Augmented reality
Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated 3D content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory.[1] AR can be defined as a system that incorporates three basic features: a combination of real and virtual worlds, real-time interaction, and accurate 3D registration of virtual and real objects.[2] The overlaid sensory information can be constructive (i.e. additive to the natural environment), or destructive (i.e. masking of the natural environment).[3] As such, it is one of the key technologies in the reality-virtuality continuum.[4]
Not to be confused with Virtual reality or Alternate reality.
This experience is seamlessly interwoven with the physical world such that it is perceived as an immersive aspect of the real environment.[3] In this way, augmented reality alters one's ongoing perception of a real-world environment, whereas virtual reality completely replaces the user's real-world environment with a simulated one.[5][6]
Augmented reality is largely synonymous with mixed reality. There is also overlap in terminology with extended reality and computer-mediated reality.
The primary value of augmented reality is the manner in which components of the digital world blend into a person's perception of the real world, not as a simple display of data, but through the integration of immersive sensations, which are perceived as natural parts of an environment. The earliest functional AR systems that provided immersive mixed reality experiences for users were invented in the early 1990s, starting with the Virtual Fixtures system developed at the U.S. Air Force's Armstrong Laboratory in 1992.[3][7][8] Commercial augmented reality experiences were first introduced in entertainment and gaming businesses.[9] Subsequently, augmented reality applications have spanned commercial industries such as education, communications, medicine, and entertainment. In education, content may be accessed by scanning or viewing an image with a mobile device or by using markerless AR techniques.[10][11][12]
Augmented reality can be used to enhance natural environments or situations and offers perceptually enriched experiences. With the help of advanced AR technologies (e.g. adding computer vision, incorporating AR cameras into smartphone applications, and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally manipulated.[13] Information about the environment and its objects is overlaid on the real world. This information can be virtual. Augmented Reality is any experience which is artificial and which adds to the already existing reality.[14][15][16][17][18] or real, e.g. seeing other real sensed or measured information such as electromagnetic radio waves overlaid in exact alignment with where they actually are in space.[19][20][21] Augmented reality also has a lot of potential in the gathering and sharing of tacit knowledge. Augmentation techniques are typically performed in real-time and in semantic contexts with environmental elements. Immersive perceptual information is sometimes combined with supplemental information like scores over a live video feed of a sporting event. This combines the benefits of both augmented reality technology and heads up display technology (HUD).
Comparison with virtual reality[edit]
In virtual reality (VR), the users' perception is completely computer-generated, whereas with augmented reality (AR), it is partially generated and partially from the real world.[22][23] For example, in architecture, VR can be used to create a walk-through simulation of the inside of a new building; and AR can be used to show a building's structures and systems super-imposed on a real-life view. Another example is through the use of utility applications. Some AR applications, such as Augment, enable users to apply digital objects into real environments, allowing businesses to use augmented reality devices as a way to preview their products in the real world.[24] Similarly, it can also be used to demo what products may look like in an environment for customers, as demonstrated by companies such as Mountain Equipment Co-op or Lowe's who use augmented reality to allow customers to preview what their products might look like at home through the use of 3D models.[25]
Augmented reality (AR) differs from virtual reality (VR) in the sense that in AR part of the surrounding environment is 'real' and AR is just adding layers of virtual objects to the real environment. On the other hand, in VR the surrounding environment is completely virtual and computer generated. A demonstration of how AR layers objects onto the real world can be seen with augmented reality games. WallaMe is an augmented reality game application that allows users to hide messages in real environments, utilizing geolocation technology in order to enable users to hide messages wherever they may wish in the world.[26] Such applications have many uses in the world, including in activism and artistic expression.[27]
Concerns[edit]
Reality modifications[edit]
In a paper titled "Death by Pokémon GO", researchers at Purdue University's Krannert School of Management claim the game caused "a disproportionate increase in vehicular crashes and associated vehicular damage, personal injuries, and fatalities in the vicinity of locations, called PokéStops, where users can play the game while driving."[290] Using data from one municipality, the paper extrapolates what that might mean nationwide and concluded "the increase in crashes attributable to the introduction of Pokémon GO is 145,632 with an associated increase in the number of injuries of 29,370 and an associated increase in the number of fatalities of 256 over the period of 6 July 2016, through 30 November 2016." The authors extrapolated the cost of those crashes and fatalities at between $2bn and $7.3 billion for the same period. Furthermore, more than one in three surveyed advanced Internet users would like to edit out disturbing elements around them, such as garbage or graffiti.[291] They would like to even modify their surroundings by erasing street signs, billboard ads, and uninteresting shopping windows. So it seems that AR is as much a threat to companies as it is an opportunity. Although, this could be a nightmare to numerous brands that do not manage to capture consumer imaginations it also creates the risk that the wearers of augmented reality glasses may become unaware of surrounding dangers. Consumers want to use augmented reality glasses to change their surroundings into something that reflects their own personal opinions. Around two in five want to change the way their surroundings look and even how people appear to them.
