around it and check from different sides. It allows to scale to product so you can really act like you have a new sofa in the room. Putting only images on the screen is a really bad idea and gives to user a poor effect. Example below (don't do it like this ! ):

Augmented reality + factories = improvements

Ok, now lets go to different part of augmented reality. Goggles. What are the problems related with jobs related with manual work in - for example - factory that produces cars ? Two most common are:

    1. Human errors during assemble

    2. Cost related with learning new worker

Both of them can be fixed or at least reduced using augmented reality. Imagine a worker with special goggles that analyze parts in front of the worker and shows what should go where and how it should be connected/assembled. It will strongly reduce count of errors made by human. It will help to increase quality of the product with out increasing the cost of the work. This is the path which business should follow.

Now the second case. If the new worker will also have same glasses, it will allow to reduce time needed from a senior worker. It will increase his time in the job that he should do. And again, with out increasing the costs we increase performance.

There is a lot of augmented reality project related with business and big data. One of my favorite is Daqri. Helmet that their building is a fantastic usage of augmented reality, it has endless potential and possibilities.

Not only Daqri, we also have interesting project from VW:

Marketing

Ok now something easy. How to interest a potential client with our product ? We need to do something cool ! Something that will make him to pay attention on the product. Augmented reality is a fantastic tool for that. Look at this Coca-Cola campaign:



So easy, and so great effect. Augmented reality is a powerful tool that refers to a very important feeling...fun. Lets be honest, we all want to have fun, we all want to spend a good time. If you give a tool that will give fun to client and allow you to focus him on the product, than you`re a winner. If you want to do that think about augmented reality. 



This even don't have to be a strict commercial related with your product, if you can softly mark your brand there, than it is very often more than enough. Look on the possibilities of augmented reality in marketing. I shown only two examples but marketing business has done homework. Usage of this technology is more and more often. And why it is so big success ? Because for common people this is still technology about witch they don't know a lot



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Sport...probably only place where I don't want see augmented reality

I love augmented reality, I think it is part of our future. Future that is in progress. It will be a thing that will be part of our every day life. But there is a place, part of our society, where I don`t want to see augmented reality. I mean sport.

Battle of skill

Why sport ? In this terms I'm an idealist. I want to think, I want to believe, I believe that sport is battle of skills, battle of characters, battle people. I don't care is it football, soccer, volleyball, tennis, running, F1 races.

I don't see there any place for any technological gadgets. For example, there was an attempt in swimming. Swimmers were equipped in special swimming costume similar to shark skins. There was great increase in their results, but after quite short time, this costumes were banned. Why ? Because results where built not by swimmers but by costumes. 

People want to see true and epic battles. They want to know - or even they want to be sure - that not everyone can do this on same level. They want to have their idols.

 Augmented reality - The Destroyer

Augmented reality - in my opinion - will destroy the most beautiful part of the sport. It will change everything, it can allow less skilled to be one of the best, it will reduce the importance of true talent and true, hard and long training. Even now, there is a very strong opposition to implement more technological gadgets in sport.

Think about F1 racers or skiers. What if they will able to see the best route on their goggles ? What if they will receive informations that are counted on computer ? They will not need to know, to learn that, to even ignore that.

Simpler is better

Augmented reality is a beautiful and great technology. I'm sure that it will help us. I'm sure that it will make our life easier, better and more productive. But everything has its place, and place of augmented reality is outside of the sport.

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Google, project Aura

Google glass is an awesome project but it has a lot of downsides. There was quite about them but at least there is something new and interesting. I'm talking about "Project Aura". Google is looking programmers and engineers, some of them are already on board and they came from Amazon (Lab126 studio).

What is the plan ?

It looks that Google Glass will be only one of many gadgets related to wearable technology that will be developed in Project Aura. That is great news. If they extend them and make better from previous version of Google glass, and build around it some compatible side projects, augmented reality can get a big boost in every day life. It can be quite big revolution. Looking forward for any news in this topic. 

Project Aura...Project Ara.

Do you remember Project Ara ? Project in witch team (mostly built by people from Motorola) is working on modular mobile phone. I'm wondering is this some funny name similarity or maybe this is a part of a bigger plan. Who knows ?

Finger crossed

Project Aura is great thing fro augmented and virtual reality segment. It can give a big boost for the technology and business itself. Currently Microsoft is standing on dominant position. I think it`s to early for this. Augmented reality still need many strong impulse to evolve and to reach level where it will be useable in every day tasks. So everyone keep your finger crossed

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