Augmented Reality

As a child I remember playing a video

game called Crazy Taxi, in which you had to drive around a city picking up passengers

and getting them to their destination on time – it was as exciting as it sounds!

At the top of the screen there was a green arrow, which would point you in the right direction.

I often thought how convenient it would be to have this over-the-top, massive green arrow in front of me

so I could never get lost! Well now, it seems like this could becoming reality….to some extent.

Okay so unfortunately it’s not a big green arrow, but ‘augmented reality’ can offer up something pretty close.

What is augmented reality?

The basic concept behind augmented reality is to ‘superimpose graphics, audio and other sensory enhancements over a real-world environment in real time’. The best way to show what this means is with an example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSm2UIxFOSo

And there we go, my dream has come true, a big orange arrow to show me the way. And it’s not only as a navigational tool that augmented reality can be used for. It has many other functions and a seemingly endless amount of possible applications.

So far we can see games that interact with the environment – bullets bouncing off walls, and mapping that shows us where the nearest tube station or Starbucks is; but the superimposed ball on to the real-world ground has only just started rolling, the potential for augmented reality is huge. 

One of the first things that came to my mind when beginning to understand what augmented reality could do, was advertising. I immediately thought back to Tom Cruise walking through a mall in Minority Report, being bombarded with adverts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQbVD5hlddk

Will we all at some point be walking around in the future wearing high-tech glasses that allow for augmented reality to take place as a natural everyday occurrence?

If so, we could find ourselves walking down the high street with the McDonalds sign bouncing up and down to our left, whilst the Harvey Nichols sign puts on an extravagant display of fireworks, dancers, music and scantily dressed models beckoning us into store on our right – all an unreal actual physical experience, but appearing authentic, seemingly taking place in our real environment.

We can only wait and find out…