Augmented Reality As Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2016-05-06
·
1,015 words · ~5 min read
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It seems we're headed towards a future where the phrase, "My vision is
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augmented," won't just mean that someone's doing their best JC Denton
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impression. And I'm not talking about nanotech either. I'm talking about
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augmented reality or AR, that thing that
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overlays graphics onto your physical surroundings to make them more
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functional in some way. But Lionus, I
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mean, the only thing I've ever used AR for is like playing with those little
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cards that came with my Nintendo 3DS. Is this thing actually going to take off?
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Although the technology is still relatively new and developers are still
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working on rolling out applications for it to the masses, more limited examples
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of AR have been with us for quite a while. Back in the early 1990s, AR was
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mostly used in industrial settings to help with manufacturing processes, but
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later became well known in the sports world when fans were introduced to the
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yellow line that marks a first down during a football game. that is American
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football, excuse me, or much more infamously that glowing hockey puck with
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a comet tail that Fox decided was a good idea for some reason. But after the
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development of open-source AR code in the late 1990s and the advent of small,
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powerful, and highly integrated devices such as smartphones, smart glasses, and
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even bionic contact lenses, the AR market, well, it is really opening up
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with developers increasingly searching for ways to make your everyday world a
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lot more exciting. So, how exactly are they doing this? To no one's surprise,
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one way is with games. Now, we've already seen AR smartphone games that
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encourage players to interact with the real world, whether it's with like an
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included remote control doodad or or Ingress would be a great example of that
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as well. But imagine like an AR board or
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tabletop game with virtual pieces that you and your opponent control with, you
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know, gestures regardless of whether the other player is right next to you or a
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thousand parexs away safely out of ARM ripping off range. Or if you're more of
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a PC gamer, what about a pair of smart glasses that could connect to your rig
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to display something like a 3D map of the area your character's in on your
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desk while the action continues on your monitor? And that but speaking of
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monitors, I mean, would you even need one anymore? We're already seeing AR
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devices such as Microsoft's Hollow Lens that can throw a virtual monitor or TV
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screen onto a section of blank wall, no projectors required, and that can create
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new ways to design 3D objects. Instead
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of being confined to a keyboard and mouse, smart glasses could allow you to
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create a 3D model of your project in real size that you can manipulate with
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your own hands. I mean, they've done some great demos of this. And when it's
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time to leave the house, an AR windshield in your car could show you
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directions and street names or assist with breaking and curves. And a pair of
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AR glasses could analyze your surroundings and show you things like
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pictures of a room in a nearby hotel, reviews of a restaurant you walk past,
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the plenty of fish profile of that cute girl over there. And if you want to know
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the forecast, it could even alter the sky to show you what your environment
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will look like tomorrow when it's sunny. All right. So, how long then before this
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stuff actually becomes part of our daily lives? Well, there are some challenges
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to overcome. Building massive databases to store information about real world
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locations. Well, okay, actually, that's coming along pretty nicely. uh but
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developing convenient wearable gadgets that people actually want to wear and
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making sure that mobile batteries can handle rendering 3D AR graphics without
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dying in 30 minutes without strapping a massive power pack to your face. These
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things will probably take a while, but I sure hope that I live to see the day
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when you can actually run around in a forest at night playing survival horror
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games. Speaking of running around at night and horror, can you imagine if
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your website wasn't working in the middle of the night and you didn't have
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comes with a free online store. They've got really flexible templates. So, if
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you want to, you know, build a blog or you want to do like a portfolio for
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your, I don't know, maybe you make sock puppets out of things you found in the
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woods or whatever it is you do, you can go ahead and put that on your Squarespace site. And when you decide to
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sign up for Squarespace, you can use offer code Linus to get 10% off your
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first purchase. So, thanks to Squarespace for supporting fast as
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possible, and thanks to you guys for checking out Squarespace. They have a free trial, by the way. No credit card
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required. So, that's pretty much it, guys. If you liked the video, do that
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thing. If you didn't like it, do the other thing. Check out our other channels. We've actually got a great
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video over on our channel. Super fun channel. Uh, some game. Can't remember
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what it is, but we played a game. So, yeah, there's a video about that there.
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Also, don't forget to subscribe and follow and all that good stuff. I will see you guys next