A quick ramble on augmented reality

Augmented reality is how you'll be accessing the net soon. Digital
overlay of information on the real world initially through mobile
smartphones like the Google Nexus One or iPhone 4.

We're going to see consumer mobile AR games soon. Crunchie have a social
network game. Why? Because there are now millions of social network
gamers spanning a wide demographic. This wasn't true two years ago.

There's a report on AR published late last year which shows the sort of
exponential growth curves business people love and that's why businesses
are having a go at learning to use the new technology even though few
people are using it and the hardware isn't adequate. The current tranche
of smartphones aren't adequately equipped to deliver the usability
required by the consumer. For example GPS accuracy simply isn't good
enough for the exciting AR applications which will mature from what's
being experimented with now.

I expect to see fun apps from a deodorant manufacturer which make women
naked - just promotional gimmick overlaying a graphic rather than every
males fantasy product. Perhaps a pizza chain might make a AR version of
Mario Bros or Cafe World. People will access new social network AR
games, e.g. Mafia Wars AR (which is bound to come out - a first person
shooter social netowrk AR game (FPS SNARGs...OMG....people will be
saying stuff like that in the future) with the user base of MW is a
brilliant opportunity) and within the digital space there will be new
adverts so as you quick draw to zap someone you'll see a Pepsi ad
onscreen somewhere in the background. Two years ago if I'd said social
network game most people would look at me as blankly as when I say
Articulated Naturality Web now. In my opinion the FPS SNARG will get
children and adults using AR.

User behaviour will change so people will naturally lift their phone up
to find out information about their surroundings and within AR space
there's new advertising opportunities just waiting to be exploited.

Signs can exist in digital space. It'll be interesting to see who owns
this new and potentially lucrative public layer. Billboard advertising
still works but there's a huge opportunity for virtual digital bill
boards. Imagine the potential for someone to 'steal' a billboard by
covering it with their ad in the public digital space in prime locations
such as Leicester Square.

Flick forward a decade. People will interact with information a bit like
the Six Sense project at MIT is pioneering. Finger tip recognition and
consumer AR headsets (Apple patented a funky design last year) mean
interacting with information beyond the monitor and mouse. It'll be
total sci-fi stuff, like the computers they use in Minority Report. The
advertising stuff early on is just the start of how AR technology will
become part of everyday life over the next decade.

This is the next step in the way people interact with digital
information and the internet but the industry is a little like the web
was pre-2000. Those that can capitalise on the opportunity early will
reap significant rewards in the future.