Augmented Reality
Reed: I think augmented reality is the next big killer app for wireless devices.
In the future your smart phone is likely to get a lot smarter, becoming a dynamic all-in-one instruction device. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.
Reed: Augmented reality is the ability to superimpose on a true scene, like some sort of animation on a scene. And it could be useful for what we like to call just-in-time learning, helping a person who is unskilled to be able to perform a more complex task.
Jeff Reed is a Professor in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech.
Reed: For instance, let’s say that you need to give an injection to somebody. So, you pull out your cellphone, and you look at that person, and you see a big arrow come out, and it points at their arm. “Okay. This is where I need to give the injection.” You roll up the sleeve of that person, and then, a little cartoon figure of a hand comes, and it acts like it’s pinching the skin. And you do the same thing as the augmentation. And then, you see a syringe come, and it’s poked in at a particular angle at that skin. So, you take your syringe, and you poke it in at the same angle as that augmentation has shown you to do.
The hard problem in augmented reality is image recognition. For instance, determining what the arm is in that field of vision and then merging that with augmentation. It’s one of the key research challenges that we face.
Can you think up a use for an augmented reality app? Visit our Pulse of Planet page on Facebook and tell us your ideas. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.