John Sailors, All Plus Magazine. August 2016.
The launch of Pokémon Go was a giant success with more than 100 million installations in the first month. In no time, the game was earning more than $10 million per day on the iOS and Android stores.
Pokémon Go was praised because it got young people to go outside and get exercise. The real success, though, is not about exercise or money. It's about the game's technology: augmented reality. Pokémon Go shows us just how wonderful this technology is and gives a look into the future.
Augmented reality, or AR, is different from virtual reality, where users find themselves in a whole new world. With AR, the world we're in is augmented, or added to, with graphics on a screen or headset. It allows us to see the real world with added information.
The concept is not new. For example, it's become an essential feature in sports on TV. Picture yellow lines showing us the path of 90-mile-per-hour pitches in baseball,* or the paths batters are likely to hit.
What's different now is the smartphone. Suddenly nearly everyone has a powerful HD screen with lots of computing power behind it. We now have the power to augment everyone's reality as they choose.
Gaming Helps Lead the Way
Technological advances are made by scientists and engineers, but they need markets to drive them. Augmented reality has found that in gaming. Now we can walk down the street hunting Pokémon or fighting zombies, but that's only the beginning. Soon we'll see AR used for many tasks, from tourism, to shopping, to medicine.
AR is bringing big changes to navigation. Already, some apps use phones' cameras to add arrows to the roads we see, instead of using just maps.
The same concept is used in apps that help us find businesses: Point your phone at a coffee shop and pull up its menu and customer reviews. The technology is also being used for tourism. Museums are using AR to give visitors information about paintings and exhibits, and whole towns can use it to point out historic or cultural sites.
Of course, the retail industry is always seeking new technology and AR is a draw. With AR, people don't have to stand in a fitting room line to try on clothes. We already have apps that show you how we'll look in them.
All this is only the start. In the future we'll see AR used in medicine, rescue operations, home improvement, and many other areas.
AR is one technology that will truly augment our lives.