I'm not quite sure what to call it, other than operations research.
People focus a lot on consumer/entertainment applications, but I think heavy and high tech industry will rapidly adopt AR. Imagine a mechanic working their way through an interactive checklist while completing some maintenance task on a jet engine or other complex machinery. Even with hardware as rudimentary as google glass that's useful. But then consider Boeing in the moment that said engine unexpectedly caught fire. Imagine that they can go back and review footage of every time folks touched some component on that engine, or use basic machine vision techniques to confirm the position or state of some part? Now imagine they have that kind of visibility into the majority of what people's hands do on the shop floor or in hangers.
There will be social issues and debate over this, which we're seeing with police body cameras, but I think ultimately safety will trump people's reluctance to have their every task recorded. Certainly in industries with high safety/risk implications, we'll see similar strong arguments for going there.
Slightly less complex, consumer-focused possibilities:
- Cook like an expert (with an AR), you don't have to glance at a screen or cookbook, all the steps are visible in your view/whispered in your ear as you need them, reminders to take the pasta off the boil at the correct moment, etc.
- Repair or perform maintenance on a car - when you open the engine bay, the steps to change the air filter are available for your model of car.
"Cook like an expert": There's much more to cooking than just following steps. AR don't help much preventing you to slice the onions instead of your fingers. The wrong temperature, an egg that is larger or smaller ... it's timing and knowledge/experience, not a rule book that makes a great dish.
Same for the car maintenance: Perhaps you could do it yourself and save a few bucks. Would you repair your breaks yourself with AR but no knowledge and understanding about cars and maintenance if the life of your children depends on these breaks?
Both scenarios might work for an expert or at least someone who knows the fundamentals, but not for an unprepared consumer.
But for cooking, the AR can find out the temperature (you can do this with some tools already minus the AR), determine sizes of food and how long to cook them for, maybe overlay a line on food you're cutting to help you cut it better... etc
One part of this that will need a lot more work is the visualization of all this data. All the seminal dataviz works (Tufte, etc) emphasize the 2D world.
People focus a lot on consumer/entertainment applications, but I think heavy and high tech industry will rapidly adopt AR. Imagine a mechanic working their way through an interactive checklist while completing some maintenance task on a jet engine or other complex machinery. Even with hardware as rudimentary as google glass that's useful. But then consider Boeing in the moment that said engine unexpectedly caught fire. Imagine that they can go back and review footage of every time folks touched some component on that engine, or use basic machine vision techniques to confirm the position or state of some part? Now imagine they have that kind of visibility into the majority of what people's hands do on the shop floor or in hangers.
There will be social issues and debate over this, which we're seeing with police body cameras, but I think ultimately safety will trump people's reluctance to have their every task recorded. Certainly in industries with high safety/risk implications, we'll see similar strong arguments for going there.