AugmentedReality

Quora Answer : Many creative #UI and #dataviz interactions didn't survive because they weren't mouse friendly or didn't work in the real world. But some worked great with touch. What have we discarded that will flourish in augmented, virtual, and mixed realities?

Oct 18, 2017

I'm not a big fan of 3D graphics.

Largely 3D graphics is all about hiding rather than revealing stuff. So 99% of the time one virtual object getting in the way of another is just a nuisance. (Games are the exception because they aren't practical and are about narrative dynamics like monsters jumping out at you and giving you a good fright.)

So far, the real hits of augmented reality seem to me not to be the graphical ones, but the ones based on bringing more sensors and computing power to places where they wouldn't otherwise be.

(OK, to get the obvious exception out of the way ... Pokemon but that's a game ... see previous point)

But yeah, what are the hits of AR?

Mainly fitness trackers and other wearable sensors.

And it's possible that Google's new headphones with live translation will be a big hit.

I think this is clearly the strongest trend. Not things you look at. But things that accompany you. What I expect is more personal tracking / "quantified self" type stuff.

Not just physical fitness, but more apps. to measure your performance in general.

At the simpler end, humble time trackers and personal finance / spending trackers. These have been around forever, but tended to rely on you retrospectively filling them in. With AR / device swarm you can fill them in "live" (or they can even work out automatically when you're making a payment or moving from one context to another )

More sophisticated, combined with AI we could see increasingly socially smart personal coaches for everything from work negotiations to dating : "was I speaking frequently enough?", "did I let my date speak enough??", "am I being assertive enough?", "does this listener like me?" Etc.

Other tools for measurement may well become available and more tightly integrated. What if you had laser range-finding? Or chemical analysis always available? If you could avoid walking down this street because your glasses could "see" pollutants? Or you could follow scents like a bloodhound?

Biometrics.

Once we have trusted fingerprint or other biometric sensors on wearable devices it becomes feasible to verify not just yourself, but other people. That could allow trusted large payments in situ. Can I buy your house in person, with all documentation and verifications done via our mobile device? Can I negotiate a mortgage on the spot?