Augmented reality is the technology of blending digital elements with real-world environments, and it has come a long way since its inception. Today, we see augmented reality in natural history museums, Snapchat filters, and even in workspaces, among other things. However, this innovation did not just appear out of thin air, as it has an extensive and fascinating history.
The roots of augmented reality can be traced back to 1901, when L. Frank Baum, the author of the renowned novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” wrote a short story describing a pair of electronic glasses capable of showing fictional information about the real world in which the user is present. It’s incredible to note that this was a century before the first smartphone hit the market.
Fast-forward to the 1960s, and we see scientists from Harvard University attempting to develop an alternative reality headset which was supposed to cast a graphic wire-frame model over the user’s natural environment. Yet again, this was decades before the first VR headset was introduced.
In the 1990s, the United States armed forces began experimenting with augmented reality heads-up displays, which were utilized in a range of ways, from military training to visual aid for pilots. These pioneering experiences paved the way for many augmented reality innovations that we currently enjoy today.
However, it was not until the early 2010s that social media giant, Snapchat, began introducing augmented reality features and filters for its users, allowing people to enhance their photographs, making use of different lenses, graphics, and animations. This was instrumental in introducing mainstream augmented reality adoption, which, until then, had mostly been confined to niche sections of video games & movies.
Nowadays, augmented reality is ubiquitous. AR lets us see information which is vital to our surroundings, be it the time of day, the directions, or the weather forecast. The ability of augmented reality to enhance or modify reality in such unique ways is why it is so helpful in fields like entertainment, medicine, education, and manufacturing.
In conclusion, augmented reality is not a novel concept, but it has taken decades of experimentation, research, and technological innovations to bring us to the cutting-edge developments and options available today. There’s so much more potential for the explosive growth of augmented reality yet to be unlocked, and it will be incredibly exciting to see how far we can push the boundaries of this incredible technology using immersive technologies for living a new reality.
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