Imagine you are reading a book and stumble upon a concept you would like to see explained. You aim your mobile phone at the page and suddenly the page viewed through the cell phone screen turns into a video. Perhaps you see and hear the author of the book explaining the concept. Or perhaps a character in the book turns into a 3D animation and demonstrates the concept. This is not a wild future scenario. Books like this exist today.

Augmented reality (AR) is a field of computer research that combines the real world with the virtual, is interactive in real-time, and is registered in three dimensions. According to a recent article in Scientific American, “augmented” books could become available to consumers by the end of 2008. Metaio, a company based in Munich, Germany, has developed an AR product line called Unifeye. The company has partnered with the Bertelsmann publishing subsidiary Wissen Media Verlag to market an augmented encyclopedia for teenagers, already demonstrated at the Frankfurt book fair this fall.

The example discussed in the Scientific American article is a children’s book that uses 3D video on a mobile device to help the user learn to pronounce Chinese characters in Mandarin and English. Software must be first downloaded to the mobile device in order for it to read special visual cues that the book designers have embedded into the graphics. The software then calls up the appropriate video segment for that page which is streamed from the network server.

We should soon be able to experience mobile phone-augmented museum tours based on the same technology. Just point and learn more. Augmented reality has great potential to enrich learning; allowing learners to better grasp concepts, to see and hear things that would otherwise remain hidden in the flat world of the book. However, like any new learning technology, augmented reality needs good design to be effective- and not just something that jumps off the page at you.

Tokyo-based web/graphic designer Mac Funamizu has created some compelling images of what this technology could look like. Here are a few examples. Check out his post at Future of Internet Search: Mobile Version.

Image © 2008 Mac Funamizu. Used with permission.

Image © 2008 Mac Funamizu. Used with permission.

By Ute Milotich, 13 November 2008

Ute Milotich is a design consultant and seminar instructor for international organizations. As a Claxus founding partner she is responsible for product development. Over the last 15 years, she has developed training programs, portals, simulations, and videos for global organizations.