Augmented reality: still kind of just a communications gimmick.

I used to think that augmented reality technology was just a gimmick. OK, I still think it's a gimmick, but I have to admit that it's a pretty cool gimmick with potential to become legitimately useful communications technology.

For those of you not in the know, augmented reality is (in a tiny nutshell) the use of digital technology to alter the view of the real world in some way. For example, you look through a view-finder or at the screen of a digital camera (or phone), and what you see is what you pointed at, only with digital information layered on top of it in some way. Maybe it's "funny" (like paintballs being digitally shot at people on your screen - oh yeah, that'd be "funny"), or maybe it's informative like Wikipedia's Wikitude World Browser (right) which can bring up informative text layers about whatever you're shooting a picture of.

As Gizmodo has shown folks many, many times, there are piles of iPhone and Android augmented reality apps, some of which do stupid stuff like iPew, and some that do potentially useful stuff like Layar, an iPhone and Android app that tracks where federal bailout money is going right in front of you. I've also seen videos of a giant billboard in England that shows a giant hand manipulating people in a public square below it.




Hand from Above from Chris O'Shea on Vimeo



Are billboards like that going to change the world? Nah, I doubt it. But are they indicative of a potentially cool technology that drastically increases the potential for interactive communication, marketing, navigation, etc? You bet. Imagine pulling your wireless or cellular device up, pointing it at something and getting real-time information about the thing, the history of the thing, the history of the place surrounding the thing, and on and on. Take that, tricorder!


What sort of got me started thinking again about augmented reality (after weeks of turning my nose up at what I figured was merely tech-savvy doofusism) was Esquire magazine's second foray into the field (via a Gawker post). Esquire's December issue features a pointless cool cover with Robert Downey, Jr. who comes to life on your computer screen when you show the issue to a webcam. OK, so Downey is a little abrasive, but that's what we all adore about him. the point is that the magazine does more than jsut what a traditional magazine does, rhetorically speaking. Is that as cool as my tricorder idea? Not in my opinion, no. Is it still kind of cool? Yeah, I reckon. Check out a video of the cover in action below (or here if their embed code continues to not work).