Connecting “Things”
BLOG POST ZERO 2-of-5: This blog post is the 2nd of a series of 5 posts. These 5 posts were also cross posted to my Linkedin account as a single article
As I said in a previous post, for me, the real opportunity for AR lies in the combination of mobile AR and world-scale geolocated things. Many “Things” live in one specific location on the earth. Many of those Things already have data somewhere in the cloud that could be useful to get now. AR solves the problem of connecting the Thing with its data. Extend that thought to all the things that could have useful data available and well, it boggles the mind. Me…I start making those virtual AR mashed potato mountains I mentioned in a previous post.
To look at a simple infrastructure use-case, the Thing in question could be a residential gas meter, an electric transformer on a power pole or a fire hydrant that will be sitting in the same (geo) location for a long, long time. I would venture to say we have the geolocations of those Things already documented in some GIS or spreadsheet, or some surveyor is out collecting that information right now. I would also venture it is not a bridge-too-far for that Thing data to be accessed via the cloud. So, the work at hand is to connect the Thing to its data, and to distribute or deliver an AR-enabled link to the geolocation of the Thing so an interested party can enter the data path of that Thing from where it lives. Link to the Thing, where it lives, and we can get into the associate data repository in a business system, control system, work order system, BIM, Bam, Bing (or Google), you name it.
Of course, not everything we care about is locked to a given location. In addition, with the IoT firestorm churning out Thing data at an incredible rate, both the “what” and the “where” are huge (literally) moving targets. Fortunately, we can always build on the shoulders of giants. For instance we have the important indexing work being done by the brains at Terbine where they have a super forward thinking solution to getting a handle on the data of the IoTs and it even has potential to track the “where” also. So, if we can establish a reliable method to identify the current physical location of a Thing or a method of recognizing that Thing itself, then AR can act as our on-ramp to the cloud to access its relevant information.
Of course, the question of “where” or “what” a Thing is, is simple to solve for many available technologies like GPS or machine vision joined with AI. We also have the question of data standards, standard access methods, display methods, etc. Like Terbine working is working on IoT standards, groups like Open AR Cloud are busy at work on a path to develop those standards for AR. If you are as geeked out about this industry as I am it is probably worth reading the Open AR Cloud (170 page) 2019 manifesto. While I disagree with some of their conclusions and approaches, they do have a similar vision to mine in the expansive nature of this coming wave.
Our work lays ahead to start connecting the dots. Connecting technologies into solutions. Creating necessary technologies to fil in the gaps. Obviously, one of the biggest dots I’ve assiduously avoided mentioning until now is the glasses; AR enabled glasses. Interestingly, when one thinks of AR glasses one of the first things to come to mind is Magic Leap. The visionary of that venture, Rory Abovitz, has also envisioned a similar future when speaking about what he calls the Magicverse. I just hope my vision doesn’t start to fade away as it seems may be happening at Magic Leap.
Cue the 5-tone tuba flourish, voice of the mothership, from Close Encounters.