Future Forecast: Augmented Reality and Cloud Computing

The future of mobile handsets is with cloud computing. The fact of the matter is that at the rate that internet connectivity and processors are evolving, it would reach a point where it would make more sense to simply upload all the data online for cloud processing since the connections will be fast enough to transfer huge chunks of data online.

This is going to be the big ticket item for augmented reality technology. AR has been drifting left and right with desktop computers, laptops and mobile phones. While computers provide plenty of processing power and storage space, the devices lack portability -and considering the nature of AR, this will hamper users from experiencing many of the new applications of augmented reality technology. Mobile phones on the other hand, can only process so much data at a time since there will always be hardware limitations.

Going back to where we are now, cloud computing is still not a good option since even the best WiFi and 3G connections speeds are too slow for the needed  results. For now, AR is being used in conjunction with GPS technology in order to help users with location based AR services as well as better visual search functions (as geophysical locations are also taken into consideration).

Google has announced that they will be opening up the Goggles platform –a very well made augmented reality platform on the Android and we can expect to see some inventive uses of the technology. It is predicted that AR apps would make for perfect tutorials, allowing for the device to be used in order to analyze problems and provide solutions (such as pointing the camera at a flat tire and getting arrows telling you which bolt goes where).

Get to know more about the Google Goggles going open source at Tech Radar.