With almost every consumer getting a smart phone, and many new devices coming standard with cameras, compasses, network connections, and orientation sensors, the age of augmented reality is virtually upon us. In the coming months and years, I think the use of augmented reality will increase significantly – maybe not in the futuristic scifi style that we’d like, but definitely it will work its way into our daily lives. So, in the effort pushing us forward, The Next Web has rounded up this list of the 25 most influential people tweeting about augmented reality.
Surely the coolest new use of augmented reality I’ve seen in a while – Word Lens allows you to point your mobile phone’s camera at a sign, and see an instantly translated version of the sign on your phone’s screen. No typing necessary, and the translated text gets overlayed directly on the original text. Could the tower of babel be falling at the hands of augmented reality?
Although the free software is still a big rough, and only supports English-Spanish translation, there’s definitely huge potential for this application.
Esquire Magazine just released their latest techie issue, featuring Augmented Reality. Sitting here at my desk, I didn’t have time to run out and buy it off newstands.. but I wanted to try it out. So, I hacked it. In the Esquire Magazine Augmented Reality introduction video posted on YouTube, the cover is shown at good enough resolution to get a decent screenshot of the AR target. Then, it’s just a matter of printing out the target at the correct size, and showing it to the AR application. Presto, Esquire augmented reality without the magazine.
A coworker of mine, while we were playing with the Esquire AR, asked about the differences in the definition of “augmented reality” between the target-based Esquire AR (also seen in the GE Smart Grid campaign), versus the location and position based Yelp Mobile iPhone application “Monocle” augmented reality. This somewhat blurs the lines of what “augmented reality” is – the esquire issue uses a physical target, whereas the Yelp app uses position data. I think both of these uses of the term still do qualify, although the Yelp application of it has much more potential for real world use. The Esquire issue is fun for a little while, and is an interesting mass awareness boost for at-the-desk AR, but until the target (in this case a square barcode) becomes something like your cell phone (a la MS Surface), it’s really just a gimmick.
Update**
If you have an iPhone, there’s an even easier way to hack/try out the Esquire augmented reality.. just visit this blog post on your iPhone (easy link – https://bit.ly/2REgJ2 ) and then tap on the au target image at the top of the post, then pinch to zoom the target to full screen on your iPhone.. then just show it to the Esquire au app. No printer necessary. (screenshot)
Update 2 – Another great augmented reality example – Interactive games on the side of a Nestlé cereal box
To promote it’s Smart Grid Technology, GE just put up its super cool Smart Grid augmented reality site. You simply print out a target image on a piece of paper, and show it to your webcam. The Augmented Reality flash element, powered by the FLAR Tool Kit, picks up on the target and shows you a 3D, interactive scene, that follows the piece of paper around the screen, even scaling and changing perspective angle, in real time. Nifty way to bring augmented reality to the masses. Below is a video of Dave Surgan and I trying it out. Dave also posted a pic of us trying out augmented reality.
