Surf’s Up: The Augmented Reality Wave is Coming!
BLOG POST ZERO 1-of-5: This blog post is the first of a series of 5 posts. These 5 posts were also cross posted to my Linkedin account as a single article
It has been a persistent tick, tick, tick in the back-of-my-mind for years. Augment Reality is coming and it will change our world. Please understand, I am not talking about putting mustaches on apples, Pokemon Go or star-fighters placed hovering in the mall. All of those are valid (and kinda cool) implementations but I am talking about a wave of change as big as the Internet, as big as the cloud and in fact a confluence of those two behemoths, plus IoT and well, pretty much everything else. The AR wave is coming, and it will wash over everything we know.
To be clear, I am speaking about mobile AR coupled with world-scale Geo-located information. AR will deliver the visual index to everything we want to know. Our world will be hyperlinked right before our eyes. For the most part the tech is already here. We see new AR-focused tech announced every day. There is also a huge swell of associated technologies in IoT, 5G, AI, machine vision, reality capture, etc. which all play into an amazing future just ahead. There remains just the hard work and opportunity between today and the realization of that reality… that Augmented Reality. I believe that those of us in the technology delivery stream, especially those of us in the geospatial arena, should almost feel obligated to get on with the work required to deliver on the real promise of AR as a refence system to the word of information that surrounds us.
I am enthralled by the prospects of the massive effect this impending wave will have. As I opened with, it is a persistent thought I just can’t seem to shake. I liken my condition to that of Richard Dreyfuss in the movie Close Encounters, and I have a strong compulsion to start building mashed potato AR mountains on my kitchen table.
If you’ve had similar thoughts or are intrigued by the proposition, I hope you’ll find this quick read validating, informative and thought provoking. My perspective presented for your consideration.
The Wave
I have just founded a new AR focused startup, AR Mavericks, Inc. It’s been a fantastic experience so far. I‘ve really enjoyed finding team members and engaging in the creative process of refining the vision. I chose the Mavericks name for two reasons. A maverick is of course a rebel or someone who blazes their own path and I like that attitude. Apropos the pending AR wave, Mavericks is also a world-renowned surf break near Half Moon Bay in the San Francisco Bay Area, near where I live. When the surf is up at Mavericks they are riding 30 foot waves.
The metaphor should be obvious. This is one of those subjects where I could go on for several thousand words exploring the rich correlation between aspects of Mavericks’ break and the pending AR wave. However, for now I’ll just say if you are in the technology business and in any way involved with information (Information? Uhh… everything), you will want to be sure you are paddling to catch the AR wave. The storms out at sea are building up energy, the wind is right and the swell is headed our way. Don’t get caught outside the break and miss the ride or worse yet, be sitting at the bottom, looking up at your pending doom.