You may have noticed an Augmented Reality gold rush over the past few months. Brands are taking an increasing interest and agencies are coming up with lots of clever and inventive ways with which to utilise the technology.
But the question remains, is AR worth all this interest?
Revolution Magazine's top ten augmented campaigns reveals some pretty cool and (whisper it) really rather useful applications. It seems we’ve got over the gimmicky ‘let’s just do something in AR’ phase, with the Glasses Direct specs simulator being a particularly smart use of the technology.
For me though, the best uses of AR come not sat at your home or office PC, but rather when you’re out and about in the real world. Mobile AR applications allow you to enhance the world around you, providing real-time information via a hugely appropriate interface – the space you’re looking into. A great example of this is the Yelp Monocle i-phone app.
Now arguably it’s just as easy to be directed to your nearest restaurant via a good old fashioned ‘online map’ – but the theory is sound. Contextual AR makes a lot of sense.
What this kind of mobile AR application really reminds me of is Nokia’s Point and Find service. Point and Find recognises objects in real time via your camera phone and automatically links you to relevant web content. Combining services like Point and Find with AR seems like a particularly logical way to go. Especially when you think where it could lead...
So imagine it's 2012 and you're at a conference with lots of people you don’t know but should probably be talking to. You open up your camera phone, scan the room and are given a brief bio of each of the people in the room as you move over them. The app knows your profile and from this has deduced that there are two people in the room you must get to know. Two big AR arrows point them out to you. Genius.
Anyway, I digress. Is AR here to stay? Yes. But, to my mind, primarily as a way to enhance the world around you in clever and ultimately very useful ways.
In the mean time I’m off to talk to someone about my new Conference Mate™ Augmented Reality app. Anyone fancy investing?
But the question remains, is AR worth all this interest?
Revolution Magazine's top ten augmented campaigns reveals some pretty cool and (whisper it) really rather useful applications. It seems we’ve got over the gimmicky ‘let’s just do something in AR’ phase, with the Glasses Direct specs simulator being a particularly smart use of the technology.
For me though, the best uses of AR come not sat at your home or office PC, but rather when you’re out and about in the real world. Mobile AR applications allow you to enhance the world around you, providing real-time information via a hugely appropriate interface – the space you’re looking into. A great example of this is the Yelp Monocle i-phone app.
Now arguably it’s just as easy to be directed to your nearest restaurant via a good old fashioned ‘online map’ – but the theory is sound. Contextual AR makes a lot of sense.
What this kind of mobile AR application really reminds me of is Nokia’s Point and Find service. Point and Find recognises objects in real time via your camera phone and automatically links you to relevant web content. Combining services like Point and Find with AR seems like a particularly logical way to go. Especially when you think where it could lead...
So imagine it's 2012 and you're at a conference with lots of people you don’t know but should probably be talking to. You open up your camera phone, scan the room and are given a brief bio of each of the people in the room as you move over them. The app knows your profile and from this has deduced that there are two people in the room you must get to know. Two big AR arrows point them out to you. Genius.
Anyway, I digress. Is AR here to stay? Yes. But, to my mind, primarily as a way to enhance the world around you in clever and ultimately very useful ways.
In the mean time I’m off to talk to someone about my new Conference Mate™ Augmented Reality app. Anyone fancy investing?
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