Homework 7

There are many apps out there that use AR to generate objects in spaces that shouldn’t be possible. Today I tested out the app houzz. This app allows the user to view furniture in 2d in room on your phone camera to see how it would look like.

Some type of science fiction idea might be to store equipment in the app and have it materialize from the phone. We could store things like pools or tv’s that you could bring out during parties or events. You would use the camera on the phone and then put the object in a space that wasn’t being occupied. This would eliminate the need to have movers and would drastically cut down the time of setup and allow events to take place much quicker than before. It could also be used for military purposes. The military could use it to move camps and cover while advancing in war. This would make advancing and retreating from war much easier. It would allow the military to follow the enemy with their equipment giving them a much easier time tracking down their foes. It could also be used to bring underdeveloped countries infrastructures that they desperately need. For example they could bring water purifiers that countries desperately need without having to worry about the cost of shipping. This type of technology can be used for commercial and private use. This technology will probably never come to fruition however there are still other methods to use this type of tech.

Going back to military idea, instead of being able to place objects from the camera, they might be able to draw a base and place it somewhere were they the base is located. The generated base could show them where their might be a weakness in their defense and where the safest place to approach the base from their location is. It could also do an area view from a drone that would show the possible base and how to approach if someone was watching from command. This would keep the lives of soldiers in safer hands and help eliminate the chance of error from humans.

Any use of this technology could be used to scan a room and set it up in a VR environment. You could take pictures and put objects in the room with an AR camera. Afterwards you would upload the picture to a VR app and have it displayed there. This environment would allow you to actually try out the furniture. You could move the furniture around and maybe have receptors that react to your body and make it feel like your touching the furniture. You could build rooms with the AR camera and then have people test it on a VR machine. It could change how people buy homes. A person looking to buy a house could go to the house place objects around the house using her phone and then interact with the objects using some type of VR equipment on her phone. This would make the house feel like a home and encourage the client to buy the house.

This technology could be used to better the parts of social living as well as government objectives. Even though I think my first idea is way off in the distance future it still fascinating to believe in a world were we could bring things from phone into the real world. The other two ideas seem much closer in our life time and we might one day see people buying houses with their AR/VR phone apps.