The world of "augmented reality" or AR is quickly becoming part of in-store promos and advertising. Lego is already at it. In some of its toy stores you can now pick up one of the special Lego boxes
and hold it up to an interactive kiosk to see yourself holding a 3D animation of what the fully constructed toy will look like.
AR is a way of combining real-time images with
computer-generated ones to create a new version of reality in full 3D. So you can sit in front of a webcam and watch yourself on your PC screen, playing with objects that only exist as computer
graphics. And computer graphics can be projected out to appear in the real world.
AR is a fantastic way to engage people and engagement is the first step to a sale. Nokia is already
working on applications that allow you to point your mobile phone camera at a building to see information about what's inside, overlaid on the image of the building itself, so AR can let you know when
a store has special offers or sales and where to find the bargains.
advertisement
advertisement
Read the whole story at Independent »