Augmented Reality (AR) is a very important technological application that can be applied to different mediated interfaces e.g. cell phone, video game, television, etc.  As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality.  We are beginning to see more developments in a variety of different media platforms where augmented reality technology is being introduced.  The relevancy and importance of this topic to new/digital media pushes the envelope and current paradigms of how we interact with our current models of media and technology.  In the following articles, several people help to explain this growing phenomenon and its possible impact on our future.

How Augmented Reality Works by Kevin Bonsor

In this article Bonsor outlines five key points to augmented reality of its role in different interfaces like cell phones, video games, and the military as well as its limitations and its future.  He mentions, “Augmented reality adds graphics, sounds, haptic feedback and smell to the natural world as it exists. Both video games and cell phones are driving the development of augmented reality…Augmented reality is changing the way we view the world — or at least the way its users see the world.”  A rather simplistic definition is to superimpose audio-visual and other sensory graphics over our real-world environment in real time he exclaims.

One example that he references is called “Sixth Sense” utilizing some basic components like: a camera, small projector, smart phone, and a mirror tied around a lanyard that hangs from the users neck.  The user than has the ability to manipulate his reality with the help of this device.  “If he wants to know more about that can of soup than is projected on it, he can use his fingers to interact with the projected image and learn about, say, competing brands. SixthSense can also recognize complex gestures — draw a circle on your wrist and SixthSense projects a watch with the current time.” Bonsor goes on to offer some amazing examples of how cell phone apps which can be downloaded on the iPhone or Android can perform amazing functions.  One example, Layar, uses the phone’s camera and GPS capabilities to gather information about the surrounding area.  Another, Yelp’s Monocle will provide the user with information about the surrounding restaurants.  Next, Bonsor discusses the uses of AR in military technology and video games.

Total Immersion is AR software that allows baseball cards to interact in a very unique way by making the player on the card a 3D model that performs a specific action like throwing the ball.  Even with military technology, a squad in enemy territory doing reconnaissance can wear a “AR-enabled head-mounted display that could overlay blueprints or a view from a satellite or overheard drone directly onto the soldiers’ field of vision“.

Lastly, Bonsor concludes with some of AR’s limitations and challenges that must be overcome like GPS’ accuracy, the reliance on using cell phones, the concern for too much/an overload of information, and of course, issues dealing with privacy and security are mentioned.  He states, “The future of augmented reality is clearly bright, even as it already has found its way into our cell phones and video game systems.”

Video: Bruce Sterling’s Keynote – At the Dawn of the Augmented Reality Industry

Bruce Sterling is as excited as a ‘kid in a candy store’ as he goes through some tips, predictions, and advice for the industry.  He describes three features to augmented reality 1) it combines the real and the virtual 2) it’s interactive in real time 3) and it registers in 3D.  People think they know what it is.  There’s too many companies, games, ads, applications, webcam, projected video technology, head mounted displays, and so much more that’s developing.  Along with these, there’s so much designing and skill sets that are required.  It’s a profitable business and AR looks “cool”.  It’s not too hard to understand, it’s not too geeky or remote.  It’s the most exciting thing happening in the tech industry.

1. There’s a lot of hype that’s happening and awaiting.
2. You are insulting the term’s pioneers when you try to change or neglect the term.
3. It’s a tag.  A hashtag that you can look up on Google.  Where are people interested 1) Seoul, South Korea 2) Singapore 3) Munich 4) Kaula, Lam pour 5) Auckland… etc.  Augmented Reality is magic.  It works like magic. Yet, magic can be ‘cheezy’ and deceitful.
4. It’s sleazy and is involved in pop.  It’s involved in porn, sells tampoons, sci-fi, comic books, politics, medicine, museum culture.
5. Security advice – criminals are going to come.  Security is important to build first.  You are going to have trouble.  You are also going to get publicity of panics.  You are going to the ‘four horse men of infopocalypse’.  How do you deal with the political implications of AR?  You’re going to need an industry journal and code of ethics to help.
6. Be prepared that the other guy will buy you out.  The major companies will buy you out.
7. Host of problems: batteries will fail, screens are too small, environmental problems, roaming fees, walled gardens, opacity in pricing, etc.
8. You need to have a look, an image.
9. Everything changes for the better or everything becomes abandon for the worse.  Either case, you are in for a wild ride.

Can Augmented Reality be a Commercial Success for E-Commerce by James Gurd

Despite it’s buzzword appeal and social media’s increasing relationship with commercial planning, Gurd boldly asks the question of whether or not there is a commercial model that could make AR a practical tool in the e-commerce armoury?

Gurd answers his own question with a quaint YES.

He begins by briefly and simplistically explaining what augmented reality is.   Then, Gurd examines the current landscapes of different businesses and interface applications that are using AR in some examples of retail, publishing, and automotive.  Again, Gurd asks another question, “What will drive the uptake of AR?” and then adds that the increased usage of smart mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad, Kindle, Blackberry, Android, etc.  will be driving forces for uptaking AR technology.

