I don’t know much about augmented reality, the technology that augments the physical world with information, audio, vision or GPS data from virtual sources (“Augmented reality”, 2017). I have heard the term and read a few articles about it in the news but only have a basic understanding of it. Last year I watched on but didn’t get involved with Pokemon Go. I chuckled as I walked past people glued to their phones and wondered what all the fuss was about.
Last week I downloaded Ingress to my phone, put my headphones on and took a five kilometre walk around my neighbourhood figuring out how to hack portals and deploy resonators. To my utter surprise I really enjoyed the experience. I discovered places close to home that I didn’t know existed with the aid of the Ingress app that uses geo-location technologies of GPS, Google Maps and Google Streetview to guide you to portals within the game’s science fiction narrative. Stay tuned for more about my experiences with Ingress in a later blog post.
Now I can see the appeal of games that use augmented reality. Augmented reality can show you things that you are unaware of. I was excited by the application of augmented reality outlined by Jay David Bolter (Art Line, 2013, June 3) where the physical and virtual world combine. Museums, galleries and sites of historical or cultural heritage can be enhanced using your own personal device using augmented reality technology. The video below shows one such example.
Augmented Reality Museum Mobile Application @ Stanford University from Sid Lee Labs on Vimeo.
It is difficult to predict what the future will hold for augmented reality and virtual reality but it looks exciting for games and education, as long as we are willing to accept change. This idea is explored in the following Ted Talk, Will virtual and augmented reality move us into the knowledge age?
Art Line [User name]. (2013, June 3). Jay David Bolter [Video file]. Retreived from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O53ey5EYeVU
Augmented reality (2017, April 1). Retreived from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality