I believe that in two years, every person
that actually has access to mobile devices
and technology will be using AR in some way
or another.
Every one of us?
Every one of us.
By 2025, augmented reality is going to be
a $200 billion a year business and industry
leaders like Galit Ariel are at the forefront.
This creative and strategic thinker started
her career as an industrial designer working
for the top tier studios, but she grew up
wanting to understand and shape the world.
This led to her first book Augmenting Alice.
It's focused on the future value of AR to
society.
She's a sought after speaker, prognosticator,
humanist and thinker of big thoughts and she
believes that as we move into the future,
we will use AR for good, for evil, and for
entertainment.
What did you do?
Hard game, you're a skeleton.
Ah, defeat.
Victory!
Congratulations.
How important is this kind of consumer gaming
experience?
We're talking about a whole new type of interface
where we trying to take behind a screen interaction
and the infinite potential of digital content
and try and interact with it in the real world.
So there's a real learning curve for developers,
but also for consumers.
This is a walk before you run type of technology.
Yeah.
Okay.
So when we run, what does this technology
look like?
Oh, we're talking about every single object
in the physical world becoming an interactive
interface.
We will be able to super impose whatever digital
interaction or function we would like to have
on top of any physical asset or space.
But I don't want to be walking around downtown
like this.
We already are using mobile devices, handheld
mobile devices in quite a fluent way.
Pokemon.
Definitely Pokemon Go.
Perfect example of that thin edge to the wedge.
Exactly.
When we alter the way we experience the world,
we alter belief systems, we alter the perception
of reality and identity and that's a big deal.
So I suppose you titled the book Augmenting
Alice because this is a pretty deep rabbit
hole.
I believe that augmented reality will actually
allow wonderland to come to us.
So the marketing industry must be all over
the idea of augmented reality, not just because
we want to be able to give people what they're
looking for, but also as marketing's all about,
manipulation of what we want.
We're talking about the idea of integrated
product placements in your reality, but not
necessarily just as the product itself, but
values related to a brand or an experience
or to certain triggers.
Consumers are demanding more and more from
the platform and brands they engage with.
They want something meaningful.
They want to get something back.
They really feel they deserve it, and the
product is not enough.
This is where we have to ask ourself to what
level do we want to augment the world?
Not just personas, but the entire environment
around me.
So how do we get to five years from now or
so?
Your expectation that all of us are going
to be using AR in one way, shape or form.
In the future, we will see interaction and
communication that is multisensory.
The space will become a playground for communication.
So if this is the future, when we're wearing
augmented reality glasses like this, what's
it look like?
We can have new experiences and filters integrated
within a physical space.
So I could have a historical filter?
You will be able to experience this market
as it was 50 or a hundred years ago.
I can imagine though perhaps stuff that's
more valuable is the information about the
products themselves.
So if I'm in the market for some cheese, I
don't know that much about cheese, but this
is where this technology comes in.
Yeah.
You can find out about how this specific cheese
is produced or how to pair it with other foods
you're cooking.
Okay.
So that's valuable, but for someone like me,
I need a personal assistant.
Hey, Andy.
Hi, how can I help you?
What have you got?
Lots of steaks.
Awesome.
I think we're going to need those wrapped
up.
Thanks Andy.
No problem.
So that's all well and good, except my concern
is that with all these things that pop up
that we're going to find ourselves in a scenario
where, for example, there's an orange that
has an ad on it.
We have to put a little bit of common sense.
Sometimes an orange can just be an orange.
So if we have brands manipulating what we
see in front of us, how do we prevent just
a glut of advertisements in our lives?
There are three things that we really need
to consider when we are adding augmented content
into the physical world.
AR must be consensual and honest.
AR must be respectful to the physical.
Augmented reality creators are accountable
for any undesirable consequence, but for that
you have to make hard choices and the return
of investment can't only be monetary, but
it needs to really create value for the user
and for the society.
Every emerging technology has a risk to it,
but we can also see a lot of fantastic cases
of how this technology is really applied to
create civic good.
The health care segment is a great place to
look for examples of AR being used for good.
Innovations that range from training and advanced
surgical procedures to patient safety and
reducing anxiety in kids.
At Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital,
Azadeh Kushki from the hospital's Institute
of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering
is using AR in her work with kids with autism
spectrum disorder.
This is something that we call Holly.
Okay.
Holly is an augmented reality technology to
support children with autism with social interactions.
It's using speech recognition technology to
understand conversations and then it will
prompt you appropriately for responses.
You want to be able to practice those skills
in the community and at school and not just
be in a clinical situation.
This is one of the most exciting technologies
that came through the pipeline in the last,
or reemerged let's say, in the last few years.
I need you to show me how this works.
Sure, so the prototype that you have on is
programmed to mimic an interaction in a restaurant
setting.
So you can use the Google glass to complete
an order.
You'll see a number of responses that you'll
be prompted with and then you can choose one
of those responses.
May I take your order please?
I would like a burger please.
What kind of burger?
Cheeseburger please.
So that simple interaction I can imagine removes
a tremendous amount of anxiety in someone
with autism.
For some children, this might be helpful in
terms of supporting them with independence
and with reducing some of the stress that
may be associated with their interactions.
There are a lot of wonderful medical applications
to augmented reality, including our helping
both the doctors and the aides and the patients
themselves.
So what does it mean for a child to walk into
school wearing something that makes them look
different than everybody else?
Interesting.
The idea that you don't necessarily want to
draw attention to the diagnosed disability,
whatever it may be.
You want to focus instead on integrating that
child into society as any other individual
in a crowd.
The biggest impact of Industry 4.0 will probably
come from users and not from industry leaders,
because we are now enabling exponential technologies
at the fingertips of almost every single person,
and we don't really know what they're going
to do with it, and hopefully we won't get
punked by them.
