ugmented Reality (AR) seems to be on everyone’s radar. For the two of you who haven’t watched a YouTube video about it: Augmented Reality is the ability to overlay location data points on the live view of a mobile device’s camera. In a sense, AR allows the phone to become a window into a slightly different, data-driven world.
To me, however, AR appears to be little more than a gimmick at this point. Before you fill my inbox with hate mail, let me quickly explain why:
- The sensors involved (compass, accelerometer, and GPS) aren’t nearly advanced enough to do the kind of real-time tracking required for a useable AR app.
- No currently available data set performs best in this medium. That is to say, any data set you can show in AR today would look better in something like a Google Maps view.
