Win the Augmented Reality race? Create the AW3.

Tim Berners Lee initiated the World Wide Web which became a phenomenon and revolutionised humanity forever. The web has become the starting point for anyone who seek or do. Being open, the web is a place where anyone could start a website and anyone could seek and find it. This is well and good when the world is about link-sharing; ie. looking at websites as “boxes”, these boxes could be opened by clicking the link.

Coming to Virtual Reality, we can think of VR apps/games/websites as such boxes which open on the click of a link. But this changes largely when it comes to Augmented Reality. In AR, information is not accessed by the click of a link but largely by moving to the location where the information is stored. By location I mean the physical, geographical location. This brings about an all new paradigm of situated “boxes” which open when people reach that particular geographical location. Two of the key features which makes AR stand out are “situated” and “surface-aware”. Situated means that if you place a virtual object at a physical location, it will remain there forever unless you move it. Surface aware means the virtual objects can understand the physical surface in which they are placed (through depth mapping and other means). This means that the virtual Bunny 3d model can stand on your table top, and can hop around on the same.

Having shared a brief idea on how Augmented Reality could be different, lets now think of the AW3 concept.

1. The AW3 (Augemented Reality WWW), is an internet of everything Augmented. These augmented objects can be accessed by moving to physical locations. These objects could be interactive and can also be moved around.
2. The AW3 will be GPS driven and for finer movement could use spatial mapping data.
3. The AW3 will be a collection of 3D mappings of the spaces around us mapped using depth mapping devices (such as seen in devices like the Hololens, Tango etc.) Depth mapping could also be done live using situated depth cameras and can even update user location, gaze (where he/she looks at) and gestures.
4. The AW3 would be an augmented wrapper around the real world and it would be highly collaborative and social. People would be able to interact with virtual objects live and collaboratively.
5. AW3 gives rise to Virtual Real Estates and ownership areas in the augmented world. Refer my other articles: [1] and [2]

There are a lot more points that could be brought in for AW3, but focussing on these main points, lets see how AW3 could be important for any business who is a player in the AR market:

1. Rectangular devices (PC,mobile,tablet) etc. will eventually phase out and give rise to wearable headsets. This would mean a sudden transition to the AR world which is now in a crude and disintegrated form. A common publishing platform or AW3 could make an internet of virtual things, and anyone who owns this platform would get rights for publication, search and advertisement in this area.
2. Data gathered from such a world would not only include user preferences and user interactions, but a majority of the user’s life and lifestyle. Gathering such data could bring out better and targeted advertisements and content.
3. If one looks at it, this could be the largest content publishing platform since the web itself. This could be the playground for online interactive and intelligent asset publishing.
4. Virtual objects could now and then talk to physical objects. We would not be looking at just IOT of physical objects but inter-connectivity of both physical and virtual.
5. AW3 will bring about a large drive in Designing for spaces and would change UX design forever. Engineering would be thinking in two words- “Cloud” and “Object-oriented”. A huge market would open up for every service being provided in the AW3 platform.
6. Virtual Reality would be portals or modes in the AW3 and can essentially be tied together. Thus such an AW3 platform could encompass both AR an VR markets.
7. Machine Intelligence would go a long way in this platform. Learning from experiences of virtual worlds like Second Life or Project Entropia and giving more learnability to virtual objects could create a highly immersive experience for the users.
8. There are many more points, but i’ll stop at this one — Nobody has done it before. There is no large scale- situated content publishing platform for the AR world. Any one who marches towards it would be a key player. So the race is on!

All that being said, I would personally love to see such an AW3 platform to be open. Yes we won’t be visiting websites to make profit for website owners but we would be using published content. Such published content would have a lot of value. A new market place would emerge with real estate and rights to publishing contents in locations. The future is sure going to be happening. Enjoy the ride!

If you liked the post, do hit “ recommend 💚 ” so that I get an extra incentive to think more stuff and share them. Thanks for reading.

Reference:

[1] https://nurecas.com/googles-project-tango-a-look-at-how-it-could-affect-spaces-and-its-possibilities-3a4fae66044b

[2] https://nurecas.com/realty-in-augmented-reality-13cd3329abd0

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