Tag: augmented reality technology

A growing number of museums are working mobile technology into their storytelling options.

Museums have traditionally struggled with the challenge of being able to tell the story behind the objects and exhibits within a limited amount of space, but the use of augmented reality could be providing them with the chance to accomplish this goal with greater ease and effectiveness.

The struggle has been with the limited amount of space and resources in which to provide information.

For instance, little plaques may offer the ability to identify an object or provide a line or two of background, but they don’t offer any real depth of discovery. Moreover, if too much text is provided, the majority of people who visit the exhibit will not read the entire thing, negating its value. While attempts have been made to provide audio and video, or to give actual guided tours, there is some expense involved – and museums are notoriously cash strapped – and not everybody is interested in this type of fixed experience. Augmented reality is now offering an entirely new option and museums are taking notice.

Augmented reality allows a smartphone or tablet user to aim the device at a designated point and watch a scene come to life.

This AR experience provides a type of interactive, digital storytelling, which brings together the participation of the visitor with the automatic generation and narration of a story, in order to concentrate on providing the museum guest with a more personal and mobile version of the story. It is a convenient, fun, and educational form of entertainment. It is highly adaptive and provides the user with an experience that is more enjoyable, overall, than the button-activated or handheld audio tools that are much more standard.

The British Museum has managed to use this form of augmented reality storytelling for a very effective result. The technology was used, in this case, to bring children through a form of story puzzle that was displayed through the use of a dedicated tablet app that was designed in the form of a game. The “A Gift for Athena” game provided the visitor with rewards for having found certain statues based on their outlines, and, upon each discovery, gave the child more information about that exhibit before providing him or her with guidance to move on to the next stage of the game.

In a deal that has been reported to be worth up to $150 million the Xbox maker is in even more deeply.

Microsoft is making technology news headlines with the latest rumors that have surrounded its move toward augmented reality, as claims are now being made that the company has paid as much as $150 million into the purchase of assets relating to AR and head mounted wearable technology.

It is believed that the assets were purchased by Microsoft from the Osterhout Design Group (ODG).

ODG is a technology company that creates various types of products for several markets, including consumer, military, and industrial. Microsoft had previously been in discussions to attempt to actually purchase the company, but has instead come up with the deal to purchase some of its IP, instead. The price of this acquisition is believed to be somewhere between $100 million and $150 million. It is strongly believed that augmented reality and wearable technology play a considerable role in this purchase.

This augmented reality and IP technology deal reportedly closed way back in November 2013.

At the same time, the patents were reported to have been handed over to Microsoft in January of this year. Among the patents that were reportedly snatched up by the tech giant are items described as “see-through near-eye display glasses including a partially reflective, partially transmitting optical element,” in addition to “video display modification based on sensor input for a see-through near-to-eye display.”

By the time that this article was written, Microsoft had not released any official comments about the reports that have been made about the AR technology or the patents. Therefore, it shouldn’t be considered to be carved in stone. However, the reports were made by sources that have been very accurate in the past.

If Microsoft did, indeed, obtain these wearable technology and augmented reality assets, then there are a very broad range of different possibilities for the ways in which they could be used. While some seem to think that it could be for gaming, more specifically for future Xbox releases, others are guessing that it may mean something more comparable to Google Glass. Until something official is actually released, there will be no way of knowing for certain.