Augmented Reality Evaluation
My augmented reality project idea was a simple but in my mind an effective one; I drew over the top of a picture of the main building at Stourhead in an artistic manner. The poster itself in in black and white, with the augmented reality app "Layar", when hovered over the poster generates a colour version of the image, which soon fades into the real, colour photograph. The word "Stourhead" also appears during this fade, using a vintage art deco font that I believed matched both the theme and the aesthetics of the poster.
Many were initially expecting a more "exciting" and "in your face" approach from me to augmented reality, however I believed the "more is less" approach worked more effectively, to which many also agreed. I would say that my usage of augmented reality is more mature than a large handful of augmented reality, which sets it apart. It also opens up the possibility of the medium appealing to older generations, outside the current main, young target audience. Although I would not say my augmented reality is as "technical" and "involved" as professional examples which can be more interactive, it was not at all my intent to mimic these version of augmented reality, and I instead had a desire to use the medium in my own way.
Overall, I am very uncertain as to whether augmented reality is going to last very long or not. Personally I am not particularly impressed by it, although I would mostly say I think this because it has simply not been utilized properly yet, and has instead been used on gimmicky games and fads such as Pokemon Go. Personally I am also not at all keen on the medium in general; it possesses no interest to me whatsoever, I find it is used very gimmicky and is generally tacky as hell. However it does have the potential to be used effectively, and example would be an app that lets you see how a room would look with certain bits of furniture or walls colours, to help buyer come to a decision on their potential purchase; i am fairly sure such an app already exists. This is on the more useful side of augmented reality which i think has the most potential and likely longevity. Other than practical uses however, namely gaming uses, the medium is without interest to me, although I am not a gamer therefore that is likely why.
I think in the more distant future augmented reality could become more harmful; for example i could easily see either that or fully virtual reality replacing major things such as holidays, beauty, fashion and so on and as such would in my opinion highly devalue reality and life itself. However this is mere speculation, but I nonetheless believe that this is a possibility. In the short term though a danger augmented reality could have is if used as a replacement to Sat Nav's, where for example guiding arrows appear on the car's visor and to the driver, these arrows appear on the road; if a malfunctioning "AR Sat Nav" is paired with an incompetent driver, I needn't spell out the potential disaster to derive from this. Sat Nav's commonly get routes wrong, especially in rural areas such as Somerset, and as such if a similar system to that I have just explained is employed my drivers it could prove to be more dangerous due to the very "in your face" nature of such a device.
In spite of a generally pessimistic and negative view of augmented reality so far, I believe that it does have the potential to become commercially successful; apps such as Pokemon Go have already proven this to be truthful. For example video games using augmented reality technology have a potential to be particularly commercially viable. Also tools such as the Sat Nav replacement and furnishing "assistant" which I discussed above also have the potential of being commercially successful.
In conclusion, I think it is quite possible that augmented reality is here to stay, and is currently beginning to become mainstream, and will likely be very much mainstream by around the end of the decade. Current examples of augmented reality such as Pokemon Go has indeed been a tacky fad, but I could see the medium being more influential and popular is it is utilized better; conversely I could also see it being a mere flash in the pan fad if no better games are produced, at least on a gaming level anyway. It does have the potential to also be used as a form of "tool", such as the Sat Nav and decorating assistant concepts that I have discussed above, which could become mainstream sometime in the future. However I am not expecting an almost immediate and sudden rise in augmented reality used in this way; i think some of these concepts could take anywhere from several years to a couple of decades to fully manifest. Finally, in regards to its user base, I think it has the potential to become either very niche or pretty mainstream, dependent on how it is utilized by developers.
