Dear Digital Signage Ecosystem: Ignore Augmented Reality Goggles

April 29, 2015 by Dave Haynes

hololens

There is a great piece in Wired about the latest big tech stab at augmented reality, using those goggles, or as someone has dubbed them, faceputers.

Ugly handle, and just the right measure of disdain.

The Wired writer sums it up this way:

That’s the real barrier to consumer adoption of augmented reality. It’s weird. It’s alienating. It’s a flashing neon signpost on your face that alternates between NO EYE CONTACT and I’M NOT QUITE HERE. Until faceputers are indecipherable from an ordinary pair of glasses—or better yet, contact lenses—they’ll continue to communicate an insurmountable sense of other. Until they do more than help you ignore the people you’re with, they’ll always be at least a little bit absurd.

I go to a lot of shows, and have been to damn near every digital signage show … ever … on this continent. I’ve yet to see faceputers in a booth, meaning the weirdest thing remains the line dancers at the Saddle Ranch booth a few years ago.

BUT … you just know someone in our weird little industry is looking at those things, and thinking, glasses-free 3D didn’t work out, but this … THIS is the real deal!!!

It’s not. Don’t do it.

It’s for gaming. It’s for training. It’s for science and medicine. It’s got nothing to do with your business, if your business is digital signage.

 

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