AR is much more than a tool for entertainment, says Florian Radke, Augmented Reality Futurist and speaker at TEDxGateway 2016
No matter how ironic it may sound, but there’s no denying that augmented reality is real. Most of us have been familiar with it through the smartphone game Pokemon Go, but that doesn’t mean that AR is just a tool for gaming and entertainment. In fact, with smartphone processors becoming more powerful everyday, high-grade AR is no longer an expensive prospect and seems very real thanks to projects like Google Tango. We interacted with Florian Radke, who is an augmented reality futurist and a speaker at TEDxGateway 2016 Mumbai to understand the real depth of AR and talk about some of the interesting devices coming up. He is also the Senior Marketing Director at Meta, an augmented reality platform company.
Digit:We are in a time when Augmented reality has reached smartphone apps, albeit in a much lighter form. What real world problems do you think Augmented reality, in its current state of the art, can solve right now?
Florian: While Pokemon Go captured media and public attention, it represents a significant under-utilization of the promise of AR. Specifically, AR is best suited as a productivity tool for knowledge workers . When it comes to enhanced productivity, AR – as Meta views it – is a game-changer, not just a game. Meta has been designed from the outset to enhance productivity in three areas: Creation, Collaboration and Communication. Using AR hardware, a wide variety of businesses will be able to up their game in BOTH productivity and profitability. A reasonable comparison is between the old IBM “Selectric” typewriter and today’s high-performance computers. Both were able to manipulate words, but sophisticated computers can do so much more. So it will be with AR: what Meta is designed to deliver is a quantum leap in productivity.
Digit:Increased digital immersion of any kind is often seen as a deteriorating factor for human health – mental and physical. Doesn’t AR, in its current state as well as the future, pose the same threats? How can they be avoided?
Florian: First, we cannot agree with the premise. While total-immersion technology such as virtual reality can cause disorientation among users, users of AR technology such as Meta never lose touch with the real world. Our glasses are transparent: users can see the real world, even as they can also see and manipulate digital images. This integration of the real world with digital images is frankly no different than the “head’s up displays” used by military aircraft for more than half a century, with no ill-effects experienced by the pilots.
Digit:Apart from its use directly in medical science, are there ways in which AR will benefit human health?
Florian: There will be numerous Meta applications available – some already in development – that will touch on a variety of health areas. These include self-monitoring of vital signs, use in pharmacies – and at home – in regulating the dosage of medications, personal regulation of diet, and the use of AR in supporting personal physical fitness regimes. The app developers interested in AR – especially in AR as supported by Meta – will find a myriad of other health-related uses. By as soon as 2020, there will be useful – even life-changing – health-related AR apps that we can’t even dream of today. As we say at Meta, the best Meta apps are ones that haven’t even been conceived of yet.
Digit:How is Meta more than the average AR experience that we have out there?
Florian: The average AR experience out there today is at a very basic — even immature — level of technology. The fact is, AR technology has not yet reached a level of sophistication that our technology has already achieved . Within a year, there will be a wide range of Meta productivity apps, which will enhance creation, collaboration and communications in a variety of fields, from architecture to manufacturing to eCommerce. There are literally dozens of different market spaces where AR can have a major, even game-changing, impact. To start with a strong foundation on which any apps can be built, Meta is already encouraging app developers to initially focus on core app technology, developing apps which provide the essential basics of productivity apps that will be come the useful building blocks for the next generation of app developers.
Digit:Are we looking at a future where Augmented reality is a constant, or something we take off when we take off our glasses?
Florian: Visionaries are looking to a future where wearable AR hardware will be as common as eyeglasses are today. However, that future is a few years away. At present, we at Meta view AR technology as a useful – and soon to be essential – tool for knowledge workers in the workspace, but not at the dinner table or baseball game. That use will come eventually, but AR has first to prove itself as a tool for improving business productivity and potential. Allowing firms to become more profitable throught its use will spur its adoption as an all-day/every-day wearable technology.
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