Curious Raven

Before I answer the question, let me refer you to this chart put out by Gartner this past summer. Notice that Augmented Reality is on the far left with a yellow triangle, which means “more than ten years” before mainstream adoption.

Ok, now I’m not going to argue what mainstream adoption is, as that would require a whole discussion of the Gartner research and a bunch of other stuff. What I will say though, is that I think that it will happen within ten years. The thing that has me thinking though, is the amount of mainstream EXPOSURE augmented reality is getting right now. This could drive (accelerate) mainstream adoption or it could be deleterious and actually handicap the technology so much, that it never reaches the mass market.

I’ve been tracking augmented reality on google, youtube, blogs, university research, and in the corporate world for more than a year now (and I’ve been aware of the concept and tech for much longer), and I can tell you that the exposure curve, or degree of exposure has been gaining a lot of critical mass in the last twelve months. Everyone is talking about AR right now, Microsoft XNA can do AR now, the FLARToolkit is AR in Flash, and tons of commercials are starting to come out with AR or “AR like” elements.

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In the early 90’s, Virtual Reality, or “VR”, began to get a lot of attention. Sure, the idea had been around for a while, and plenty of people were working on it to some degree or another, but like the Internet it really started emerging into the public eye in the early 90s. I myself got my first job in the “industry” working at a virtual reality arcade game company in Louisville Kentucky called Alternate Worlds Technology. I have lots of stories about THAT, but this post isn’t going to go there.

The appeal of VR was immense. Our imaginations ran wild with visions of cyberspace, immersive worlds where you were really there and the sheer potential of the technology was almost overwhelming. I remember reading a lot about different groups doing research or working on varying VR projects, but we felt like we were way ahead of the curve…we were doing multi-user VR. Sure, the graphics were terrible, the head-mounted displays were very heavy and bulky, and there were a host of other problems, but we were working on it. We were digital pioneers blazing new trails in entertainment and technology.

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