Next, to the possible privacy issues that are described below, overload and over-reliance issues are the biggest danger of AR. For the development of new AR-related products, this implies that the user-interface should follow certain guidelines as not to overload the user with information while also preventing the user from over-relying on the AR system such that important cues from the environment are missed.[18] This is called the virtually-augmented key.[18] Once the key is ignored, people might not desire the real world anymore.
Privacy concerns[edit]
The concept of modern augmented reality depends on the ability of the device to record and analyze the environment in real time. Because of this, there are potential legal concerns over privacy. While the First Amendment to the United States Constitution allows for such recording in the name of public interest, the constant recording of an AR device makes it difficult to do so without also recording outside of the public domain. Legal complications would be found in areas where a right to a certain amount of privacy is expected or where copyrighted media are displayed.
In terms of individual privacy, there exists the ease of access to information that one should not readily possess about a given person. This is accomplished through facial recognition technology. Assuming that AR automatically passes information about persons that the user sees, there could be anything seen from social media, criminal record, and marital status.[292]
The Code of Ethics on Human Augmentation, which was originally introduced by Steve Mann in 2004 and further refined with Ray Kurzweil and Marvin Minsky in 2013, was ultimately ratified at the virtual reality Toronto conference on 25 June 2017.[293][294][295][296]
Property law[edit]
The interaction of location-bound augmented reality with property law is largely undefined.[297][298] Several models have been analysed for how this interaction may be resolved in a common law context: an extension of real property rights to also cover augmentations on or near the property with a strong notion of trespassing, forbidding augmentations unless allowed by the owner; an 'open range' system, where augmentations are allowed unless forbidden by the owner; and a 'freedom to roam' system, where real property owners have no control over non-disruptive augmentations.[299]
One issue experienced during the Pokémon Go craze was the game's players disturbing owners of private property while visiting nearby location-bound augmentations, which may have been on the properties or the properties may have been en route. The terms of service of Pokémon Go explicitly disclaim responsibility for players' actions, which may limit (but may not totally extinguish) the liability of its producer, Niantic, in the event of a player trespassing while playing the game: by Niantic's argument, the player is the one committing the trespass, while Niantic has merely engaged in permissible free speech. A theory advanced in lawsuits brought against Niantic is that their placement of game elements in places that will lead to trespass or an exceptionally large flux of visitors can constitute nuisance, despite each individual trespass or visit only being tenuously caused by Niantic.[300][301][302]
Another claim raised against Niantic is that the placement of profitable game elements on land without permission of the land's owners is unjust enrichment.[303] More hypothetically, a property may be augmented with advertising or disagreeable content against its owner's wishes.[304] Under American law, these situations are unlikely to be seen as a violation of real property rights by courts without an expansion of those rights to include augmented reality (similarly to how English common law came to recognise air rights).[303]
An article in the Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review argues that there are three bases for this extension, starting with various understanding of property. The personality theory of property, outlined by Margaret Radin, is claimed to support extending property rights due to the intimate connection between personhood and ownership of property; however, her viewpoint is not universally shared by legal theorists.[305] Under the utilitarian theory of property, the benefits from avoiding the harms to real property owners caused by augmentations and the tragedy of the commons, and the reduction in transaction costs by making discovery of ownership easy, were assessed as justifying recognising real property rights as covering location-bound augmentations, though there does remain the possibility of a tragedy of the anticommons from having to negotiate with property owners slowing innovation.[306] Finally, following the 'property as the law of things' identification as supported by Thomas Merrill and Henry E Smith, location-based augmentation is naturally identified as a 'thing', and, while the non-rivalrous and ephemeral nature of digital objects presents difficulties to the excludeability prong of the definition, the article argues that this is not insurmountable.[307]
Some attempts at legislative regulation have been made in the United States. Milwaukee County, Wisconsin attempted to regulate augmented reality games played in its parks, requiring prior issuance of a permit,[308] but this was criticised on free speech grounds by a federal judge;[309] and Illinois considered mandating a notice and take down procedure for location-bound augmentations.[310]
An article for the Iowa Law Review observed that dealing with many local permitting processes would be arduous for a large-scale service,[311] and, while the proposed Illinois mechanism could be made workable,[312] it was reactive and required property owners to potentially continually deal with new augmented reality services; instead, a national-level geofencing registry, analogous to a do-not-call list, was proposed as the most desirable form of regulation to efficiently balance the interests of both providers of augmented reality services and real property owners.[313] An article in the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, however, analyses a monolithic do-not-locate registry as an insufficiently flexible tool, either permitting unwanted augmentations or foreclosing useful applications of augmented reality.[314] Instead, it argues that an 'open range' model, where augmentations are permitted by default but property owners may restrict them on a case-by-case basis (and with noncompliance treated as a form of trespass), will produce the socially-best outcome.[315]
In media[edit]
The futuristic short film Sight[319] features contact lens-like augmented reality devices.[320][321]