AR Today and Tomorrow

Augmented reality has been in the consumer mainstream for less than a year now. Enabling web-based AR quickly opened up an enormous array of digital marketing applications. Digital marketing is the very visible tip of the iceberg, but below the water line, there's a vast array of applications - many of them transformative - that are poised for development, even as marketing applications mature.

AR is a trend, not a gimmick. It's nothing less than a new human interface, a new paradigm that encompasses anything digital or virtual that 'crosses over' into your real environment. As such, this begins to define a new type of interactive, sensory engagement.

We all need to catch up to the technology - it's evolving so quickly that it's been difficult to process and even more challenging to assimilate. We're stepping into a new world, where a variation of Moore's Law applies: capabilities and application knowledge are growing almost exponentially. The skillset is expanding accordingly, and AR will be even more pervasive a year from now.

Here's what's on the near-term horizon for emerging applications:

• E-commerce/retail enhancements
• Experiential education and entertainment
• Applications in medicine and science
• Embedded AR in durable consumer products
• Public safety and transportation

At this stage of AR's evolution, the killer app has yet to surface. But rest assured - it's coming soon to a mobile phone, billboard, Mac or PC, or custom interactive kiosk near you.