Much Ado About Augmented Reality?

Augmented Reality Heads-Up Display View

Augmented Reality Heads-Up Display View

My question to you is, do you believe in Augmented Reality?

In many ways, the notion of augmented reality is similar to 3D in a sense that expectations have been set high, but it hasn’t quite delivered.  We expected HUD in cars that help us with directions and more; we expected augmented reality glasses that help us with what we are seeing — and we expected this to happen a decade ago.  Hm…

Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about iPhone 3.1 that will enable real-time overlays for applications like augmented reality stuff.  Definitely looking forward to what will happen there, and what type of innovations will be pushed from this community.

Personally, I think there’s a lot more innovation in technology and UI/UX for AR to succeed.  Image recognition algorithms are not robust enough for general scenes (like in our every-day lives), but when supplemented with GPS, compass, accelerometers, and other sensors just might work and be useful.

What do you think?

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About Mok Oh

Chief Scientist, PayPal View all posts by Mok Oh

9 Responses to “Much Ado About Augmented Reality?”

  • Matthias Wagner

    It’s great the AR is getting a lot of press, and that many groups are taking the work from university labs to smartphone demos. Those demos are cute, but most of the ones I have seen are redundant at best, temperamental at worst.

    I am convinced the first applications that will really take off will be in industrial and commercial markets where they can actually help save time and money. In some cases the user won’t even be aware of the camera, sensors and vision system crunching away inside the tool. It will just collect data, point the way, etc. — simple interface to a complex system.

    I am working on some specific ideas along those lines, with a big player in the market to bounce ideas off. Looking for computer vision/AR hackers to join a team!

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  • Joon

    I agree. Image recognition based AR would take longer time.. But most of these days’mobile Apps like wikitude or layar are based on accelermeter & GPS, which makes more sense.
    Then, my question is how much POI coverage is needed to become an attractive service..
    Wikitude’s 350,000 POI worldwide…no way!

  • Is That *Really* Augmented Reality? « All Things Visual

    [...] Is That *Really* Augmented Reality? August 23, 2009 Posted by Mok Oh in Uncategorized. trackback (This is a series in Augmented Reality and you can find Part 1 here.) [...]

  • Rick Keller

    This technology needs to develop much faster than it has. Five years ago I started looking for a HUD to use in paintball. I wanted it to display a compas, GPS, and thermal imaging overtop of the real image for night.

    As it turns out, the US is still selling those 40 year old gren night vision sets (obnoxiously large) but I can find some small HUD glasses made in tiny little war torn Israel.

    Chop Chop.

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