Augmented reality refers to any technology driven display or device that provides you with information on a scene beyond what you could experience with your five senses.

You can find examples of AR in many televised sporting events.

• In baseball, a pop up display will show you a batter’s statistics.
• In football, the line of scrimmage and first down lines are highlighted to make them easier to view.
• In racing, a moving line or overlaid image of previous footage lets you track the current field against an earlier time.

Imagine What You Could Do If You Could Take That Ability With You

Mobile AR combines several technologies included in most modern Smart Phones to let you take this ability with you wherever you go.

Let’s go back to the example of the baseball game.  While the applet has not yet been written, it is entirely within the scope of modern technology to create a program that will let you take a picture of any athlete on the field at a Major League game and receive up to the play statistics on their career and season batting average, on base percentage, number of plate appearances, or any other typically tracked statistic.

And the technology is not limited to sports.

Loopt, Foursquare, and Yelp! all already have apps that uses global positioning and online maps to let you their respective users reviews of a restaurant from the outside.

Similar technology could be to make virtual tour guides or solicit public feedback on proposed zoning changes or civil works.

Augmented Reality Marketing

Does your product sell itself?

With Mobile AR it really can.

It is possible to build apps that can take consumers directly from physical advertisements to your online store, or a relevant product page, or give them a number to call, or offer them a map to your nearest location, or forward on special offers.

And mobile use of such apps by your customers also gives valuable information when analyzing your print campaigns.  You can look at which ads inspired consumers to connect to your site and what portion of them carried through to complete an online sale.

Eventually we may even have the technology to let you point your iPhone and a passerby and have it recognize their entire wardrobe - but for the time being that, at least, is still science fiction.