I love helping people in anyway that I can and recently I have signed up to use a service called Aarvark. Here is a description of Aardvark directly form their site: “Aardvark was conceived as the first Social Search engine: a way to find people, not web pages, that have specific information.” Yesterday I was pinged by Aardvark with the simple question “What are some possible ways Augmented Reality will change business industries?” and it made me think. After a minute or two I replied and a great conversation started:

• ME: I think it will allow many companies the capabilities to effectively see what their product would look like in real world situations, such as a new food product on a shelf, or a new building design in the location that you want or even how a new shirt will look on you before you buy it.
• THEM: Thanks for the reply! I was thinking along the same lines, like a construction industry. Can you think of any other ways? I appreciate it!
• ME: I think it would also help GPS industries to help navigate people out of traffic if they can see the slow traffic in real time a head of time. or for adventure seekers, they would be able to see how far a hike would be or how which trail to take while outdoors, eliminating some people from getting lost.
• THEM: I definitely agree! I think GPS is a huge industry. Just out of curiosity, can you think of any industry or type of company that may go under due to advances in AR?
• ME: I don’t think any industry will go under because of AR, I think some might fill the sting a little such as the paper industry for layout samples, or car testing equipment since both of those can easily be replaced by a more advanced AR system.
• ME: I would love to see a AR system to help diagnose problems with my car, computer or any electronic device.
• THEM: how could AR diagnose a car or electronic problem? I think that’s an incredible idea but I think i’m missing how it would work.
• ME: I think with more sensors added to electronics or cars in combination with AR then we would be able to see where the problem is happening and focus on that area.
• THEM: that is very interesting… I’m trying to wrap my mind around how that would work… Do you know if anything like that is in existence or being created right now?
• ME: Right now NASA has many sensors hooked up to their test flights which give data off wiring, the shell of the ships, how it is effected with heat, flex etc. and since the sensors can be hooked to a computer to show results then I am sure that with a few tweaks that it would work with AR

After the quick conversation it made me think even further last night. What else could we do with augmented reality? Here are some ideas that I came up with:

• Checking the temperature of a bottle of formula for a baby
• A overlay image of how something needs to be setup (ie. a new internet connection, tv or DVD player)
• Showing a 3D model of a character in real time on the movie set
• Getting a movie trailer while looking at a poster (I know this is already in production)
• Viewing video game reviews when looking at a game box in the store
• Viewing a bar code in a magazine can take you a website with more information on a article
• Looking at a product in the store you get prices from different online stores which allows you to buy the cheapest one right there.
• View inside the engine bay of a car and have pop-up bubbles show what a part is, what model number it has and where you can get a new one
• Overlay of a soda/food can to easily see how many calories it has
• View an animal to see what kind of dog/cat it is, if it has a chip you can see what the dog/cat’s name is, the vet history etc (This could be used for bad if gotten into the wrong hands, but it would be good for groomers and vets)
• Look at a photo, and see any photos that may be in the same photo album(In connection with Picasa, Flickr, etc)

There are many more things that Augmented Reality could be used for, but these are the few I thought about in detail last night.