An interesting example of AR I found was Nokia’s City Lens app. This app uses the phone’s camera to take a live image and overlays points of interest on top of corresponding locations. For example if I was walking down an unfamiliar street and was looking for a good place to eat I could simply take out my phone and fire up the City Lens app and see if there were any restaurants nearby. If there were no restaurants on the immediate street I was on it could point me to restaurants nearby. I would just walk in the general direction the compass was pointing and eventually get closer to the restaurant I was looking for.
In addition to being extremely helpful in helping people navigate AR has many benefits in instructional settings as well. For example a medical student can wear Google glasses and practice his/her surgical skills. The student can see what areas he/she should target and can get tips on how to perform procedures better with the help of visual overlays delivered via AR technologies such as Google glass or Oculus Rift.
However, with its many positives AR technologies have negative aspects as well. First of all the health effects of these technologies are unknown as they are relatively new. Products such as Google glass and Oculus rift sit so close to the eye and demand frequent attention from the user so eye problems such as lazy eye may occur. Second, many of these AR technologies overlay a pane of glass in front of the user whether that be in the form of a smartphone, the prism projector display of Google glass or the head mounted display of the Oculus Rift so essentially when a user is using AR technologies they are living their life through a pane of glass. This begs the question of is it really necessary to augment everything in our lives? In some situations such as medical teaching AR can be a valuable asset but in everyday life such as finding coffee shop or restaurant do we really need this AR technology to help us? Will we never feel the excitement of getting lost again? AR technologies can get in between human relationships literally, with a pane of glass if used improperly. How do you know that someone talking to you is really paying attention? I think these health and etiquette issues associated with AR technologies must be addressed first before products such as Google glass and Oculus Rift can be widely adopted and deployed.
(This Simpsons video presents some of the negative aspects of AR technologies in a funny but true way.)