Week 1: What is Augmented Reality?

First week of class off to a good start!

Before we begin, let's give an introduction of what the class is going to be all about.

Innovation and Collaboration will be a class where we collaborate with an internal or external party.
It could be within campus grounds or even outside.

"Predict what is the need in the world?"
                                     -Innovators

We talked about "blue oceans" and "red oceans" which basically defines the fields in the market. Blue Oceans defines the areas which are not ventured often by people and red ocean defines the areas that are swarming with innovators trying to outshine each other.
One perfect example is the smart phone field. It's either Samsung or IPhone.
IPhone one minute and then Samsung the next.
Augmented reality in my option is definitely swimming in the blue ocean as I don't see it being used a lot.

Something which is pretty interesting is the Google Glass.

It's unreal, I wonder if it is even real or just one of those scams you see online. But then I found out that is out for sale already. O.O

So I guess it is real then. 

Since it has voice recognition, I don't know how accurate the Google Glass would be. 

Here's a much realistic parody of Google Glass which basically sums up my concern. 

It's hilarious but I think it's realistic. No technology is perfect. Especially those that relies on voice recognition. We all know how wrong it can go. Just try it out with your smartphones and see. 

So what is AUGMENTED REALITY? 

AR is a layer of CGI that is triggered in by the real world (AKA Markers) . It is mostly used for marketing and advertising. 

The software used for AR are plenty and many in development.

Examples are: 

• Metaio: A standalone app.
• ARMedia: A plugin used with other bigger software such as Autodesk Maya and 3DSMAX, trimble SketchUp and many more. 
• Aurasma
• Layar
• Vuforia

AR is also used in games today. Some good examples can be seen through consoles such as Playstation Eye, Kinect, Nintendo 3DS, Playstation Portable and Playstation Vita.

These consoles uses camera to augment computer graphics into live footage. 

So that sums up day one of class. Tune it for more!