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2011-05-03 10:54:28
By Sharif Sakr Technology of business reporter, BBC News
Augmented reality stunt: An angel moves among commuters at London Victoria
Station
The people at Lynx cannot help but be pleased with the success of their latest
deodorant.
Their new fragrance has emerged as their second-best-selling variant after just
a few months on the market, thanks in large part to an innovative advertising
campaign.
The campaign was fronted by Kelly Brook posing as a voluptuous fallen angel,
but what made it unique was a stunt at London's Victoria Station, known by its
orchestrators as Angel Ambush.
Commuters who happened to walk across a particular spot suddenly saw themselves
on a vast video screen next to the departures board and, as they watched the
screen, they discovered that they were not alone.
An angel, generated using augmented reality technology, fell to earth and
appeared to interact with the unsuspecting humans, creating a stir and a viral
YouTube clip that has since been viewed more than 750,000 times.
Start Quote
Augmented reality is all about creating a fantasy experience that people can
interact with
End Quote Becca Sawyer Mindshare
"We didn't know if it would work, either technically or in terms of how people
would respond to it," said Becca Sawyer of Mindshare, the advertising agency
that came up with the Angel Ambush idea.
"We just thought it would be fantastic if an angel could seem to appear in
real-life. Augmented reality is all about creating a fantasy experience that
people can interact with."
Although the stunt may have looked cutting edge, it was actually a relatively
simple application of augmented reality: a technology that is a capable of more
than just stunts.
Hold it, buy it
Some experts have commented that Angel Ambush was not 'real' augmented reality
at all, because the virtual angel was just a layer of video manipulated by a
human operator, rather than an independent 3D object.
According to Myles Peyton, UK Sales Director at tech firm Total Immersion, the
true commercial power of augmented reality lies in its ability to let consumers
virtually hold and interact with products that are fully and accurately
modelled in the virtual world.
"We know that the longer somebody touches a product, the more likely they are
to purchase that product. So by giving them a virtual product, it can drive and
uplift sales."
"We're seeing augmented reality move from being a gimmick, to being a trend.
It's going to explode", said Mr Peyton.
Total Immersion specialises in so-called web mashups, where an online user sees
a video reflection of themselves coupled with a 3D object that they can
control, such as camera that responds accurately to button presses, or a pair
of glasses that lets the user switch the frame or colour scheme.
Mashups have been around for a while. In 2008, analysts at Gartner recognised
them as key to making augmented reality one of its top ten disruptive
technologies by 2012.
With that date just around the corner, it is debatable whether augmented
reality has lived up to expectations. Nevertheless, Mr Peyton is convinced that
the technology has reached a tipping point.
A shopper examines an augmented reality 3D Lego model before deciding whether
to buy Brought to life: a shopper examines a 3D Lego model before deciding
whether to buy
He quotes a more recent forecast from ABI Research that the augmented reality
market will be worth $3bn ( 1.8bn)by 2016, compared with just $21m in 2010.
The reason for such confidence in augmented reality derives not from major
leaps in the technology itself, but from a separate revolution: the emergence
of the smartphone.
A small window on another world
Mr Peyton takes out his smartphone and points it at a piece of paper. The paper
bears the image of some rough terrain, rather like a satellite photo of Mars,
and this image is immediately replicated on the phone's small LCD screen via
it's built-in camera.
As soon as that happens, a tiny yellow robot appears on the screen and
animates, apparently roving around the rough terrain.
The 3D illusion is easily maintained by the phone's processor: the view of the
robot changes smoothly and accurately as the phone is moved relative to the
piece of paper, revealing different angles, making it look closer or further
away, and triggering different behaviours.
This ability to bring life to an inanimate image is what so excites people in
marketing and advertising, because exactly the same thing can be applied to a
billboard poster or an advert in a newspaper.
A consumer can point their phone at such an image and see a whole new layer of
information, designed to connect them to a brand or product and deliver extra
information in an engaging way.
Augmented reality app running on a smartphone How to change a printer
cartridge: an augmented reality app gives 3D visual instructions on a
smartphone
There is considerable excitement about mobile augmented reality in other
sectors too.
Instruction manual 2.0
Metaio is a Germany-based augmented reality company with a long history of
developing industrial applications for clients such as Volkswagen.
In one example, they shot video of an existing car production line in full
swing, and then processed virtual 3D components for a new car through that
video in order to detect compatibility problems before real-life production
even started.
Now, they are looking to bring that level of precision to smartphones, to give
businesses a new way of guiding individuals through the use of their products.
"Imagine a service engineer who needs to fix an engine," says Metaio's Jan
Schlink.
"He points his smartphone at it, and he sees a 3D model on the screen, guiding
him exactly through each stage of the repairs."
The same approach could be used for any type of product, from changing a
printer toner cartridge to following a cooking recipe.
"We have a vision that this will become a totally new user interface," says Mr
Schlink.
"The smartphone is the catalyst for all of this: holding your phone up to an
object and getting rich digital information from the internet that is tightly
registered to that object. We say that is a paradigm shift."