Author: Dominic Leonard
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the future? Flying cars that automatically drive, virtual reality, robots, do any of these ideas pop up? Most likely yes. While some of these technologies are just a figment of the imagination, some of them are real, and very well could be used by the public today, or in the upcoming years. We are in an era of rapid technological evolution, and while the public’s opinion may be controversial at best when discussing the future of technology, all these modern technologies are well known. All except one: Augmented reality.
Augmented reality (AR) is when a device takes the existing surroundings around the user, and adds computer generated images to it. This is not to be confused with virtual reality (VR), where a device is used experience an entirely original world with computer generated images. The most popular example of augmented reality is Pokémon Go, which superimposes images on to your surroundings with a phone, but augmented reality can also count as 3D holograms, and some QR codes, as long as it follows the definition. Compared to VR, AR is cheaper at the expense of an immersive experience, but virtual reality’s immersive experience will be exactly what holds it back from being used outside of the video game market, and for specific medical therapies. AR doesn’t limit the user as much as VR because the user can still see their actual surroundings, and the user doesn’t have to use wires and a high quality graphics processing unit to render millions of polygons on screen. Augmented reality is simply more practical than virtual reality.
Augmented reality can be used for a large variety of purposes to boost the economy. The site eonreality.com suggests that with the lower attention spans today, education could be improved by transitioning from an auditory, lecture based learning style, to a more visual based learning style. (Wouldn’t you agree? School would be a lot more interesting if that was the case.) The site lifewire.com goes even further and suggests many other uses such as military pilots using AR to display necessary information, surgeons using AR to display an overlay, and information when doing a precise surgery to reduce risk of failure. There’s also more conventional uses for AR such as navigation, sightseeing, maintenance and repairs, gaming, and businesses would also benefit with AR advertisements. All of these applications of AR can increase production and efficiency for many different markets, providing certain services also would become a lot easier. The economy’s GDP would grow and the quality of life for most consumers would also improve as a result.
Augmented reality is a useful technology that is overlooked for its simplicity. This technology already works fairly well, and it’s been around for many years at this point. All that really needs to happen is to polish up the technology a little bit more, make sure it’s 100% reliable, and to spread the word. Augmented reality is a great technological step forward just waiting to happen.
Works Cited
Admin. “What Is Augmented Reality (AR)? Ultimate Guide to Augmented Reality (AR) Technology.” Reality Technologies, Reality Technologies, 4 Oct. 2018, www.realitytechnologies.com/augmented-reality/.
“Augmented Reality – The Past, The Present and The Future.” The Interaction Design Foundation, www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/augmented-reality-the-past-the-present-and-the-future.
“How AR and VR Change the Global Economics Conversation.” EON Reality, 12 Sept. 2018, www.eonreality.com/how-ar-and-vr-change-the-global-economics-conversation/.
Perdue, Tim. “All You Wanted to Know About Augmented Reality.” Lifewire, Lifewire, 2 Apr. 2019, www.lifewire.com/applications-of-augmented-reality-2495561.
Ronzio, Jonathan, and Brent Turner. “What Is the Difference Between AR and VR? A Lesson in Altered Realities.” Cramer, Cramer, 24 Feb. 2019, www.cramer.com/story/the-difference-between-ar-and-vr/.
I agree, virtual reality is one of the major and growing thing in today's world and also more people are showing interest towards this new virtual reality. Technology made most of our lives easier like for example Alexa, instead us going to the switch board and turning off the lights, if we command to Alexa she'll do it for us. People tend to show more interest towards these kinds of technology, this would totally impact GDP in a good way because people are willing to buy more modern and techonalized product for higher amount which is total benefit to the economy and GDP. Also there would be less unemployment because in order to make these technologies work they need to hire more high skilled workers which would eventually decrease the unemployment rate. Overall, inventing new technologies would increase and bring profit to the government.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting topic! Augmented reality technology is certainly something that is overlooked, but in my mind even more impressive that virtual reality technology. It's fascinating to think about the potential for this technology to be applied beyond its use for entertainment. Your suggestion of using it for educational purposes is something that surprised me, but it's an interesting concept. I think that augmented reality technology would be especially helpful in marketing. It would catch the attention of consumers in a way that has only minimally been used thus far.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do agree that augmented reality is a large technological step in our world, and that is has many benefits in areas like business, I feel as though we should be careful about how much we are applying this technology to our daily lives. The first thing that comes to mind for me is education: You made a strong point about how this technology could be used as opposed to current teaching methods, however this is simply not how every child learns. It must be taken into consideration that many of us our auditory learners, and we could be at a disadvantage if we transition to a newer form of schooling. Augmented reality tactics could be incorporated into a class, but should not dominate the teachings. There should be a healthy balance of the auditory learning and augmented reality strategies. All in all, these augmented reality ideas are smart and should be implemented, but they should should not take over a field/class in its entirety.
