CrowdOptic To Put Augmented Reality Art Gallery in Toronto Cityscape

augmented reality app
Application testing for the event showed what a “virtual gallery” might look like (source: CrowdOptic)

In two weeks, tens of thousands of people will fill the streets of Toronto for the seventh annual Luminato Festival to see beautiful works of art, hear great music, and enjoy the sights of a world-class city. What they don’t know is that they will also have the opportunity to make history. By participating in a first-of-its-kind virtual exhibition, festival goers will advance forward a technology once only in the realm of science fiction to it’s next level of maturity: the highly anticipated, much discussed field of augmented reality.

And they may not even realize they’re doing it. After downloading an app for the event, attendees can point their phones at different places around David Pecaut Square to see a “virtual gallery” not visible to the human eye. Augmented reality works by displaying layers of computer-generated information on top of a view of the physical world. In this case, as they point their phones at different places around the square, they can see works of art on their screens that they can interact with, share, and discuss with others. As people explore the virtual art pieces, a heat-map will be created displaying where they are and what they are looking at.

When the event is over and people are done using the app, what they will leave behind is an entirely new type of digital art: a giant, crowdsourced version of the iconic Lancôme rose spanning the length of an entire city square. It will be an enormous, virtual mural of sorts that each person has individually contributed to, just by participating. In other words, it will be the world’s first “human heat-map logo.”

This will all be made possible by the groundbreaking work of a San Francisco-based, three-year-old startup by the name of CrowdOptic.

Led by serial-entrepreneur Jon Fisher, the company has created a technology that is able to take the GPS, accelerometer, and compass data from multiple phones to see what people are focusing on. Instead of just recording a phone’s location, CrowdOptic is able to compare the information from different phones with one another. The company can tell where different people in a situation are pointing their devices and so measure what they are paying attention to.

An example of how augmented reality can be used to learn more about real-time events [source: CrowdOptic]
An example of how augmented reality can be used to learn more about real-time events [source: CrowdOptic]
One of the most unique things about CrowdOptic’s technology is that, unlike modelling software, it takes an analytics-based approach, so it can track an object as it moves. This allows things like being able to see the vital stats of an athlete mid-game when you point your phone at them — what Fisher calls a “personal jumbotron.” Another usage is seeing the social media hashtag and discussion of an event as it is occurring; if this can really work the way it is intended, it will have huge ramifications for citizen journalists and emergency management.

The use of augmented reality in marketing and entertainment isn’t itself a new development. Many companies have created apps around product-themed outings, like Stella Artois’ “Le Bar Guide” app, which allows customers to find the closest Stella-serving bar and figure out how to get there and how to get a cab home. Other uses have been to let a customer see what a product is like without having to purchase it first — Maybelline made an app that lets customers see how 30 different nail polish colors would look on a their hands without actually having to put them on. These apps may have a “cool” factor, but so far there hasn’t been much depth to them.

Most uses to date have also been meant for one person to experience, but CrowdOptic takes augmented reality to the next level of engagement. Fisher draws a parallel here between Web 1.0 and 2.0. Whereas early augmented reality was about “taking us into our own world,” the future will be about “group and collaborative experiences.” To him, the possibilities are endless — everything from media and entertainment, to “war fighters collaborating for missile strikes or police officers collaborating to catch criminals or crowds collaborating to collectively navigate a disaster.”

However amazing the potential uses for this technology, not everyone is a fan. Fisher described how on a recent visit to an elementary and middle school, after he explained what his company is able to do, some of the students told him they found the technology to be scary. Their concerns get to the heart of the matter with augmented reality: it stands to change the way we live our lives, and not necessarily always for the better.

Augmented reality has come along way in the last few years, and while it still has a long way to go, we are starting to see it enter the mainstream discourse, especially lately with discussions about Google Glass. The tech media has churned out countless articles obsessing over the features, rumors, and rumored features of what Google Glass might be able to do. However, there has been far less discussion of what the larger societal impact of these types of devices might be.

Today it seems that everyone is hooked to their phones, obsessing over the momentary pleasures that the data streams comprising our digital lives provide us. But this has so far been confined to the small screens we carry in our pocket or bag. Google Glass will remove these boundaries altogether. A few versions down the line, when the technology is more sophisticated, the market is crowded with competitors, and the use cases are more established, we won’t just be mentally “living in our own worlds,” we will be physically seeing different ones.

Augmented reality is a technology that alters the perception of reality by distorting it, allowing escape from it, and enhancing it — all at the same time.

These outcomes are not necessarily in conflict with each other. What technology like CrowdOptic’s shows us is that there is an entire space for shared experiences, it doesn’t have to be that we’re stuck in our own narrow field of vision — there are broader possibilities. But even with that said, once there is a widely used technology capable of measuring focus and tracking attention, the relationship between you and the devices around you changes for good.

In the meantime, we can all stand to gain from improving the way we share our experiences together. The “like” button is an incredibly shallow tool for expressing the complex appreciation, desire, and fondness we have for what we pay attention to. Instead of making us further removed from the world around us, augmented reality can build on it, leading to deeper, richer, and more personalized experiences – experiences that we can take part in together.

You can reach Tarun directly at SH@tarunwadhwa.com or follow him on Twitter. Also, check out his upcoming book, Identified.

[images: CrowdOptic]

Tarun Wadhwa
Tarun Wadhwahttp://www.tarunwadhwa.com
I am a researcher with the Hybrid Reality Institute, and Co-Founder and COO of AIC Chile. Identified, a book I've authored about the global rise of digital identification systems, will be out later this year. It analyzes the impact of the technologies that governments and companies use to see who we are. I track these systems over time to see how they are changing governments, institutions, social norms, and your daily life. Learn more, and sign-up for updates here. Follow me on Twitter — @twadhwa — or check out my website for more articles, talks, and updates.
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