Augmented Reality in 2010 (part two)

Augmented Reality in 2010 (part two)

Let me be the first to share his predictions (don't worry, it only gets better from here on). Following are five outrageous, yet reasonable, predictions about augmented reality for the next twelve months.




Oprah discovers augmented reality
In 2009 she catapulted Twitter to the public eye, and in her last year as day-time host, Oprah Winfrey will do the same for augmented reality. After learning of all the cool features of the latest 4.0 release of Layar, from NY Times columnist David Pogue ("You can actually see where I parked my car with this gadget? That's amazing!") , Oprah give an iPhone preloaded with Layar to everyone in her audience. Augmented reality has become mainstream.



Microsoft buys Wikitude
April 2010. A young engineer at Redmond comes with a brilliant idea on how to push Photosynth forward. So many people are using augmented reality browsers not realizing they are taking an enormous number of geo-tagged photographs. If only those photos were uploaded to one centralized place, they could serve as a great input for Photosynth. And thus Microsoft acquires Wikitude gaining a visual coverage of major cities around the world. Google's Streetview becomes outdated overnight.


Augmented Reality is blamed to incite violence amongst teens
May 2010. Parents across middle America rally together, calling to ban violent AR games from the iTunes appstore. This, following a shooting accident that left two high school kids wounded. The shooter, a teenage boy that no one noticed until the incident, was apparently addicted to the latest augmented shooting game augmented sniper (only $1.99 on the appstore). Soon, many other augmented reality applications find themselves under attack.

Augmented Playboy
February 2010. Playboy, taking a lesson from Esquire, issues a special edition featuring augmented reality markers (shaped like their logo's bunny) that lets you see that month's centerfold actually sitting on your sofa in your very own living room. Using another marker with an image of a hand on it, the user can tickle her. The technology is said to have been acquired from a Japanese company that made a similar product starring a Manga character. The porn industry is not very far behind, and March 2010 marks the release data of the first AR pornographic film (and my readers will excuse me for not going into details).


Apple tries to patent augmented reality
And succeeds in doing so. But no one cares except AR bloggers around the world.

Don't forget to vote on our survey. Together we can predict how 2010 is going to be (and do a far better job than the predictions above)


The fine print - I've tossed a coin before using Layar for the first prediction and Wikitude for the second. No hidden intention was behind choosing those two.
Credits:
Opera image by
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fecki/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Playboy image by

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26160201@N08/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0