Augmented Reality: The Future in the Present

Today, augmented reality is one of the main technological trends. She began to penetrate our lives from the time of the first mobile games on smartphones, and maybe even earlier. Perhaps the starting point can be considered an old video from Nokia, an ad for the phone and the snake 2 game, the main character of which simultaneously played a snake and avoided real city obstacles. Then people didn’t even think about such a concept as “augmented reality”, but already represented it in advertising.

Recently, there have been many impressive mobile devices and applications that make us think about whether the objects, things and phenomena that we observe will always look the way we see them today? For example, the still little-known Google Glassallow a person to see data that is not subject to the ordinary human eye. Various applications for iOS and Android (and possibly, soon, and WP) allow people to gamify many life processes. An example of gamification is this cool video .

Your attention is a free translation of an article from techcrunch, which presents the opinions of experts on the future of augmented reality:

Vikas Reddy , co- co- founder of Occipital , said in an interview that DR, clearly, has not yet reached its maximum due to the undeveloped tracking system of the terrain. However, as computer vision and software develops, the camera becomes the most important sensor and a “cog” not only in the DR mechanism, but also in the entire computer infrastructure.

“Think about how much information a person processes in his head every day of his life. Almost all of this information is not available for "digitization", but this is only for now! Today, our smartphones have the ability to perceive the entire surrounding world through their surface. For devices, at this stage, the real world is not the canvas of the interactive world. Soon, however, computer vision will allow us to transform the surrounding reality into digital and fan, thereby increasing the "digital" possibilities of the space around you. "

During the Blur conference , Paul Barberian, CEO of Sphero , unveiled a demo of the new game, “ Sharky the Beaver" Sharky is a robotic ball that acts as a rotating marker. The user controls the ball through a Bluetooth device. While the ball rolls on the floor, on the screen, the user sees, instead of the usual ball, a Sharky animal that walks around the room and eats cakes. Through 2 data streams, the creators balance on the verge of virtual and real worlds at the same time! Sharky is available to developers as a software development kit. Thanks to him, we are witnessing the emergence of the possibility of creating a whole library of images that people control with the help of a small robot. For example, furniture companies can use this technology and give their users a chance to try on a virtual, wardrobe, table or bed in one part or another of a new room.

Also interesting is the opinion of Ariel Gartern, co-founder of InteraXon about the development of her company - a sensory headband that allows brain waves to control surrounding objects in the house (for example, curtains or chandeliers). Another development in this area allows a person to develop his memory, concentration, develop a positive attitude and maintain motivation:

“There are many possibilities for combining the functions of augmented reality and waves of brain activity. Basically, there are two types of DRs that people use - these are glasses with DRs that complement the outside world and display the image on the glass, and a smartphone-camera with DRs when the user receives additions to the outside world through the application on the phone.
Augmented reality Google glasses allow you to read the signals from your brain, because you always wear these glasses on you. Using these signals in technology makes it possible to regularly demonstrate your activity in real time. For example, over a period of time, such a system could record your stress level for a full day.

In addition, augmented reality can occur in a person in the context of his activities and the places he visits, as well as his general physical and emotional state. Just imagine: you are on the road, you begin to feel sleepy, and the DR system immediately offers you options for the nearest hotels! The development of the system allows for finer tuning of the appearance of information, increasing its value.

Brain waves and DR systems also allow you to get neuro-feedback. What does this mean? This means that at any time you can get information about the state of your brain, as well as ways to optimize its work. "

The main question is: where will the augmented reality technology develop further?

Co-founder Geoloqi claims that augmented reality will move to a new level when users can create various objects, animations and applications themselves. In the near future, augmented reality should become available not only for developers, but also for ordinary users, which means that such content will rapidly spread over the network.

“Games and 3D animation will surely shoot in the context of DR. However, the value of augmented reality will be understandable when the technology begins to solve the real, pressing problems of the world around us, as well as introduce diversity into the everyday routine.
Most of the developments in the field of DR have a “wow” effect only in the first 15 seconds, so developers should come up with not only an impressive, but also a convenient interface. Such, for example, as at Google - nothing more. The search engine never distracts you - it only gives you the data, and then you yourself begin to interact with the information. ”

And how do you see the future of augmented reality?
If you have experience creating applications using augmented reality, then comments are welcome.