Augmented Reality is the overlapping of digital information and physical environment. Sci-Fi has often portrayed A.R. as interactive floating transparent computer screens projected into the air, or perhaps the most absolute example: standing inside an entirely computer generated world.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Integrating most comments in this thread, I conclude that:
-True AR involves both "augmented input" and "augmented output" to achieve an augmented interactivity.
-Augmented input could include motion sensing, touch sensing, true voice recognition (understanding of natural speech, think about Star Trek computers), eye tracking and other alternatives.
-Augmented output could include an improved desktop metaphor (3D or not), information superimposed to visual reality (glasses or contact lenses with integrated displays, but I think glasses are way more cool :>), speech and other alternatives.
It looks like current state of AR is more advanced in the input area (motion and touch at least), but as Kroc points out nicely, software (mainly OS) has to evolve a lot to embrace this kind of interactivity and use it for increased productivity. And as said by Yamin, efficiency of keyboards is difficult to beat in this context, especially in places where other people are working.
In order to truly develop AR, some technological advances have to be made, and a true benefit for users has to derive from it. I think AR will eventually develop, but how fast, only time will tell.
Member since:
2005-07-06
> it seems to me that integration of graphics is vital for
> something to be really called AR
Indeed. We need glasses or contact lenses with integrated displays, preferably with depth of field, lest our eyes will go way worse way faster than they do now.
Then we need head/eye tracking. And I mean seriously good tracking. I've been inside the VR cube at KTH in Sweden, and with the tracker it had it felt like my eyes were on rubber bands; when I moved my head the display was updated some 100-400 milliseconds later. This causes nausea in most people. We need to be talking microseconds instead of milliseconds here. Especially if the display is on contact lenses, because of the saccadic eye movements.
It would also be nice to have some kind of tracking of external objects, making computer graphics overlays possible, but I guess that's even farther down the road.