As an augmented reality enthusiast I might not be the most reliable source to believe when I say “Cowabunga! This Augmented Reality thing is so up and coming!“.
You want unbiassed information and you need your source to gain your trust first before you accept any of his crazy statements. And that’s precisely the attitude one should have in this day and age where eveyone is a blogging journalist or evangelist.
That’s why I’ve compiled a quick list of facts and links to 3rd party reports of cool augmented reality achievements to underline my statement. In my opinion these are tell-tale signs of a new technology gaining traction.
- Blackberry launches the Blackberry Torch 2 (Blackberry 9810) with Blackberry O.S. version 7 and explicitly promotes it’s ability to do Augmented Reality, mentioning Wikitude as an example application.
- Augmented Reality application “Layar” gets funded $10 million by Intel.
- Microsoft licenses AR technology from GeoVector so they can add AR functions to it’s mobile devices
- Augmented Reality application “Layar” pitches a Creation Challenge with $55.000 in price money.
- The amount of AR applications that allow 3rd parties to create content increase steadily. Think of Layar, Junaio, Wikitude, Player, Qualcomm, Blippar
- Big companies start using AR to draw attention and to boost sales.
Audi - AR Calendar
Mini Cooper – AR preview of the new Mini Cooper
Mercedes - AR advertisement in the newspapers - Publishers of magazines, newspapers and other printed media start to grow aware of how the flexibility and trackability of digital media can be effectively combined with the comfortable reading of media.British Advertising company Tesco partnered with Blippar to add augmentson outdoor and indoor printed advertisements.Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin enriched an edition of their magazine by releasing a Junaiopowered AR experience for iPhone.And have a look at Mercedes’ experiences with AR enriched advertisements.
In my humble opinions these are strong pointers. Like it or not, AR is gaining terrain fast and here to stay
