In his keynote address at Sensors Expo 2017, Ori Inbar, co-founder and CEO of AugmentedReality.org tells how augmented reality (AR) is poised for considerable growth. (Excerpt from “Superpowers to Change the World: How Augmented Reality Helps Advance Humanity.”)
In 2009, Inbar told a conference audience that in ten years everyone will use AR to experience reality in a more meaningful way. With this year depicted in movies such as Blade Runner, Akira, Heatseeker and others as the dystopian (anti-utopian) future, it seemed like a long shot for realization of a positive long-term vision. At the time, there were very few players. Connecting, educating and accelerating players in AR and those who could embrace the technology became the goal of AugmentedReality.org.
Sensors play a critical role in AR including location-based sensors such as GPS and compasses as well as computer vision and image analysis for establishing context awareness when merging the real world with simulated views, including 3D images. With AR, unique forms of teaching, information sharing, knowledge dissemination, and self-learning are possible. These can benefit users in many fields where skilled operators are required such as factories, laboratories, healthcare and more.
At its 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced an AR development platform for developers. The company’s ARKit allows app makers to access detailed camera and sensor data to map digital objects into 3D space.
Today, 100s of companies are part of the AR landscape and the big technology players are all vying for dominance in AR. The revised vision/projection (aka moonshot) of AugmentedReality.org is to inspire 1 Billion active users of augmented reality by 2020.