Podcast #56 – Augmented Reality Opens New Possibilities for Cybercrime – with Joe Rampolla of ‘ARDirt’

A couple of months ago, a Emerj podcast featured Augmate CEO Pete Wassell predicting that the first mainstream uses of Augmented Reality might be a bit more "blue collar" than "Buck Rogers." And now, in addition to Augmate's digital eyeware, a new "Smart Helmet" from Daqri is helping to put AR to work in the workplace, wherever that work site may be.

It’s easy to see the many advantages of augmented reality (AR), such as transforming business and accelerating productivity, but AR may also have a downside, particularly when it comes to cybercrime.

Trak Lord is head of US marketing with Metaio, one of the world's largest augmented reality (AR) companies – and he believes that a lot of what we think of as "augmented reality" today is going by the wayside. The little "pop-ups" that come out of magazines when we hover our smartphone over them (like this one) aren't going to be the furthest extent of AR. When these little pop-ups or pop-outs ad little value to the user's actual experience, he called them "bunnies in newspapers," a playful way of referring to them as a gimmick.

There's a lot of talk about Augmented Reality, and when it might become "mainstream." Many leading experts believe that workers who are in front of "screens" all day (office and desk workers) might not be the first to be immersed in augmeted reality – it might just be the mechanic and the warehouse worker wearing headsets and seeing holographic displays in front of them. Augmate CEO Pete Wassell talks about his predictions.

If you could fill your home with customizable, instantly change-able virtual decorations that looked completely real, would you ever buy physical home goods?