What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented Reality (AR) is an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects that reside in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory, and olfactory. AR can be defined as a system that fulfills three basic features: a combination of real and virtual worlds, real-time interaction, and accurate 3D registration of virtual and real objects. We use AR for various reasons every day. From applications to learning, nowadays everything can include a little of technology magic. In early 2021, Augmented Reality is mainly used on small devices such as Smartphones and Tablets. It is almost sad to see a potential this big kept on such a small display.

Is important to understand why is it AR and why it is mostly used on smartphones.

Augmented Reality uses your phone's camera to scan and capture the environment around you. Once the application scans the area is placing tracking markers around the objects and adds the overlay information on top of the selected markers.

In theory, sounds simple to achieve but the computational power is huge.

In 2019 Apple announced the development of a new augmented reality kit, Apple Glasses. They are aiming to have them ready for mass production by 2022. Having access to this hardware means that the developers can be more creative and have a bigger public to consume their work. At the moment the average consumer is limited to the boundaries of his phone. However, with this new hardware, they can explore more of the technology.

Finally, more people will come and experiment with new technologies such as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, and by the time the technology will be massively available more investors will populate the market. Who will take advantage of the new opportunities that technology is revealing?

Sources:

https://www.tomsguide.com/uk/news/apple-glasses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gphzDRBl-Mo

The Lengthy History of Augmented Reality". Huffington Post. 15 May 2016.

Schueffel, Patrick (2017). The Concise Fintech Compendium. Fribourg: School of Management Fribourg/Switzerland. Archived from the original on 24 October 2017. Retrieved 31 October 2017.