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touch, pain, pressure and temperature) and olfactory (smell). The first piece of AR technology was an AR head mounted display system, developed by Ivan Sutherland, a computer scientist, in 1968.
CO-EDITOR VACANCY
BY RACHEL MITCHELL
Augmented Reality What is it and where can I find it? Augmented Reality or AR as it’s often known as, is defined by good old wiki as being ‘an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects that reside in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic (touch), somatosensory (conscious perception of things such as
In 2008, the first AR commercial application was launched in Munich. The technology consisted of a magazine that featured an interactive BMW advert. When a camera was placed in front , a virtual car would appear on the camera screen. The car could be manipulated and rotated depending on the movement of the magazine. This creation paved the way for many more AR inventions, some aimed at consumers, others to highlight societal issues. An example of this is the National Geographic’s campaign in 2011 which highlighted rare or exists animal species. The video is available on YouTube but they brought animals ‘to life’ including a rather large T-Rex! More recently though, a game that brought crowds of people together to walk the streets, parks and places of interest was of course, Pokemon Go!
66 • T E CH • S TUDENT LIFE
