Augmented reality applications going mainstream!

Augmented Reality has been around for almost two decades, having been first coined by Thomas Caudell in 1990, an employee of Boeing at the time. By definition, Augmented Reality is about integrating real-world environment with computer generated imagery, creating a mixed reality involving real & virtual worlds. Many of us have already been exposed to augmented reality. Anyone who has seen football games on TV would have already seen how commentators use yellow lines/markers in real-time to depict player positions and what if scenarios. Other augmented reality applications involve wearing special head gear that superimpose or project computer generated imagery on the real-world view that the user is looking at. See the picture below where an cartoon object is placed on a card ( courtesy Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HIT Lab) at the University of Washington)  These have been used in military to train soldiers or in military aircraft such as F-35 Lightning II where information is projected to pilots helmet mounted display system.

Only recently, augmented reality has entered mainstream with many applications aimed at the general consumer. Mattel is introducing augmented reality in its new line of Avatar toys tagged with  i-Tags, a 3D web tag that can be scanned by a webcam. The i-Tags hold information that is then generated/superimposed on the object as viewed in the PC/webcam. For example, once an i-Tag is scanned, imagery associated with the i-Tags such as warriors or creatures suddenly appear providing a highly interactive and immersive experience. Mattel is expected to launch these i-Tag toys in around October 2009.

Wikitude AR Travel Guide

In addition to toys, a number of companies are focused in developing cool "mobile" augmented reality apps combining video, internet & location based technologies found iPhone (iPhone SDK 3.1 Beta 3 is now available with augmented-reality friendly API) & Google's Android. For example, one iPhone app allows you to take a video of the world around you and overlays tweets from people tweeting near you. Another application (Wikitude AR Travel Guide), allows you to take a video of your surrounding and overlays travel informaiton from wiki so you have an instant encyclopedia at your finger tips. 

For advertising, augmented reality holds huge potential. Imagine superimposing contextual advertisements such as Google's adwords within a video shoot. For example, if you are driving by and see a house that you like and take a picture, perhaps informatin such as house plans, pricing informaiton, realtor agent to contact can all be aggregated and displayed. Likewise, you may see a product or item somewhere in display at a store and take a picture and a service can provide product information including places near you where you can purchase this product.  The possibilities are just endless and now with the technology available, we can see such apps hitting mainstream within the next few years....