Sunday, May 5, 2013

Is AR flirting with your industry too?


Loyal and beloved Readers,


We are extremely excited about this week’s post given that it comes in a special format. For the first time the 6 fine bloggers that have been feeding you the cutting edge AR news, week after week, have teamed up. With the intention of looking at the business value in industry specific use of augmented reality, we are pleased to be covering various sectors given the various professional backgrounds we have to offer. Without further ado, enjoy…

FINANCE


Augmented reality is a technology ready to explode and banks and insurance companies need to adopt it early. Financial institutions need to have a strong creative angle to apply AR concepts to customer-centric applications. Prototypes should be tested in select markets before a wider launch. How can AR help though?[1]
  •  Better cross-selling opportunities (A customer waiting at the airport for check in can point his phone at the nearest image of his bank to buy travel insurance)
  • Reduced customer support costs (Locating the closest ATM, determining working hours)
  • Personalized service (showing the nearest supplier to a partner)
  • Increased retention and potential lead generation (Highly effected way to get customer attention)

Examples include:
  • Standard Chartered – Location based coupons
  • Bankinter – ATM locator
  • Commonwealth Bank – Property search
CRIMINAL LAW

As technology evolves, crimes also become much more sophisticated. Regular cop investigation, like back in the old days is not enough. Criminals move fast and they are very smart to leave no trace. AR can be a useful tool for the police force, since it can enable them to obtain facial recognition, object tracking, reengineer the scene of the crime or find or rebuild the geographical location of a criminal headquarter[2].  

Different governments, such as in the United Kingdom, for a long time now have implemented closed-circuit television systems (CCTV) with the only objective to watch the city for security reasons and crime prevention; nowadays these systems are complimented by AR technology[3]. This new approach to crime investigation brings a more accurate investigation to the government justice departments. 

Governments are always looking to buy technology from the private sector, so if a company develops a good AR device they can use this opportunity to sell its technology to serve justice and earn a nice income. In the U.S. for instance, the General Service Administration, contacts private companies with federal agencies to sell: “…equipment, supplies, telecommunications, and information technology from commercial businesses to government organizations and the military through acquisition solutions from its Federal Acquisition Service (FAS)[4]”.

COPYRIGHT & TRADEMARKS


AR poses some thorny questions in the field of intellectual property, copyright, and trademarks. Let’s take a recent example; someone posted a video of himself playing hockey while wearing Google Glass.


It looks pretty incredible, and Google Glass offers the potential of fans getting to see the game as it looks from the player’s point of view. As Glass improves, you can imagine the heads up display providing a wealth of additional information besides the first person point of view. This can be extended to many other fields and professions as well. A rollercoaster ride at Disneyland, a tour through a historic landmark, the possibilities are endless. The question then becomes, who owns this footage? Is it the property of the person who took it? Or the property of the owners of whatever venue is being filmed? Does Google, or any other future AR application vendors have any claim over this footage? Will it fall under a Creative Commons License, or will new types of license emerge, such as GPL and Apache did for software?


ENGINEERING

In the engineering world, augmented reality is both an opportunity for developing applications which enable the technology, and a useful tool which assists various engineering processes.
Software which enables augmented reality, which specializes in merging input from a live camera feed, along with orientation and location sensors, has been under continuous development in the last 20 years. The recent mass adoption of smartphones has further accelerated this new segment of software development, and today companies (such as Aurasma which was acquired by HP, and metaio) specialize in this field of software development. In addition, hardware products such as Google Glass and more specialized gear (such as Vusix's eyewear AR system) enable a better AR experience.
Surprisingly, augmented reality doesn't only provide new opportunities for engineers – it also assists in the engineering process itself. Products like the above mentioned eyewear actually assist engineers in with developing new products! For example, AR can help with visualizing 3D objects – an invaluable offer for mechanical and civil engineers, who need a way to quickly prototype their future creations (See http://www.metaio.com/engineering/ to get a feel of the technology's capabilities). Needless to say, as we've mentioned in previous blog posts, the technology should be cautiously adapted in these fields – as precision is a must, and today's AR applications do not necessarily give the required performance.

PROCESS ENGINEERING

AR adds value to businesses by enabling product engineers to experience a product's design and operability before its actual completion, minimising costs and reducing the amount of time spent on its development. The AR prototyping  approach brings together a combination of real mockups with  virtual projections or video mixing into a single environment - thus allowing engineers to more easily understand a prospective product or system and to identify potential problems, such as whether new components can be built into existing car models. 

ARCHITECTURE

Architects use computer programs such as the AutoCad to draw, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. These are very useful tools that help to create better and more precise designs and save costs in materials such as carton and paper, as a whole it gives versatility and practicality to firms. AR has entered into the architectural world. Architects now can use AR to obtain a better outcome in the elaboration of their projects. “Sara” is the first invented Augmented Reality Application, it was produced in the Netherlands Architecture Institute: it enables a person to see either a no longer existing building or a future building as if it was already finished constructing. Take a look at these videos that show how AR applications work for architecture: 



That wraps up this week's special edition. We hope you enjoyed it.

Stay tuned for next week's special: Challenges & Failures (real world examples. Management Perspectives)

Happy end of the week and stay Augmentacious!

Team Ogres




[1] Pranatharty, Codangudi “Augmented reality in Financial Services” http://www.infosys.com/industries/financial-services/white-papers/Documents/augmented-reality-financial-services.pdf
[2] Rampolla, Joseph, “AR and the challenges in the Civil and Criminal Justice System”,  February 6th, 2013, URL: http://www.ardirt.com/general-news/ar-and-the-challenges-in-the-civil-and-criminal-justice-system.html

[3] When Computers See: Crime and Policing Implications, Futurecrimes, March 24th, 2010, URL:  http://www.futurecrimes.com/article/when-computers-see-policing-and-criminal-implications/

[4] How to Sell to The Government: http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/105344?utm_source=FAS&utm_medium=print-radio&utm_term=howtosell&utm_campaign=shortcuts

1 comment:

  1. This is a useful blog, and some good examples that I hadnt considered. Myself I have been looking into AR and the future of publishing. Please take a look at my blog: http://augmentedwonder.blogspot.co.uk

    ReplyDelete