Lastly, he proposes some plans where AR can be applied to in retail and asks if it can add value to consumers and drive commercial value.  Here are some of his suggestions:

“The savvy marketers will deliver content and solutions that people didn’t even know they wanted but subconsciously always desired. I think retail can tap into this latent demand in several ways:

• High street retailers can develop a Store Finder mobile app that overlays local store information on interactive maps – perhaps an aggregation of all major brands would provide cost efficiency.
• Dynamic contextual advertising that displays offers and promotions based on the location and profile of the mobile user (e.g. iPhone user gets different message than Blackberry user) – next step on from voucher code sites.
• Serving customer reviews to mobile devices to facilitate decision making on the move.
• Dynamically generating cross and up-sell recommendations based on scanning a barcode in-store on your mobile phone.
• For the fashion industry, improving modelling of clothes from home to help make purchase decisions – increased accuracy should also help reduce returns.

If You’re Not Seeing Data, You’re Not Seeing by Brian X. Chen

Quotes taken from this article >

• “Augmented reality is the ultimate interface to a computer because our lives are becoming more mobile,” said Tobias Höllerer, an associate professor of computer science at UC Santa Barbara, who is leading the university’s augmented reality program. “We’re getting more and more away from a desktop, but the information the computer possesses is applicable in the physical world.”
• “Augmented reality is stifled by limitations in software and hardware” Examples are batter life, prices in hardware,
• “The smartphone is bringing AR into the masses right now,” Selzer said. “In 2010 every blockbuster movie is going to have a mobile AR campaign tied to it.”
• “This is the first time media, internet and digital information is being combined with reality,” said Martin Lens-FitzGerald, co-founder of Layar. “You know more, you find more, or you see something you haven’t seen before. Some people are even saying that it might be even bigger than the web.”
• “This industry is just getting started, and as processing speeds speed up, and as more creative individuals get involved, our belief is this is going to become a platform that becomes massively adopted and immersed in the next few years.”

Required reading/viewing (don’t worry, all short pieces):

• TED Talk- Negroponte takes One Laptop per Child (OLPC) to Colombia
• David D.Burstein- The Case for the Internet: A Human Right
• John Dvorak- One Laptop per Child Doesn’t Change the World
• Aparna Ray, Global Voices- Impact of ICT on Indigeneous Cultures: Rejuvenation or Colonization?

Very recommended reading:

• John Mulrow- Think Mobile, Act Local (go to April 2010: FrontlineSMS featured by World Watch Institute, and load down the PDF file)
• Muhammad Ayish- Universal internet access is the new human rights issue

Optional Extra:

• ITP Master Thesis Project: Design for The First World
• Brian Winston- Let Them Eat Laptops: The Limits of Technicism

If you are hungry for more:

• Jane Wakefield, BBC News- World wakes up to digital divide
• The Digital Oportunity Channel – South Asian centre of the international non-profit OneWorld network that aims to use the democratic potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)

2. Listen to the podcast and view the accompanied slides.

References:

Mobile Active Org

American Red Cross – Mobile Giving Program

US Mobile Carriers

Mobile Giving Foundation

A few references:

BBB Article

MMA Guidelines

Let’s conclude our 3rd travelogues and start minding the digital media around us.

Final research post – by Friday the 5th:

• Post your final research post(s) based on the process you’ve been leading in the past 3 weeks.
• Try to develop some insightful conclusions / questions / critique of your explored environment.
• Comment on at least 4 posts.

Research conclusion (/product) – by Monday the 8th, 4pm:

• Imagine we’ve never read your previous posts, think of them as your process and at this post as the final product to the level that this post could be reprinted (so to speak) in another site out of the context of an accumulative student research work
• Post your concluding post for this travelogue.
• Comment on other students posts as you see fit.
• Be prepared to discuss your favorite (/most note-worthy) travelogues in class.

Required Reading / Viewing:

• Adam Greenfield at PICNIC08: The Long Here, the Big Now, and other tales of the networked city:

  Click here to view the embedded video.

• Dan Hill, The City As A Platform
  (The first part is fun but can get slightly tiring, feel free to fast forward to the second part starting with: “This somewhat banal sketch of an average high street is very deliberately based on the here and now; “)
• Read and comment on the summary.

Recommended Reading:

• Julian Bleecker, Why Things Matter – A Manifesto for Networked Objects — Cohabiting with Pigeons, Arphids and Aibos in the Internet of Things

Niharika:

• Go through the materials.
• Summarize it for us in a nicely accessible post to be published by Sunday 4pm, ideally running some threads between them (you can use some wiki or collaborative writing software to write the post and then publish it under one of your names).
• Be prepared to present the article and lead the discussion in class.
• Post to del.icio.us some links that expand the discussion either about the text or about key themes in it.

Enjoy