Augmented reality as news

Abstract

A management-level employee of a big tech company, who asked for anonymity, criticized the hype around virtual reality (VR) and predicted that actually augmented reality might serve journalism better than VR. Indeed, following the VR chapters in this volume, it is time to direct our attention to the implications of augmented reality (AR). This chapter introduces the AR concept, provides a brief history, and focuses on the use of AR in journalism and other productions. By 1997 AR had been applied or tested at least in medical visualization, maintenance and repair, annotation, robot path-planning, entertainment, and military aircraft navigation and targeting. AR applications can either add more information to the user’s perception of the current physical reality or create an artificial environment where the user is. AR can base its tracking on markers, such as shapes and images, or a location.