Competition in this very new area of mobile application development is hotting up. It's likely to become only more intense. Whether you're an investor, developer, vendor or user, it makes sense to ask some basic questions about AR.
For example: Which AR apps are practical, not just gimmicky? Which ones will people use for more than their quick novelty value? How much wizardry can we expect from AR in the not-too-distant future? And vitally, how can these apps be monetised?
Industry experts are viewing AR development with a mixture of encouragement and caution.
In one sober assessment of where AR is right now, Joe Wilcox writes: "It's hard to understate augmented reality's potential on mobile devices."
Just as soberly, the chairman of the AR Consortium, Robert Rice, offers this cautionary note: "Don't be misguided by the gimmicky marketing applications now."
Lightning quiz
What can AR do, and what might it soon do? Here's a quick quiz to test your knowledge of AR apps. There are just five "true or false" questions. To make it even easier, the answer is given immediately after each question!
- True or false: AR makes it possible to navigate without maps.
- True. A very recently released app, Wikitude Drive, serves as a fully functional, lightweight mobile navigational system that overlays point-to-point directions on the phone camera view without the need for maps. There are other apps that do the same sort of thing.
- True or false: Medical professionals are already using mobile AR apps to save lives.
- True. One of the early experiments using the pioneering Layar was an app that uses AR for hospital staff to instantly locate defibrillators anywhere in the hospital. All right, so this isn't a surgical app that tells a surgeon: "That is the aorta, do not remove." But quickly reviving a heart-attack victim is just as critical.
- True or false: AR has entered the futuristic realm of facial recognition.
- True. A Swedish company is currently working on augmented ID, which combines facial-recognition and photo-tagging capabilities with data overlays to provide personal information. For instance, using your phone's camera to frame someone's face would bring up details of that person's social networking profile.
- True or false: AR can navigate you through a hitherto unmapped and untagged city.
- False... for now. That would require your phone camera and AR app to identify buildings and other landmarks and match them to visual information in a gigantic database of untagged photos. Fear not, however, because Google Maps, massive research and recording and increases in bandwidth could bring us such an app within years.
- True or false: You don't even need to use a smartphone because you'll be able to wear AR contact lenses.
- False... but maybe not for much longer. Researchers at the University of Washington have already created a prototype "Twinkle in the Eye" contact lens that incorporates an LED, a tiny radio chip and an antenna. The unit is powered wirelessly by RF electrical signal and represents the start of research that could eventually lead to screens mounted on contact lenses. Similarly, the US military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is working on contact-lens displays that could provide battlefield combat data.
Researchers are looking at additional ways to make AR ever more useful. For instance, Daniel Wagner, a virtual reality researcher at Graz University of Technology in Austria, has proposed adding panoramic and bird's-eye zooming to AR. The idea is that the user can zoom out to see what else is around him, much as one would do with an online map, then click on an object like a nearby museum and zoom back in. The panoramic zoom would show a 360 degree view, while the bird's-eye view would present a top-down picture much like a close-up satellite picture.
Sensible views on AR
As Joe Wilcox pointed out in an article published just last week, a handset with accelerometer, camera, compass and GPS can orientate its position relative to objects as well as geographic location. This orientation and the camera's ability to identify specific objects make it possible for software or service providers to augment reality, perhaps with educational or marketing information.
Wilcox believes AR could threaten keyword search, which would be bad news for the likes of Google and could open new doors for Microsoft. He says: "People will need to manually search less if the information comes to them indirectly through the mobile software or service or directly by the consumer pointing the camera at something.
"I predict that mobile augmented reality will displace mobile keyword search."
He adds that the real-time value shouldn't come from apps tied to the phone's positioning functions. It should be tied to broader services or even a software-services platform. "There, Nokia's MARA approach, which also utilises the phone's camera, makes loads of sense," he adds. "AR can provide information about landmarks and so on by what the camera sees. The Wikitude browser for Android phones is one product available now for doing just that."
Robert Rice has this advice about evaluating the AR market: "Look ahead, and pay attention to what the visionaries are talking about right now. AR has long-term implications for smart cities, green tech, education, entertainment and global industry. This is serious business, but it has to be done right."
On the right track
From a review of dozens of recent AR articles and reviews, there appears to be general consensus that the following developers and apps have been spot-on with their newest offerings:
- Metaio - the company has announced that its AR platform, junaio, will be launched on November 2. The app will allow users to see location-based content through the display of a mobile device. Users can leave traces, messages or objects and visually interact with their friends or anyone else in the world.
- SPRXmobile - the Dutch company's Layar AR browser for mobile phones, launched in June, was said to be the first of its kind in the world. Layar says its Reality Browser platform serves as an enabler for mobile location services, and any database with geo-location information can be turned into a content layer.
- Nokia - The latest beta of Nokia's "Point & Find" service was unveiled this month at Nokia World. Nokia announced a deal with German shopping service Barcoo to use product barcodes to display information on mobiles.
- Mobilizy - the Austrian company's Wikitude Drive is based on the existing Wikitude AR Browser. Mobilizy also recently launched Wikitude 3, the latest version of its AR browser.
- Brightkite - the latest Brightkite Layar for its recently launched Layar Reality Browser 2.0 allows users to see friends' posts, photos and locations superimposed exactly on the location where they were created.
Business models for AR
The technology is here and a lot of it is working well now. However, the big question remains - how do you make real money from augmented reality?
In a forward-looking article well worth the read, Gary Hayes lists no fewer than 16 workable business models for AR. He is confident that there are more. In summary, here are the models Hayes suggests:
- In site: Aiding sales by seeing projects placed in the environment before completion
- Utility: Selling life-enhancing AR applications
- Training: Hands-on with complex equipment and work scenarios
- Social gaming: Both connotations of the word, pay-per-play mixed reality games in physical space
- Location players: Blended guides to new places, tourism, enhanced travelling or themed space
- Virtual demo: Display to promote sale of product in pre-release or remotely via catalogue
- Experiential education: Pay-per-visit educational services to museums, ancient sites and so on
- Enhanced classifieds: An AR directory that promotes local third-party products and services overlaid at the location
- 3D virals: Branded company or personal promotion and ads using 3D toys
- Personalised shopping: Walking around stores made relevant, with opt-in personalisation and targeting
- Co-operation: Service industry for augmented virtual meetings
- Blended branding: Virtual poster ads, the equivalent of billboards
- Augmented events: Pay-per-use of AR-enhanced sport or pop concerts
- Intertainment: A new form of experiential TV and films
- Understanding systems: Creating AR for internal or exploded views of complex objects
- Recognition and targeting: Pushing relevance to outdoor consumers with functions such as facial recognition linked to online data
