Commentary

AR: A New Human Interface -- and the Next Killer App?

What becomes a killer app? How does an application go from being merely great to becoming a must-have?

Now a bona fide trend, augmented reality (AR) will eventually have its killer app: the implementation that makes it -- and AR as the delivery platform -- indispensable. Before that transformational step can occur, however, it's essential to understand AR for what it is: a new human interface.

AR is a breakthrough way of experiencing interactivity, of enabling us to explore scenarios that don't exist in the "real" world. It's a new paradigm that encompasses anything digital or virtual that "crosses over" into the real environment. By inserting ourselves in the scene, being the hero of our own game, we've redefined our relationship with the computer, and with digital media.

Start with the video input itself. With video providing a form of computer vision, the machine can now read the physical world and create a "realistic" relationship with its surroundings, in real time. Yet for all of their computational power, PCs have lacked context. They don't know what's in their environment -- at least, they haven't, until now.

This is where Moore's Law kicks in: capabilities and application knowledge are growing almost exponentially. Interactive has taken this trajectory - from clicks to touch, to face tracking, to gestural triggers, to measuring positions along multiple dimensions, altering the person/machine relationship fundamentally. These are bridges along the path to the computer's increasing prowess at responding to our environment. If the pundits are right, computers will pack the equivalent of human intelligence by 2020.

Given the rapid evolution of this human interface - and the believability that grows along with it - we'll be in a position to stop thinking about the technology under the covers and more about the visceral experience. Look for that to mark the real gestation of an AR-based killer app. It will suddenly become obvious why anyone would use it, and why everyone will use it. In the meantime, we're all having a blast discovering what the platform can support.

As an emerging platform, augmented reality doesn't depend on mobile, kiosks, window displays, or breakthrough baseball cards -- however magical and engaging these deployments may be. It depends on good technology. "Good" in this case means: robust, scalable, industrial-strength, easy to deploy, even easier to use. Put another way, to be a sustainable platform, AR must be built on a rock-solid technical foundation.

AR apps of course have to be unbreakable, but what they really have to be is unforgettable. AR needs to be viewed in that context, a technology platform that is more than versatile enough to flourish beyond digital marketing. Digital marketing is still the very visible tip of the AR iceberg, but below the water line, there's a vast array of applications - many of them transformative - that are poised for development, even as marketing applications mature.

So where is AR headed? Let us count the places: e-commerce, especially retail; experiential education; science and medicine; embedded in durable consumer products, from toys to apparel; architecture and development; public safety and transportation. And that's just for starters.

Like so many new phenomena, AR began on the bleeding-edge, with a wow factor that captured imaginations even as it just skimmed the surface of the possible. There are glimmerings that AR is already becoming more "serious." Within the last year, brands have been doing the underwriting, offering consumers free novelties. But while that's apt to continue for some time, the stirrings of a new industry segment - defined in part by its own killer app - are undeniable.

We don't know precisely when the killer app(s) will arrive; we just know that AR will be the killer platform. AR has rapidly progressed from entertainment to real utility, from custom installations to commoditized products. Watch as it continues to unfold.

It should be quite an experience.

Next story loading loading..