Augmented reality – Hogwarts or Hogwash?

Augmented reality is in the news. You can’t move on the BBC for people holding iPads up to London landmarks to have video content magically appear in the cityscape – and it’s all very exciting.

The idea appears to be to embed moving and talking images into everyday life – like the Daily Prophet or the paintings that hang on the walls at Hogwarts. It’s instantly appealing to me, both as a technophile and as a visual communicator, and on the surface at least it opens up a world of possiblities.

But look further and all is not quite as glossy as it seems. The BBC’s reporter recreated the classic Daily Prophet scenario with a newspaper featuring an image of Sepp Blatter that turned into a live video of the press conference he was holding. But unlike the magical communities favourite rag this wasn’t simply an added dimension to the photography.

To achieve this moving image it was necessary to buy the newspaper, and then sit with the paper open on the table and ‘read’ it through an iPad. This decidedly muggle solution couldn’t help but raise the question of why the iPad owner (other tablets are available by the way) wouldn’t just save the cost of the paper and navigate to one of the many websites that already feature this video content for free?

On top of this obvious flaw, many of the samples I have seen have been crude and uninspiring, and it’s hard to avoid the impression that this is a technology that is desperately looking for an application (no pun intended).

But is this impression any more accurate than the initial excitement of replacing still photographs with moving images?

In truth, I think augmented reality shares much with the explosion of Apps across Apple and Android devices. Like apps, there are bound to be many examples where having realised that they ‘could’, the developers fail to stop and ask whether they ‘should’.

Look beyond the BBC’s mainstream coverage and there are genuinely exciting examples like this National Geographic example that uses AR to add layers to our perception of the world, and to impart information in a new and accessible way. It lacks the drama of the BBC’s video examples where the iPad held up to a movie poster shows the trailer – but it achieves something that is both useful and functional, and will last and indeed grow far beyond the initial novelty value.

In fact I think the coverage could be in danger of damaging the technology before it even starts. I still remember the early days of mobile internet where journalists and advertisers raised expectations far beyond the capability of the technology.

I genuinely believe that augmented reality will actually become an immensely useful and exciting communication tool – but I also fear that to do so it will first have to survive the hype of Rita Skeeter and her friends at the BBC.

Augmented reality is in the news. You can’t move on the BBC for people holding iPads up to London landmarks to have video content magically appear in the cityscape – and it’s all very exciting.

The idea appears to be to embed moving and talking images into everyday life – like the Daily Prophet or the paintings that hang on the walls at Hogwarts. It’s instantly appealing to me, both as a technophile and as a visual communicator, and on the surface at least it opens up a world of possiblities.

But look further and all is not quite as glossy as it seems. The BBC’s reporter recreated the classic Daily Prophet scenario with a newspaper featuring an image of Sepp Blatter that turned into a live video of the press conference he was holding. But unlike the magical communities favourite rag this wasn’t simply an added dimension to the photography.

To achieve this moving image it was necessary to buy the newspaper, and then sit with the paper open on the table and ‘read’ it through an iPad. This decidedly muggle solution couldn’t help but raise the question of why the iPad owner (other tablets are available by the way) wouldn’t just save the cost of the paper and navigate to one of the many websites that already feature this video content for free?

On top of this obvious flaw, many of the samples I have seen have been crude and uninspiring, and it’s hard to avoid the impression that this is a technology that is desperately looking for an application (no pun intended).

But is this impression any more accurate than the initial excitement of replacing still photographs with moving images?

In truth, I think augmented reality shares much with the explosion of Apps across Apple and Android devices. Like apps, there are bound to be many examples where having realised that they ‘could’, the developers fail to stop and ask whether they ‘should’.

Look beyond the BBC’s mainstream coverage and there are genuinely exciting examples like this National Geographic example that uses AR to add layers to our perception of the world, and to impart information in a new and accessible way. It lacks the drama of the BBC’s video examples where the iPad held up to a movie poster shows the trailer – but it achieves something that is both useful and functional, and will last and indeed grow far beyond the initial novelty value.

In fact I think the coverage could be in danger of damaging the technology before it even starts. I still remember the early days of mobile internet where journalists and advertisers raised expectations far beyond the capability of the technology.

I genuinely believe that augmented reality will actually become an immensely useful and exciting communication tool – but I also fear that to do so it will first have to survive the hype of Rita Skeeter and her friends at the BBC.

Picture credit

Daily Prophet Reporter Badges available from Etsy