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Sunday, February 17, 2013

Google glasses augmenting our reality

I have always wanted to write an article about the google glasses. Today I got a chance and hence here goes .

What is Augmented Reality :

Huh, i feel like i am in a new world, though everything around looks the same.

You may think you don’t know “augmented reality” but unconsciously dealing with it everyday. It is found in computer games. news cast, television shows, sports live telecast etc. Its a new way of presenting physical reality plus virtual reality.This is not a new technology. In fact, it was first introduced in 1990.

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or an indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input, such as sound or graphics.

Where is Augmented Reality Used :

1.  There are a lot of applications or uses of augmented reality today it helps ease our way of life. Lets start with American Football. When you watch a football game on tv, you may wonder a yellow line (super imposed first down line) which looks amazing because it adjusts by itself as the downs change.



2.  In February 2009, at the TED conference, Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry presented their augmented-reality system, which they developed as part of MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces Group. They call it Sixth Sense, and it relies on some basic components that are found in many augmented reality systems:

Camera
Small projector
Smartphone
Mirror

These components are strung together in a lanyard-like apparatus that the user wears around his neck. The user also wears four colored caps on the fingers, and these caps are used to manipulate the images that the projector emits.



The image above demonstrates augmented reality in action, dialing a phone pad projected to your hand and phone a friend. This is part of the Sixth sense augmented reality systems.

3.  A more advanced application of Augmented reality. This was viewed on a digital camera capable of AR. When you point out a building or certain location, it provides you information on restaurants, shops etc information available on that area. This is the same augmented reality being advertised by Samsung Galaxy Tab as its key features.



4.  Augmented reality is also used on medical operations where its difficult to identify organs on a difficult and bloody situations.

5. AR displays can be rendered on devices resembling eyeglasses. Versions include eye wear that employ cameras to intercept the real world view and re-display its augmented view through the eye pieces and devices in which the AR imagery is projected through or reflected off the surfaces of the eye wear lens pieces. This is where google glasses come handy .

Google Glasses :



It All started with Project Glass :

Project Glass is a research and development program by Google to develop an augmented reality head-mounted display (HMD). Project Glass products would display information in smartphone-like format hands-free and could interact with the Internet via natural language voice commands.The prototype's functionality and minimalist appearance (aluminium strip with 2 nose pads) has been compared to Steve Mann's Eye Tap. The operating system software used in the glasses will be Google's Android.



The New York Times originally reported that the glasses would be available to the public for "around the cost of current smartphones" by the end of 2012,but other reports have stated that the glasses are not expected to be available for purchase soon.The product (Google Glass Explorer Edition) will be available to United States Google I/O developers for $1,500, to be delivered in early 2013, while a consumer version is slated to be ready within a year of that.


So , in a very near future you are going to get your hands on google glasses and i am sure they are gonna change the way we view our world.



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