the onda

Joe has a fun post this weekend that includes a terrific video of the new Lego Augmented Reality kiosk:

Giving the customer the ability to see the assembled sets by simply holding the box up to a mirror is a terrific idea and a wonderful use of the promise of AR. In fact it is so good, that I was left wondering why all of the emerging mobile apps that employ AR feel so gimmicky by comparison.

At first, I thought it might be the fact that the retail form factor of a kiosk makes the overall experience less cumbersome, both because of the large size of the display, and because one is used to looking at all sorts of merchandising in retail displays. As opposed to having to hold up a very small screen at an arm's length to see even smaller "tags" overlaying information on the real world.

But then I saw this BMW concept for goggles that use AR to help mechanics do repairs and it occurred to me that it's less about any one particular form factor and more about the information being overlaid being displayed at the correct scale and in as unobtrusive manner as possible:

AR applications like these remind me of how much closer we are getting to the "Minority Reportish" interfaces that do a much better job of letting us relate to data. However, it would seem that due to the stagnant nature of the PC where "innovation" comes in the form of aluminum cases and negligible bumps in performance, it strikes me that we might first see credible versions of these types of interfaces in retail displays and other non-general PC computers. Sad, especially when companies like Microsoft have so much to gain from reminding us of why we might want all of that local processing power.