Today's increasingly feature-packed smartphones are likely to propel the use of augmented reality into the mainstream in the coming years.
Augmented reality--the process of superimposing digital information or objects onto real-time video streams in order to create the illusion that they are part of the physical scene--will be pulling in revenues of more than US$350 million by 2014, up from US$6 million in 2008, according to analyst ABI Research.
Augmented reality has existed for more than 15 years but has traditionally been used in military, automotive, and entertainment applications. The revenues from such industries, however, will soon be outstripped by advertising and mobile apps sales, ABI research said.
This growth will be stoked by smartphones packing a range of high-end features--such as video cameras, GPS, compasses and accelerometers--which can be used in augmented reality apps.
ABI Research predicts the future could see the creation of global databases full of geographical information, contributed by governments, businesses and individuals. Through augmented reality, such geo-tagged data can give users information about their location such as details on notable buildings, or shop sales and other special events nearby.
Read more of "Augmented reality's time is coming thanks to smarter smartphones" at Silicon.com.
Play video
There are currently no comments for this post.