“Misfires and odd collections of capabilities can slot together to give us unexpected new services”
Steve is a consultant who specialises in networks, cloud and human resources
@stardotpro
Honestly, I really want to like augmented reality (AR). It ought to be an easy thing to implement, now that we’re walking around with devices that have screens, cameras, microphones and motion sensors built-in. It’s one of those fields where even the simplest demo or thought experiment can be very exciting. Google Lens shows this off very nicely: let the camera see a product barcode and the cloud decodes it and gives you back a search engine listing of sellers, locations, information pages… anything you want to know.
Of course, such implementations of AR have their limits, being best suited to simple things such as toothbrushes, mysterious vegan meat-substitute pies, untrustworthy power distribution strips and anything else you want to evaluate carefully before buying. It seems a slow start for a grandiose term like augmented reality, but I think that’s a classic misunderstanding from us computing geeks. Just because something functions unobtrusively and delivers in a procedure that’s subservient to the human user, that doesn’t mean it’s an unworthy project for the best minds we can set to work on the problem.
What’s more, AR has been a problem. I freely admit to being the world’s worst AR reporter: as my eyeballs aren’t terribly round and my lenses are inclined to focus independently, I’m the worst possible physiological host for the classic goggles style of VR/AR headset. Couple that with early VR’s