ReplyDeleteI thought this post was really interesting and I agree with you that technology is growing our views on it have changed, we are using it more and more in our daily lives. However I feel that we should be careful about where we are starting to use it and the possible damage that it could do. I feel like we are placing technology in too many areas that are unnecessary. I do not think we should use it for education because if we start having virtual teachers or classes, those jobs would be gone and that may not benefit certain students learning styles by not have a physical person they could listen to, interact with, and ask questions. However I do think this article was really interesting and I think it would be cool to see exactly how virtual reality will continue to grow... but I would like it to stay out of the work place.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree the augmented reality is going to make huge leaps within the next few years, I find it difficult to see how exactly this type of technology would give the economy a great boost. I sounds like it’ll just be a technology that could be implemented in multiple different places, but not a ton of revenue would come from a lot of those products. Sure GDP would certainly grow with a new widespread technology, but the realistic cases that I can see it being a huge factor is in gaming and military. AR could possibly help students to reach higher goals in academics, thus creating a slightly smarter population which can help the economy. Additionally, implementing AR into almost everything we use would be incredibly expensive, and it probably wouldn’t be worth the cost for the most part.
ReplyDeleteWhile relatively interesting, the pragmatic usability of Augmented reality is severely dampened by the lacking quality of related technologies. Take Google's Glass for example. Released before 2013, these glasses were meant to enable people to search or text without having to pull out their phone but users often griped about the readout being hard to see in daylight and we don't quite have a solution for that yet. Furthermore, the ability to do something like that render of the screen over an engine would require not only for the AR technology to interface with the car or server (depending on where the information is coming from) in a way that hasn't been done before, it would require a significantly better image recognition software than before to function seamlessly enough for it to be better than just pulling up a video on your phone. However, the potential applications of this technology in cars could reduce or even eliminate the amount of time drivers have their eyes off of the road by having the speed and even directions projected directly onto the windshield. All in all, the technology has a ways to go before it's truly viable but the variety of ways it could be applied makes it worth the research.
ReplyDeleteI believe augmented reality is much more impressive than VR technology. The ability to use either technology is amazing, but are they really necessary or utilized correctly. I think the use of VR and augmented reality is used improperly most of the time. Like, I believe they should be mainly used for practice of warfare or even fighting from a long distance, but most is used for entertainment. While many people pay lots of money, are they really worth paying for the entertainment? I know it shows technology advancement, but it would look even better if utilized for a more purposeful reason.
ReplyDeleteI am very interested to see where this technology can take us. I know it has been mostly tested for video games but hopefully companies are able to incorporate AR with many different industries. I think AR could be really impactful to use as a new way to teach in classrooms. It will be interesting to see how all of this will shape up in the future.
ReplyDelete-Kaustav Saha
I like how you talk about using augmented reality in education because that could be a good way to make learning specialized to each kid. As you mentioned having a better education system would shift the long run aggregate supply since we would have more resources and knowledge within our country.
ReplyDeleteIt will be very interesting to see how far augmented reality and virtual reality take us in the upcoming years. At this point, virtual reality is almost considered a gimmick at its current stage, but the amount of potential it holds for the future is crazy to think about. If we learn how to use virtual reality and augmented reality to innovate new products, it will have a major impact throughout the whole world. Especially if it changes the game for education. If education gets a hold of augmented reality and uses it to its full capability, we can help students engage in learning, get more people in college, and get more people into jobs.
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