Augmented Reality

What are the safety concerns?

For how much danger the technology allows us to avoid, augmented reality provides its own set of dangers. The enrichment that augmented reality provides comes with a cost in awareness in some cases, whether by losing distinction between what is real and not real or otherwise hampering people’s awareness in the real world

One well-known example of this would be Pokémon Go; in their adventures to obtain these Pokémon, there have been many cases of people dying from things like walking off of cliffs or into minefields in pursuit of rare Pokémon. There was also for a time an increase in theft in many major cities due to people getting out at darker hours with their phones out and their awareness almost nonexistent.

There are many future uses of augmented reality, from marketing to gaming. There are some online store that are developing software that allows users to try on clothing using augmented reality. This could be a game changer to the fashion industry. Augmented reality will allow us to view maps in 3d with lots of details. This will allow for better mapping of the world. Augmented reality is also making its way into gaming. One of the most popular games out now is Pokemon go, and there will be more games like this to come.

What are potential future uses?

What are the current available technologies?

As of now, augmented reality is already seeing some limited application; while not ready for the mass market, the Microsoft Hololens is available to developers to utilize. Additionally, games like Pokémon Go utilize augmented reality in a rather simple form, projecting the titular creatures onto a real-life environment by using a smartphone’s camera to get live feed of the environment and superimposing the game on top. Other apps such as Snapchat and Instagram are also in a sense augmented reality in similar ways, since the photo filters on both apps work similarly.

The commercial uses of augmented reality are vast in quantity, but most share the same common thread of improving the safety of day to day life. Augmented reality has already seen limited application for cyclists, where their helmets have been outfitted with transparent lenses that can warn them of oncoming dangers and provide navigational assistance and tell the cyclist their speed without them needing to divert their attention from the road.

Augmented reality could also be used for inspection; holding up one’s smartphone to an engine compartment, augmented reality could be used to label all the different parts inside the compartment and possibly alert the user of any discrepancies. Augmented reality could see use in prototyping as well, foregoing the need to create a physical model in favor of simply projecting the planned model onto the real world.

What are existing and future commercial uses?

What are existing and future educational uses?

Augmented reality brings forth a whole new style of tutoring that would otherwise be impractical. By using augmented reality, students would be able to receive context-specific tutoring on lessons. One way this could be achieved would be by allowing a student to scan their homework to bring up a video of their teacher revealing how to solve whatever problem is in question. Augmented reality could also see use in assisting students in doing research; by scanning the cover of a book, one could access a repository of information that would be stored on the book beforehand and help narrow down whether or not there would be any relevant information on their topic.

Right now, there are many apps on your smartphone that allow you to use augmented reality. One of those apps is called Pokemon Go. This is the most downloaded app of the summer of 2016. It was downloaded more than 500 million times. This game allows user to walk around and use their smartphone’s camera to catch pokemon. The app would basically overlay a virtual world on top of what the camera sees. The goal of the game is to catch all the pokemon. This game was so addicting to the users that companies sponsored people to fly around the world to catch pokemon.

In the future, augmented reality is going to be the way that we get information. In the early days of augmented reality, Google glass owned the entire market. Google made glasses that would display information on the lens so people could read it. For example, if you wanted to get directions to go to a restaurant. You could say “Ok glass take to restaurant x”. Then Google glass would show you the directions to the restaurant. The only problems with Google glass was that they were too expensive, so they were not available to all consumers. In the future, there will be much cheaper options.

What are existing and future recreational uses?

What are existing and future research uses?

Augmented reality is a game changer to the medical field. One of the main problems when patients talk to doctors and they are not able to properly describe their symptoms. App was created to fix this. It is called EyeDecide. This app allows doctors to show simulations of of a patient suffering from a specific condition. This allows doctors and patients to have less confusion about the problem.

Fitness is another area where augmented reality can change the game. There is an app called Zombies, Run!. This app simulates zombies attacking you. This is a useful fitness app because it uses fear to get people to run faster and longer. This a has scientific data that shows that people who use this app will run faster and for longer distances.