What's the killer app for AR? speadsheets:computing, email:internet, ____::AR?
People focus a lot on consumer/entertainment applications, but I think heavy and high tech industry will rapidly adopt AR. Imagine a mechanic working their way through an interactive checklist while completing some maintenance task on a jet engine or other complex machinery. Even with hardware as rudimentary as google glass that's useful. But then consider Boeing in the moment that said engine unexpectedly caught fire. Imagine that they can go back and review footage of every time folks touched some component on that engine, or use basic machine vision techniques to confirm the position or state of some part? Now imagine they have that kind of visibility into the majority of what people's hands do on the shop floor or in hangers.
There will be social issues and debate over this, which we're seeing with police body cameras, but I think ultimately safety will trump people's reluctance to have their every task recorded. Certainly in industries with high safety/risk implications, we'll see similar strong arguments for going there.
- Cook like an expert (with an AR), you don't have to glance at a screen or cookbook, all the steps are visible in your view/whispered in your ear as you need them, reminders to take the pasta off the boil at the correct moment, etc.
- Repair or perform maintenance on a car - when you open the engine bay, the steps to change the air filter are available for your model of car.
Same for the car maintenance: Perhaps you could do it yourself and save a few bucks. Would you repair your breaks yourself with AR but no knowledge and understanding about cars and maintenance if the life of your children depends on these breaks?
Both scenarios might work for an expert or at least someone who knows the fundamentals, but not for an unprepared consumer.
But for cooking, the AR can find out the temperature (you can do this with some tools already minus the AR), determine sizes of food and how long to cook them for, maybe overlay a line on food you're cutting to help you cut it better... etc
We are betting the killer app for mobile AR is for e-commerce/shopping.
What's the shopping angle for AR you are envisioning? We can take photos of QR codes or products, or just talk to the thing and it will bring up whatever I'm interested in (I do this all the time in a store to figure out which of N products I want to buy).
Yea but that's like I was saying, it's not one thing. So there isn't really one killer app, the killer app is whatever it is for any given user.
>What's the shopping angle for AR you are envisioning?
Well our startup Pair lets you put products into your environment like they are real, walk around them, take pictures or video and then purchase.
I often totally fail to recognize people outside of the contexts and places where I usually see them. So a fix would be amazing.
A killer app would be something that you use 5-10x a day like maps, camera or email. I think it will be contextual based on what you are doing. At home it will be assistance (search, instructional) and entertainment based. At work it will replace monitors. In transit it would replace phone/dashboard GPS.
http://www.osa-opn.org/home/articles/volume_26/february_2015...