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
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
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
