Rudai 23 Thing 14 Augmented Reality

When it comes to technology, I am all for it. Many will be skeptical when it comes to technology and libraries and we all have the right to be.
At the beginning of my career, I would not have entertained the no argument. This being that most of the no argument was fear of accepting technology and seeing it as a replacement of a librarian rather than enhancing the skills of a librarian.
And here I am going AR, really? I am not happy with myself one bit, let me tell you.
Do I see this?

Does it scare the hell out of me, yes!
At the moment, I am reading Andrew Keen's The Internet is Not the Answer, if you have not heard of Keen, or this book I am urging you to get a copy. Not saying that I am moving to the no side I just need to understand fully what is going to be the future. A few home truths have surfaced from reading this and I am kicking myself for thinking it was all rosy in the garden.

Enter AR, I am not a fan. But I am trying to work out why I am not a fan. As I read the blog post, I am starting to understand why. I'm not the biggest fan of science fiction (I'm the strange one) and I have only ever played a handful of Sonic the Hedgehog as a kid, so I don't live in the Minecraft world or any other virtual robot world.

But I feel I am missing something, let me explore this new and strange world!
So reading the article on the best AR apps, I have downloaded FieldTrip and Wikitude. FieldTrip is good it quickly gives you the steps to go through and instantly lets you know what is around you. I am going to Lonon next month so I find this will come in handy.

Wikitude is strange and not much of an AR experience, but I am at my desk so that is not interesting anyway! I keep trying to see the restaurants near me, one it could not locate me and yes the location was enabled then it seemed to find some places but the message to enable my location settings would not go away and then the app would close down because it was all confused!

It was not a hopeful AR experience, my phone is old which could be a contribution as to why the app Wikitude would not work, FieldTrip is a good idea, but I feel like I can do the same with Google Maps?

I will keep an eye on this wonderful new world of AR, it may take a while for me to bring it into the library world. A new iPhone should do the trick!

Any excuse!