Augmented reality is a term that you’re going to start to hear more and more of as the potential of the technology is realized and it becomes more and more of a marketing tool.
The overarching concept of augmented reality is a digital, invisible-to-the-naked-eye world within our real world. This “digital” world is only visible to your phone’s camera as you point it around your real world. You would be able to see things in augmented reality on your phone’s screen that don’t exist in the physical world.
For example, imagine looking out of your office window to the street. There might only be cars driving back and forth visible to the naked eye. But, if you turned your phone’s camera on, you could see the Macy’s Thanksgiving day Parade on your phone’s screen as you held it up towards the street.
The possibilities of this technology are infinite. Currently, it’s mostly used as a marketing catch. Such as Starbucks releasing an app that allowed you to see little penguins skating around if you pointed your phone’s camera at a holiday Starbucks cup.
However, imagine being able to see surgery insctructions in augmented reality as you were working on a patient. Or instructions on how to change your oil as you do it on your car.
The technology also holds infinitie potential for marketers. There’s only a limited amount of space in our geographically-bound real-world, but that space in automatically doubled with augmented reality.
That’s the basics of augmented reality. The technology will be slowly working itself into our daily lives more and more. Now you know what to expect!