I Believe Those Are My Sunglasses, Mr. Anderson.
January 10, 2009Picture the following scenario:
You’re at the park, enjoying a nice stroll on a particularly sunny day. Strutting along to the sounds from your mp3 player of choice, you notice a group of people tossing a Frisbee. One of the guys looks familiar … so you pull up his Facebook profile … floating … above his head … thanks to your sunglasses. He turns out to be an old friend you haven’t seen in years. You stop to say hello, and the two of you decide to meet for lunch later in the week to catch up. You’re not familiar with his neighborhood, so you consult a Google Maps interface … floating … in your field of vision … thanks to your sunglasses.
Technically, the thanks would actually be due to an emerging technology known as Augmented Reality. In short, it represents the blending of real-world and computer-generated content into real time. And Mashable’s Jennifer Van Grove reports that it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. In fact, our park scenario only represents the proverbial tip of the iceberg when it comes to potential applications of AR. Van Grove breaks down the categories of possible AR experiences along with some incredible video clips, including the following exploration into AR and educational endeavors:
Check out “Augmented Reality Devices: See the Online World While Walking the Real One” for a host of details.
Back when I was a youngun’, we didn’t have none of this “augmented reality” stuff. We had to walk to school in 12 feet of snow barefoot and uphill both ways. And we had Atari.
And Nintendo’s R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy)
Wow…can you imagine reading the books found in the “back room” of the bookstore behind the curtain? haha. But anyways, this is great stuff that will revolutionize everything from children’s books, to textbooks, to the way universities teach classes! Just look out how awesome this could be for the nursing field at CU!