Somewhere in the future, someone is reading these words floating in thin air.
This person is not seated in front of a screen of any sort. He sees my words wherever he has his eyes trained. It might be on a bare wall of his house, on the palm of his hand, against the open blue sky, or even on his closed eyelids.
He might be doing research on the tech industry of the 2010s, or he might be researching the history of data solidity and augmented reality. Whatever he’s looking up, he’s not using a backlit screen to access the information.
Screens may be the main way we absorb data today, but they won’t be for long.
If information can occupy space in the mind, it can also occupy a space in the world — even if it is ultimately just a long chain of ones and zeroes.
Augmented reality is giving us a taste of this today.
Using common, everyday technology, augmented reality (AR) applications can already meld “virtual” information with the real world. Nintendo’s 3DS, for example, lets kids shoot at virtual enemies rendered in their rooms via its stereoscopic camera array.
And in 2009, a company called Total Immersion made waves with its AR baseball cards that created interactive 3D renderings of Major League Baseball players.
These mobile applications have been available to the general public since the mid-2000s, so the concept should be at least somewhat familiar, especially if you consider yourself a tech investor.
However, with new forms of hardware, the AR space has seen a sudden burst of activity that warrants our renewed attention.
AR Glasses
Chipmaker Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) likes the idea of Google Glass, but it wants to move it out of the corner of the wearer’s eye and bring it across one’s entire field of vision.
The company’s Vuforia vision platform is being developed as a stereoscopic “see-through” interface.
This week, Qualcomm debuted a Vuforia software development kit for digital eyewear that will allow software developers to convert their mobile platforms and applications into augmented reality.
Qualcomm is working closely with Osterhout Design Group (ODG), which has built its own head-mounted computer called the R-7 Glasses system that uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips and the Vuforia mobile vision platform.
According to the company’s press materials:
“The R-7 uses ODG’s proprietary electro-optic computing, sensor and power system, whose technology independently drives dual, 720p see-through elements, delivering an immersive 3D stereoscopic display. This allows the seamless and real-time overlay of 3D, photo-realistic graphics, video and annotations on the user’s environment. This capability will enable a wide range of applications for industrial use.”
The R-7 will ship to industrial and government partners and independent developers in the second quarter of 2015.
A more grassroots effort comes from Palo Alto-based startup Meta, which also announced the shipment of an AR glasses developer kit.
Meta’s AR glasses are meant to be extremely light and affordable to the everyday consumer. They were a big hit on crowdfunding site Kickstarter in 2013, raising just shy of $200,000 from 501 backers.
“Meta’s vision is to be a computer replacement, not just an accessory to a phone or a gaming device. We truly believe the end of the flat device is sooner than you think. Developers that jump on board in this initial phase will help us shape the future of the consumer edition, which will be a completely standalone device for all day wear and functionality proposed for less than a year away,” the company’s Kickstarter campaign said.
Meta’s developer model is shipping more than a year after the date it promised on Kickstarter, but it is still slightly ahead of ODG in its development timeline, so it remains a futurist-type product.
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Applications
Since AR has existed, it’s been applied to dozens of tasks. In addition to games and entertainment, it’s been used for countless practical applications.
Years ago, for example, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) demonstrated an AR application that let the user point his smartphone at foreign language text on signs and buildings, which the app would then translate.
One of the first AR applications available on the Android platform was for mapping and geolocation, overlaying directions and city names on the real-life images captured from a phone’s camera.
It’s also been demonstrated in retail, where users can see the nutritional value of every item on a grocery store shelf or visualize all items on sale in the store at that moment.
But augmented medical procedures has proven to be one of the most exciting possible uses of AR, and it’s one of the spaces I’m most excited to see develop. There have been dozens of successful trials on different platforms already.
Last June, a startup called Surgical Theater LLC announced it had received FDA approval for its surgical AR platform called SNAP (Surgical Navigation Advanced Platform). The product was inspired by flight simulator technology and was applied to the treatment of cerebral tumors and vascular maladies.
An early user of the platform, Warren R. Selman, MD, Chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, said:
“It is just like watching a football game when multiple cameras are located around the arena and an editor can freeze the image, rotate, zoom in, zoom out and see things that he could not otherwise see. In my recent surgeries, I was able to pause the navigation scene during the surgery to rotate the image and to verify that I removed the entire tumor and to make sure that I was within a safe distance from a vital artery while removing the tumor.”
A Norwegian consortium of academics, doctors, and tech companies called ARIS*ER, meanwhile, is developing augmented reality support for various minimally invasive surgeries, including radio frequency treatment of liver tumors, laparoscopic liver resectioning, and endoscopic mitral valve repair and replacement.
This is one application of the technology that promises to be a great benefit to mankind — and extremely profitable.
Good Investing,
Tim Conneally
For the last seven years, Tim Conneally has covered the world of mobile and wireless technology, enterprise software, network hardware, and next generation consumer technology. Tim has previously written for long-running software news outlet Betanews and for financial media powerhouse Forbes.
