Augmented reality is the integration of digital information\nwith the user’s environment in real time. Unlike VR (Virtual Reality), which\ncreates a totally artificial environment, augmented reality uses the existing\nenvironment and overlays new information on top of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boeing researcher Thomas Caudell gives the term augmented reality in 1990, to\ndescribe how the head-mounted displays that electrician used during assembling of\ncomplicated wiring harnesses worked. One of the first commercial applications\nof AR technology was the yellow “first down” line that began\nappearing in televised football games sometime in 1998. Today, Google glass and\nheads-up displays in car windshields are perhaps the most well-known consumer\nAR products, but the technology is used in many industries\nincluding healthcare, public safety, gas and oil, tourism and marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Augmented reality applications are written in special 3D\nprograms that allows the developer to tie animation or contextual digital\ninformation in the computer program to an augmented reality “marker”\nin the real world. When a computing device’s AR app or browser plug-in receives\ndigital information from a known marker, it begins to execute the marker’s code\nand layer the correct image or images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most businesses today are still in the “toy”\nphase with this technology. But over the next few years, employees will start bringing\nwearable to work, as they did with smartphones, and start using them for\nbusiness purposes. But the coming change will be much bigger than that.”\nCompanies will instinctively search for tools that increase the efficiency of\ntheir workers and maximize the effectiveness of their resources. Indeed, by\n2020, I predict most people will use augmented-reality technology: sensors,\nhead-up displays, even perceptual systems — the kind of computing that lets us\ncontrol devices without even touching them, or allows software to adjust to\nmovements captured by video cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what might an augmented workforce be like? Imagine\nhaving a service technician come to your house to fix your Refrigerator. He will\npoint his head-up display at the refrigerator. A camera will capture the model\nnumber and then upload it to the corporate cloud. That will trigger a download\nof schematics and instructions, along with an overlaid virtual-reality view of\nthe machine’s components on his display. Once the problem is diagnosed as a bad\nswitch, the technician will upload a computer-aided design of the needed part\nto a 3-D printer in his truck. By the time he gets back to it, the part will be\nmade and ready for installation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such tools make every worker sent on a service call an\nexpert. That makes for more uniform service across the board, and it requires\nonly one visit — there’s no need to go back, order a part and then return\nanother day to install it. And with all the sensor data flowing in to the home\noffice, a best-case routing algorithm will be able to discover which\ntechnicians have completed service calls and which is closest to the next one,\nallowing service teams to help more clients a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And finally, with a wealth of data to retrieve and analyze,\na company can gain business insights it couldn’t before, enhancing service\nquality and profits and strengthening customer loyalty. For instance, in the refrigerator\nexample, the company may quickly discover which refrigerator have the highest\nfailure level and take appropriate action against it like issue a recall or\nsend out technicians to do proactive maintenance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, getting there won’t be easy. Corporate\ninfrastructure and systems will need to be upgraded for performance. So will\nnetwork access and security, back-office applications like ERP, device\nmanagement and cloud-based services. It will require beefed-up network\nbandwidth, more wireless connectivity options and an expanded ability to\nidentify devices and allow access. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We’re in the age of technology, with new gadgets like\nvoice- and vision-activated computing invading the market. We’ll see an\nexplosion of augmented-reality technology projects coming in the next few years\nin medicine, public service, financial industries etc. And then there are the\nInternet-connected “things” we haven’t even seen yet and they’ll have\na major impact on the way we work and the way companies do business. The time\nto start assembling the high-tech tools, connections and back-office systems\nfor workers of the future is now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Augmented reality is the integration of digital information with the user’s environment in real time. Unlike VR (Virtual Reality), which creates a totally artificial environment, augmented reality uses the existing environment and overlays new information on top of it. Boeing researcher Thomas Caudell gives the term augmented reality in 1990, to describe how the head-mounted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1074,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,5,53,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apps-n-software","category-innovation","category-office-tech","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/softcrony.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}