Tuesday, 31 March, 2020 UTC
Summary
Augmented reality is a powerful technology that can be applied in many fields. At the moment augmented reality is not well developed enough to be widely used. However, many large companies are investing big in augmented reality, and the mainstream adaptation might be closer than you think.
I remember back in 2003 when I was playing Pokémon as a kid, I loved to immerse myself in a world of adventures. I could sit for hours playing with my Nintendo Advanced, catching Pokémon and discovering all that this virtual world had to offer. Then after some time I outgrew the game and didn’t really think about it until years later.
In the summer of 2016 the augmented reality game Pokémon Go came out, and it took the world by storm. It was downloaded over 500 million times in its first year. I asked myself how they had made the old Pokémon gem shine again. I realised that the key to their success was augmented reality, AR.
However one problem with Pokémon Go is that you can only take part in the augmented reality if you have your phone out in front of you. In order to take this experience to the next level, AR needs to be viewed seamlessly, and this is why AR glasses are being developed by many companies.
AR glasses enables you to see information on top of your vision, and that makes it an incredible tool in many fields. It has the potential to be applied in anything from a medical settings to shopping malls, art exhibitions and even military use.
On the 10th of March 2020 the worlds first surgical operation with the help of augmented reality was performed. Giovanni Badiali, the surgeon behind the operation, commented on the use of augmented reality during surgery.
“We could be working seamlessly in the future. For surgeries, this means a great gain of time and a reduction of mental work to do the connections between the virtual and the real. All the information arrives in real time. We are on the edge of a medical revolution”
The reason why AR has not won more ground is due to the fact that the information display in the glasses is still clunky. It is not yet possible to make it small and effective enough, but progress is fast.
Snapchat SpectaclesThese are the Snapchat Spectacles. They look great, and have the ability to film in 3D and add effects after you have filmed. But there is no way for you to view the AR while filming and wearing the glasses.
AR glasses from EverysightThese are AR glasses developed by Everysight, projecting real time data. However the camera is only for recording so that you can review it later, it isn’t working together with the AR. It needs to use the camera to give the AR programs an idea of what the surrounding looks like.
If you would combine what Snapchat and Eyesight are doing, and adding internet access and location you would unlock the future of how we will view the world.
In order for this to happen AR glasses needs to be developed by a company that have the resources and knowledge to create a seamless, interactive real time augmented reality experience.
Apple has hinted for some time that they are working on AR glasses, and they have a track record of turning marginal product categories into major market forces. They did it with the MP3 player, that at first was a number of moderately used devices filled with music that the user had to organise by themselves. Then Apple released the iPod that quickly got adopted by the mainstream and turned it into a natural part of our everyday life. It later got absorbed into another product, the smartphone that followed the same pattern.
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Apple glasses are expected to be released in 2023, and I believe this will be no different from what happened with the MP3 player, and the smartphone. This will mark the starting point of AR getting adopted by the masses, and little by little it will become a natural part of our everyday life.
Apple AR glasses concept artI believe that AR is in the disruptive stage in the exponential growth curve at the moment. My prediction is that in the coming five years it will evolve and get somewhere between demonetised and dematerialised. By 2030 I believe it will have been dematerialised and on its way to becoming democratised. See the graph below.
In the future I am predicting that AR will slowly take more and more from the market of traditional screens that we are used to design for. There will be a great need for UX and UI designers that specialise in AR. This, in combination with other emerging technologies like brain computer interfaces, will render the kind of screens we are using now obsolete.
I’m not saying you should put all your eggs in one basket, but I think you have a lot to win if you learn about AR now, so that you will stay ahead of the curve when the time comes, and rest assured, it will come. It is only a matter of time.
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https://medium.com/media/c43026df6fee7cdb1aab8aaf916125ea/hrefHow augmented reality will become the way we view the world was originally published in AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.