Or you aim your tablet computer’s camera down a residential street, and over images of the houses you see which ones are for sale—along with the asking price, number of baths and square footage.
Haven’t done this yet? You probably will soon.
The technology is called augmented reality, or AR, and businesses are racing to incorporate it in as many consumer applications as they can. It’s essentially the same technology TV sportscasts use to digitally paint a first-down line on a football field, adapted and updated for camera-equipped smartphones and tablet computers.
“In the future, you’ll be able to point your device at anything around you and, without prompting, that device will recognize what is there, incorporate your interests, and layer on information about what you’re looking at,” said Brian Blau, research director at Gartner Inc. “Point a phone at a building, you’ll see the history, for example. Or at a flower, the kind of flower comes up.”
AR has been around for years, but only recently gained traction for consumers with the widespread adoption of smartphones equipped with electronic compasses and GPS chips to determine where the devices are and what they’re pointing at.
The mingling of the real and virtual worlds works by overlaying what can be seen in plain sight with digital photos, videos or text. It’s similar to the sophisticated bar codes known as QRs, but has a much wider range of applications. A QR requires a digitally created image, or code, printed on an advertisement or product.
With AR technology, a consumer simply points at an object to get information. Aim at a house, for example, and find out whether the resident is selling anything on eBay Classifieds. Or point to an apartment building, and find out whether there are vacancies and what the landlord wants for rent.
About 6 million AR apps were downloaded last year, according to ABI Research—still a small fraction of the overall app market. But the number is projected to increase to 19 million downloads this year and balloon to nearly a billion by 2016.
The firm forecasts the mobile AR industry will see $3 billion in global revenue by 2016, up from $87 million this year and $21 million in 2010.
One of the pioneers in mobile AR was Yelp, the popular site that features consumer reviews on restaurants and other businesses. Point a phone using the site’s free app down a street, and text bubbles pop up on the screen to identify which establishments have been reviewed.
Click on a bubble, and the business’ Yelp page appears.
In the past year, there’s been a boom in companies tinkering with AR, said Windsor Holden, an analyst at Juniper Research. “A number of big brands, especially, have become interested.”
Many of the apps benefit specific companies (or industries) and are free to download. Beer-maker Stella Artois has an AR app to help customers find bars serving its brews. iPhone users can try out furniture from Ikea and Pier 1 Imports, virtually, by pointing to a spot at home and adding pieces on the SnapShop Showroom app.
The next step, technology companies say, is creating AR apps that can recognize 3D objects, such as a building, a chair or a statue. Eventually, phones and tablets will be smart enough to differentiate the Golden Gate Bridge from the Brooklyn Bridge even with the GPS chip switched off.
Enthusiasts believe AR eventually could have sweeping influence on the way people get information about their surroundings and one another.
“It’s going to transform areas like online search, mobile marketing, social networking and retail,” said Mark Beccue, a senior analyst at ABI. “The possibilities are huge.”
(Los Angeles Times)
